Edward Le Quesne: Entertainment and Holidays

Edward Le Quesne (1882-1957) was elected a Deputy for St Helier No 2 district in 1925 and held the seat until he stood successfully for the new office of Senator in 1948. This is an extract from a journal he wrote entitled “50 Years of Memories”, written sometime around 1949.

Entertainment and Holidays

A venue for many entertainments was the Tin Shed that stood in the position now occupied by the West Park Pavilion. Originally erected for the holding of a circus, it became a recreation centre at which were held dances, concerts and boxing competitions.

The outer covering was of corrugated iron, and all around inside was a gallery made of wood and supported on wooden pillars. The place was draughty, uncomfortable and definitely unsafe, but it was perhaps the most popular venue of its day, and was often filled to capacity, especially on the occasion of the annual inter-insular boxing competitions and during the period when roller-skating was a popular form of entertainment for both boys and girls.

Everything seemed quiet in those days as compared to those of to-day, and family life was something real and parental authority a reality. The great majority, although not financially rich, were in most cases far more contented and satisfied with a great deal less than at present.

Few took more than the normal holidays, i.e. Christmas, New Year, Easter Day, Good Friday and Whit Monday, and a week or fortnight’s holiday was unknown, excepting to the very few. With no cinemas in existence, people remained at home, the children went early to bed and the parents, when not doing the family chores, sat chatting or reading with the women-folk mending or knitting.

The main roads of St. Helier have changed considerably during the last half century. King Street and Queen Street were in several places only wide enough to allow one vehicle to pass through at a time, and Charing Cross where now is situated York Chambers was also only wide enough for one cart or cab to pass.

Parts of La Motte Street, Colomberie, Bath Street, New Street and Val Plaisant were likewise narrow thoroughfares, and although traffic was a good deal less than to-day, traffic jams were perhaps even more frequent.

In the centre of the town granite setts formed the roadway and the noise as iron-shod wheels rumbled along was almost unbelievable, especially of a night when cabs dashed along from the theatre or concert hall.

Some of the shops in King Street had curious exhibits. I well remember an old tobacconist’s shop that had as an attraction a case (glass) of performing fleas. You gazed on these through a magnifying glass and it was rare to pass the shop without seeing the eyes of some interested person glued to the glass, watching these insects, safe from the fear of having them perform on his own person.

Entry to the shop was a far more dangerous occupation, for most of the performing fleas had presumably been captured amongst the thousand that had a happy hunting ground amongst the tobacco and cigars. Notwithstanding the risk, that shop was the one to patronise for good cigars.

Although in St. Helier the majority normally used English in conversation, many were as fluent in French. Of a Saturday with many country people in town for the day, the Jersey patois could be heard everywhere, and business houses that could converse in the language most used by the average countryman were in a favourable position.

  
Religious services in some of the Noncontormist chapels were held in French, and at the Town Church services were held alternately in the two languages. Both Grove Place Wesleyan Chapel and the Independent Chapel in Halkett Place held all their services in French and attracted large congregations of old Jersey families.

Although Jersey sent many of its sons to sea in the many ships that annually sailed for the cod fisheries of Newfoundland and although many remained as settlers, the great majority of Jersey folk rarely left the Island.

  
A visit to Guernsey or France was considered an event, and a boy was considered lucky who had travelled so far afield. But amongst country folk, quite a few made an annual visit to Lessay Fair, and many an interesting yarn could be told of those visits, for the quiet chapel-going Jerseymen let loose on the continent in those days took, full advantage of a few days’ liberty from his womenfolk and normally respectable surroundings.

But even well into the second decade of this century, the great majority had never left Jersey, and quite late in that second decade I brought from St. Ouen to St. Helier a man who had not been to, St. Helier, for more than twenty years.

Strange to say, this man was a Londoner, who, starting in business in St. Helier as a cycle dealer had emigrated to St. Ouen and remained there experimenting on hybridising fruits, etc., without once leaving his adopted parish. That there was many another I have not the slightest doubt, in fact I am quite certain.