Whither O Splendid Island? – Part 2

Published in 1950, this book is an interesting snapshot of the Island and its customs as it was in the immediate post-war period, and not without humour. Most guide books of the time give the tourist information, or give the impressions of an outsider to the Island, but this is in "inside view", which is rarer.

And change is on the way. The States reformed in 1948. He also mentions Ivy Forster, the first woman elected to States 1948 as deputy in St Helier. And changes emerging in respect of a drive towards pensions, sickness benefit etc, none of which existed back in 1950, and still would take some years to come.

My thanks to Anne Pryke for tweeting the identity card of Ivy Forster which is shown above. 

Whither O Splendid Island? – Part 2
by Sidney Bisson

Whilst you were alive, the laws of curatorship prevented you from spending it unwisely. To a certain extent they still do, but as the only form of waste that our legislators envisaged was on drink, it does not take us very far today.

The procedure is worth recording. If any citizen is thought to be spending too much of his substance on drink, he may be reported to the Royal Court, which then orders witnesses to be heard. Should the facts be established by the evidence, the Court appoints a `curator' to the `interdict.' The curator undertakes all his business, receives his income and pays his debts (which cannot, of course, be contracted without the curator's authority), and doles out to him every week what he considers an appropriate amount of pocket money.

The law protects in the same way adults who show signs of eccentricity or mental derangement, as the wealthy Lady Houston discovered to her cost when she took up her residence in the island. Her unusual methods of handling a large fortune shocked the thrifty Jersey folk. The customary information was laid, and evidence having been heard, a curator was appointed to take charge of her affairs on the grounds of her eccentricity.

But Lady Houston was a woman of spirit. Both in cases of intemperance and eccentricity, the law provides for the withdrawal of the curatorship as soon as it can be shown that the cause which prompted its imposition has been removed. Lady Houston lost no time in calling in London specialists, who testified that she was perfectly capable of managing her own affairs. In the face of such evidence the curatorship had to be removed.

I imagine that if those who framed these laws lived today they would include as reasons for appointing a curator excessive expenditure not only on drink, but on football pools, dances, and cinemas. But times have changed. Nobody would dream of amending the law to include other causes besides drink as warranting the appointment of a curator. That would be regarded as unwarrantable interference with the right of the subject to spend his money as he likes.

Instead we have at last been brought round to the English way of thinking. Rather than deal specifically with cases of people we know to be improvident, let us, like the English, treat everyone as being quite incapable of managing his own affairs. Let us not merely interfere with the liberty of a few but with that of everybody. For if we compel everyone to pay a portion of his salary as a contribution towards unemployment benefit, health insurance, old-age pensions, and the rest, are we not interfering with the right of every subject to spend his money as he chooses?  But these things are bound to come.

They are at the moment being actively discussed. When we adopt them, our last claim to superiority over the English will have vanished. For we will at last have kidded ourselves like the English that what the State provides we do not pay for. Like Summer Time, which makes us kid ourselves that we are not getting up any earlier because our watches are an hour out. That, as far as I can gather, is the argument of the so-called `reactionary element' in our island parliament. That is what the old fellow who objected to the maid's fur coat must have had in mind.

The snag is the premise on which the argument is based. If it was ever true (and I doubt it) that everybody could earn it living if he liked and that poverty and want were synonymous with laziness and improvidence, it is certainly a fallacy under our present economic system. Whatever my fellow islanders may have thought, England's two million unemployed before the war were not all twiddling their thumbs because they liked it. And if there is enough work for everyone at the moment, there is no guarantee that this happy state of affairs is going to last forever.

Which is why our younger generation is so anxious to get on with the job of introducing up to date social legislation, based on the new idea (new at any rate to the island) that thrift is not sufficient insurance against old age, ill-health, and unemployment, and that those who earn a comfortable living should help to compensate those who don't, or can't.

As an essential preliminary they demanded parliamentary reform, and obtained it without anything remotely resembling a revolution. The States, realising the strength of public opinion, accepted the principle that some kind of reform was necessary to make the government more representative of the will of the people, and submitted their proposals to the Crown `in order that the pleasure of His Majesty on them might be ascertained.'

During the summer of 1946 a Committee of the Privy Council under the chairmanship of the Home Secretary was appointed to examine the proposals, and visited the island to hear evidence on the desire of the islanders for reform.

Their report, which was published the following spring, endorsed most of the proposals that had been made-by the States. Its principal recommendation was that life membership of the States should be abolished, so that instead of being a kind of combined House of Lords and Commons, the island parliament would become a purely elective assembly. 

The Rectors of the twelve parishes (except the Dean) should, it was suggested, be replaced by elected Deputies. The Jurats should be replaced by a new class of members (they have since been officially christened `Senators') who should be elected for a longer term than the Deputies.

The Jurats still in office would continue to serve as judges of the Royal Court, but it was proposed that their successors should be appointed by an electoral college composed of the States, the Royal Court, and senior barristers and solicitors.

The committee did not approve of the principle of electing judges by popular vote. It is rather surprising that it did not mention, even en passant, the curious local custom of electing policemen, for except in St. Helier, which also has a paid police force, all the police are part-time honorary workers, who are elected for varying terms of years according to their grade.

In spite of some opposition, the States have passed legislation to implement the suggestions of the committee, so that the electors now return twelve Senators and twenty-eight Deputies in addition to the Constables of the twelve parishes. As a result of the first election of members for the reformed assembly, a woman sits in the States as a Deputy for the first time [Ivy Forster].

It is too early to say how much difference the new constitution will make to the prosperity of the island and the well-being of the islanders. Until the arrival of the committee, the prospect of a new constitution was viewed with enthusiasm, and even a considerable amount of excitement. When the islanders had been allowed to express their views, the prospects of the next potato or tomato or visitor season soon ousted reform as a subject of discussion.

These are, in fact, the things around which our life circles (and having decided to stay in Jersey I can now start talking as a resident instead of as a visitor) it is on them more than on a new constitution that our future depends.

At the moment the barometer is set fair. The last two tomato seasons have been good. The Colorado beetle, which for a time prevented the export of potatoes to England, has been practically wiped out. Visitors continue to come to the island in increasing numbers. And our local chancellor of the exchequer manages to balance his budgets without fresh taxation. The optimists are in clover.

Only the most confirmed pessimists see a tiny cloud on the horizon, and remind us that our history is a continual record of industries being allowed to peter out. Knitting, cider making, shipping, shipbuilding, oyster fishing . . . All helped to swell our pockets for a while, then passed into oblivion.

What happens next, if history repeats itself?

Whither O Splendid Island? – Part 1

Published in 1950, this book is an interesting snapshot of the Island and its customs as it was in the immediate post-war period, and not without humour. Most guide books of the time give the tourist information, or give the impressions of an outsider to the Island, but this is in "inside view", which is rarer.

Whither O Splendid Island? – Part 1
by Sidney Bisson

Until the war the average Jerseymen was inclined to regard the English as an incompetent and lazy race. I think the theory has now been finally exploded, but nothing illustrates it better than the local idiom which is used to describe a job that has been botched. It is faite a l'anglaiche `done in the English fashion.'

This, I think, is the key to the accusation of `backwardness' which English visitors are always levelling at us. It is a complicated key with many wards, but with a little manipulation it can be made to fit the lock.

The clearest bit of the pattern is that which is given by a study of emigration. For years, perhaps for centuries, it has been the tradition for the brightest and most energetic young Jerseymen to leave the island to seek their fortune. Until the first world war Canada was their usual choice. Since then there has been a preference for England, where they go to serve in the Army or Navy, to enter the Civil Service or one of the professions, to take up a business career. Of my own schoolfellows, I should say that not one in three lives in the island today.

It was a Scotsman who first showed me how this part of the key fits into the lock. Somebody had asked him why so many of his compatriots crossed the Border. `To teach the English their jobs,' he retorted drily. And that seems to me to be the reason for the tradition that makes the best of our young men emigrate.

It is not the unemployed or the failures who go. It is the cream of the island's youth, the progressive type, whose absence from the island the Englishman deplores. And they go precisely because they have been brought up to believe that the English are their inferiors. Competing with them will be easier than competing with fellow Jerseymen. In England or the Empire they are more likely to win the race for fame and fortune. Perhaps it does not occur to them when they leave home that Jersey will be very much the poorer for their going.

It is poorer in two ways. It misses their vital energy, and those who are left behind are kept far too busy doing their jobs in the good old Jersey way to bother overmuch about politics, social reform, and progress.

Yet another part of the pattern which accounts for our backwardness is our rooted objection to adopting any reform simply because it has been successfully adopted in England. Why should we follow the lead of a race that we have been brought up to believe legislates for the benefit of its incompetent citizens. We did not adopt Greenwich time until 1898. Small wonder that we are behind the clock in the matter of divorce, unemployment benefit, health insurance, and old age pensions.

When some progressive Englishman points this out to us, we feel inclined to tell him that if he doesn't like it there is a mail steamer that will take him back to England next morning. We don't mean to be rude, but it is a little hard to be told how to run one's own country by a citizen of a nation that we have been taught to look upon as hardly competent enough to rule themselves.

It is significant that there was more talk of reform during the German occupation than ever before or since. Though there were certainly other reasons, I should say that one of the weightiest was the fact that Jersey was completely cut off from the Mother Country. You know how an obstinate child will defy his mother to her face, then as soon as her back is turned, meekly do what she had asked. There is a streak of natural obstinacy in most of us that makes us resent doing what we are told. We argue for the sake of arguing. Left to ourselves we act.

If I have interpreted the Jersey character aright, that is one of the reasons why the reformers were prominent during the occupation. Mother England's back was turned, so there was no face to be lost by giving in and doing what Englishmen had long suggested that we ought to do.

I happened to be on holiday in Jersey during the worst days of the depression between the two world wars. Naturally everyone inquired how things were going in England. But hardly anyone sympathised with the unemployed or understood that there were simply not enough jobs to go round. The prevailing attitude of the islanders was that everything they had heard about the Englishman was true. They marvelled that anyone could prefer to be on the dole instead of doing an honest day's work. One of them offered to bet me a considerable sum that if he went to England he would find a job within a week. Another said `Send me over with five pounds and I'll come back with five hundred in a year.

Even today amongst the haves in Jersey there is a feeling that the have-nots are failures because they have not bothered. Since my return I have already heard more times than I can remember, `That's poor old So-and-so. Do you remember him? He could have got on well if he had wanted to.' Implying that everyone except an absolute nitwit can make money if he tries. Bred to that philosophy, it is not surprising that generations of legislators have concentrated on looking after the interests of those who made good instead of taking care of those who were too lazy or incompetent to prosper.

That is still the spirit that lies behind the opposition of the older generation to social reforms. Wages are higher than ever before, they argue, yet people demand more and more help from the State. Instead of putting away a surplus at the end of the week, they spend it on dancing and drinking or pictures and pools.

One of them wrote indignantly to a local newspaper a few weeks ago that he had seen a maid going about in a fur coat. There was immediately an outcry from the democrats. Why shouldn't a maid wear a fur coat if she wanted to? Why not, indeed? But I doubt if any of them saw what I suppose was in the old man's mind. He objected, I imagine, not to the fur coat as a symbol of class distinction, but to the girl's spending all her wages instead of putting some by for a rainy day. If for some reason she lost her job, she would have nothing to fall back on and would be the first to complain that Jersey had no unemployment fund from which she could draw a benefit.

And that was the point of view of our ancient legislators. Though everyone was supposed to be capable of making money, not everyone had the strength of mind to practise economy and thrift. So the laws of inheritance prevented you (and still largely prevent you) from leaving all your money out of the family.

Jersey Our Island - Travelling Blind Part 4

Published in 1950, this book is an interesting snapshot of the Island and its customs as it was in the immediate post-war period, and not without humour. Most guide books of the time give the tourist information, or give the impressions of an outsider to the Island, but this is in "inside view", which is rarer.

Jersey Our Island - Travelling Blind Part 4
by Sidney Bisson

Oyster fishing was another of Jersey's maritime ventures that remains only as a memory. Discovered in 1797, the Gorey oyster beds were soon being dredged by a fleet of three or four hundred small vessels, bringing employment not only to fishermen but to hundreds of women and children who sorted the catches as they were brought in and prepared them for export to Britain.

For a few years the trade prospered, enlivened by riots and clashes with French fishermen who were accused of poaching. British and French gunboats took a hand, and to quell the most serious of the riots the 60th Regiment, then stationed in Jersey, was called out.

The Lieutenant-Governor, Major-General Archibald Campbell, directed the operation in person, caught a chill, and died - the only casualty in the Battle of the Oyster Shells as it came to be called locally. The cause of the battle was the delay in opening new oyster beds, which had been laid down to replace those which the turbulent fishermen had dragged bare. In spite of regulations to protect the new beds, the industry gradually declined. By 1850 it was practically dead.

Gorey relapsed into a long sleep, from which it has never properly awakened. Its sloping cotils are more suitable for growing potatoes than for building houses, so that it has fortunately escaped the rash that has permanently disfigured so much of the south and east coast. Its few hotels and boarding houses seem to have a special attraction for artists and `intellectuals.'

Perhaps George Eliot started a fashion when she stayed here in 1857. Anyway you can hardly walk to the neighbouring baylet of Anne Port without your meditations being disturbed by a couple of bearded young males in vivid coloured trousers declaiming their equally vivid views on Auden and MacNeice in high-pitched voices.

Or yourself disturbing a tweed-skirted eton-cropped female of the species perched insecurely on a canvas stool many sizes too small for her broad posterior and dabbing bright green seagulls on a gory canvas.

Aloof, squatting over two and a half acres of the little promontory that juts into the sea, the mediaeval castle of Mont Orgueil dominates the scene. We may forgive Mont Orgueil for not taking an interest in modern verse. When it was young the fashionable poets were Master Wace of Jersey, who had turned the stories of King Arthur into verse (and who, incidentally, was the first to mention the round table), and the priest Layamon of Ernley, who shamelessly borrowed from Wace to give the English language its first great poem.

The castle was two hundred years old, and had been pulled about, repaired, and added to, when Chaucer was writing his Canterbury Tales. It had also been several times besieged, but no one had succeeded in fighting their way into its keep not even the redoubtable Bertrand du Guesclin, Constable of France.

And no wonder, when you consider the strength and intricacy of its defences. Not everything you see now existed then the Harliston Tower is a fifteenth, the Somerset Tower a sixteenth century addition but the general plan remains unchanged. As you wander through gate after gate, round corner after corner, up step after step, until you reach the entrance of the massive keep, you can understand how a handful of men, provided they were adequately provisioned and armed, could laugh defiance at an army of Frenchmen encamped outside the gates.

It was in 1461 that an invader first succeeded in capturing this stronghold. On the accession of Edward IV, Margaret of Anjou, wife of the imprisoned Henry, took refuge in France. Amongst those from whom she sought assistance was the Comte de Maulevrier, to whom in return she offered the Channel Islands. Maulevrier sent an expedition to Jersey which captured the castle without a struggle. 

There can be little doubt that it was treacherously surrendered. The Keeper, John Nanfan, was a Lancastrian who had been appointed by Henry VI and never replaced ! Maulevrier, and after his death his son, ruled the island until 1468, when Edward IV sent Sir Richard Harliston to recapture it for England.

After a five months' siege Mont Orgueil again surrendered, only to be besieged again after another interval of seven years when Sir Richard, who had been appointed Governor, refused to give it up on the accession of Henry VII.

In the next century strenuous efforts were made to adapt the mediaeval fortress to the use of cannon, including the construction of a massive rampart or `Grand Rampire.' But improvements in artillery made it vulnerable from the west, where it was overlooked by the inland heights. The proud mount had to give place to Elizabeth Castle, and served chiefly as the Governor's residence and island prison, though it continued to be garrisoned until the time of Waterloo.

Occasionally state prisoners were confined within its walls, most famous being William Prynne, who beguiled his leisure, when he was not playing cards with the governor's wife and daughters, writing his `Divine and Profitable Meditations raised from the Contemplation of these three Leaves of Nature's Volume: i, Rockes; a, Seas; 3, Gardens; digested into three Distinct Poems.'

Prynne was a better Puritan than poet. The best he could do was :

`The Castle's ample, airy, healthy and
The Prospect pleasant, both by Sea and Land.'

which Abraham Cowley, who had followed Prince Charles to Jersey, parodied with:

`Written by William Prynne, Esquire, the
Year of our Lord six hundred thirty-three.'

As I sit quietly on the Castle Green contemplating Prynne's three leaves of nature, the voices of my two young intellectuals are wafted to me on the breeze even before they turn the corner. They have had their cerebral cocktail and are returning to their hotel for dinner. I hope it makes them sick. The cocktail, I mean; not the dinner. I don't wish them bodily harm, but it would do them good to vomit a stomachful of censorious bile. I have a mind to get up and go to them.


`Sirs,' I will say, `when you are as old as I am ' (fortunately I look a good deal older than I am) '-you will know that criticism untempered with experience is about as valueless as ' `When you are as old as I am,' says a quiet voice at my elbow.

Jersey Our Island - Travelling Blind Part 3

Published in 1950, this book is an interesting snapshot of the Island and its customs as it was in the immediate post-war period, and not without humour. Most guide books of the time give the tourist information, or give the impressions of an outsider to the Island, but this is in "inside view", which is rarer.

It should be noted that St Maglorius is largely a legendary figure, and there is no evidence of druids on Jersey, even though older Neolithic monuments, such as Faldouet, were called "Druid's Temple". But the story, as told, with its humour (and Irish steriotype!) sounds just like something to be spoke by the fireside, in a dark winter's evening, at one of our older pubs.

Jersey Our Island - Travelling Blind Part 3
by Sidney Bisson

It is on this rocky beach of La Rocque that St. Maglorius is reputed to have landed when he visited Jersey before St. Helier had converted the inhabitants to Christianity. (He is also reputed to have landed at Grosnez, as I have already told you, but that must have been some other time.)

Maglorius was a bluff Irishman, quite a different type of saint from the ascetic Helier, and he had got tired of preaching in Gaul because none of the Gauls could understand a word of Irish. His witty sermons were just being wasted. Also Maglorius was a great chatterbox, and it was difficult to chat when the people you were chatting to could not join in the conversation.

Having a mistaken notion that Jersey belonged to England and that the Jersey folk would therefore probably at any rate speak English, he got hold of a couple of fishermen and by gestures made them understand that he wanted them to row him across to Jersey. Which they did, and landed him at La Rocque. As it was low tide he viewed the long journey over the rocks with misgiving, until his Irish logic told him that the shore would be nearer the water's edge at high tide so that he would not have so far to walk. So he sat down to wait for the tide to rise. At least he intended to sit down, but the rocks being steep and slippery he slithered into a crevice. As he was picking himself up he became aware of a terrifying noise that was rapidly getting louder. He soon discovered the cause of it. An enormous giant with flaming eyes was approaching, yelling at the top of his voice and brandishing a fairsized oak.

`May the grass ever grow at your door,' said Maglorius, crossing himself.

This seemed to pacify the giant, who stopped and greeted Maglorius as a heaven sent helper. His mission in life, he explained, was to exterminate Druids, who (as his Holiness no doubt knew) feasted on Christian priests. But the more Druids he ate, the more there seemed to be. He simply could not keep pace with them.

Maglorius did not quite see how he was expected to help, but the giant forestalled a possible argument by picking him up and carrying him ashore in a couple of strides. Here he left him whilst he went off to have another feast of Druids to keep up his strength.

Maglorious could hear their pitiful wails as they were swallowed, which made him feel quite sorry for them. Until he happened to look round and saw a dozen ancient Druids with long snowwhite beards trailing down their long snow-white robes advancing on him stealthily from the rear.

`Arrah ! And it's Druids' meat you'll be being yeself,' said the saint, crossing himself again.

Then taking a leaf from the giant's book, he sprang round in a threatening attitude and let out a blood-curdling yell.

The Druids sank to their knees and joined their hands as if in prayer. But, of course, as they spoke neither English nor Irish Maglorius could not understand a word.

`Och ! Hold your noise, ye good for nothing divils,' he said impatiently. Then as an afterthought: `Can't ye spake Latin, at all, at all?,

And they could ! Many a Christian priest they confessed having killed, but now that the giant had been sent to eat them as a punishment they were ready to repent. And if only Maglorius would help them to overcome the monster they would become good Christian clergy and serve him in any way he wished.

The saint thought for a moment. Then: `Have ye got spades?' said he.

They had. So lie set them to dig an enormous pit, which took them a day and a night. When Maglorius was satisfied with the work he spread branches over the opening and carefully replaced the turf. Then they all went and sat on the beach and had a meal.

Presently along came the giant, idling along the sea shore, hands in pockets and dribbling a Druid's head. The Druids dived for shelter behind an enormous rock, but Maglorius held his ground.

'Ah-ha! Eating with heathens, eln said the giant.

`No,' said Maglorius. `The heathen divils were after betting me half of the island that you couldn't be carrying this great rock to Verclut.'

`What ? This tiny rock?' said the giant, picking it up and balancing it on his shoulder.

And with that, Maglorius ran ahead, encouraging him and taking care to lead him in the direction of the pit. Into which in due course the giant fell with the rock on top of him. The Druids were converted and learnt to speak English with an Irish accent.

The rock became known as La Rogodaine. It stood there until the middle of the last century a twenty foot lump of granite sticking out of the sandy plain when it was quarried and used for building stone.

Near here the road turns sharply north for the final stage of its journey to Gorey. Soon I shall be able to open my eyes again, for Gorey Common brings the ribbon building to an end.

Here on the windswept gorse-dotted dunes the famous Jersey school of golfers (Harry Vardon and his followers) taught themselves the game. Where once was a race course, a rifle range, and a review ground for the militia, the Royal Jersey Golf Club holds undisputed sway.

Gorey Village is quiet to-day. Once it resounded to the ship-builder's hammer and the oaths of the rude oyster fishermen. For shipbuilding was once one of the island's principal industries. When, in 1713, the Treaty of Utrecht brought to an end the War of the Spanish Succession, Jersey believed that her future lay on the sea. Ever since the sixteenth century Jersey ships had sailed to Newfoundland and Labrador and returned with cargoes of salt cod to be sold in the markets of Europe. The absence of a suitable harbour at St. Helier made no difference.

Chevalier tells us how in his time the ships were laid up at St. Malo to be refitted during the winter, whilst their crews, numbering five or six hundred men, came home in smaller vessels.

Throughout the eighteenth century and well into the nineteenth the trade prospered. The principal customers were France and the Catholic Mediterranean countries, though at one time it was even found profitable to bring cod all the way to Jersey for packing and reexport to South America in tubs.

The increase in the fish trade stimulated other forms of commerce. Instead of returning empty to Jersey after discharging their cargoes in foreign ports, the cod-carriers began to bring back other wares which were sold in the island or re-exported. The expansion of shore establishments in Canada and Newfoundland brought still more trade.

In a note to Falle's history of Jersey, Durell tells us that Jersey employed over 2,500 `natives' in their fishing stations , who were supplied with a variety of goods from the island. Between 1817 and 1865 Jersey's merchant fleet grew from a mere handful of vessels to over four hundred and fifty, making the island the fifth port in the United Kingdom. Shipowners grew rich, and as labour was cheap in the island, shipbuilders flourished in sympathy.

As far as I know, no one has studied in detail the reasons for Jersey's sudden and dramatic renunciation of the sea as an avenue of profit. In twenty years the number of vessels in the island dropped by half. In another twenty it was less than in 1817. The change from sail to steam and from wood to steel certainly killed shipbuilding in the island. But one might have expected the local shipowners to invest in English-built steamers in order to keep up their carrying trade. It is significant that in 1877, when one seventh of Britain's merchant navy was propelled by steam, the only steamer registered in Jersey was a tug.

And here at Gorey Mr. Picot was still optimistically building a couple of schooners and Messrs. Belot and Aubin a ketch apiece, whilst at other yards in the island four schooners were on the stocks.

Obstinate we Jerseymen are usually held to be, or as Sir Gilbert Parker put it, `self-reliant even to perverseness.' Can it have been this native trait in their character that made the shipping magnates of the sixties pin their faith to sail and wood in the face of all the world? Until it was too late, and Jersey was driven back to the land.

Jersey Our Island - Travelling Blind Part 2

Published in 1950, this book is an interesting snapshot of the Island and its customs as it was in the immediate post-war period, and not without humour. Most guide books of the time give the tourist information, or give the impressions of an outsider to the Island, but this is in "inside view", which is rarer.

Jersey Our Island - Travelling Blind Part 2
by Sidney Bisson

There are still fishermen at La Rocque, which was once a real fishing village, though most of the fish sold in Jersey is now imported. For the amateur fisherman it is a paradise, provided he does not set out with the preconceived idea that fishing is a matter of dangling a hook in the water with the aid of a rod and line.

`Low water fishing,' which is the practice here, is something different, and far more exciting.

Provided you have the right implements you are not bound to stick to the same variety of fish every time you go. For the more placid there are creeks and pools where at the right time of the year (late summer is best) a shrimping net pushed gently under the floating seaweed will bring at each push a handful of the fattest prawns you ever saw. When that palls you can vary the procedure by stalking individual prawns, usually the largest,which have escaped your gentle probings by darting between

your legs.

There's just one snag. A prawn looks much bigger in the water than when you have got hold out safely by its whiskers. So you may have a few disappointments before you have learnt how much to allow for magnification.

Winkling appeals particularly to children. You can see your prey and it can't run away. All you have to do is to pick it up and pop it in a bag. It is no sport for a grown-up, unless you happen to be particularly fond of winkles, in which case I suppose collecting them, however easily, will give you a certain amount of pleasure. The same applies to limpeting, except that you need a tool like a chisel to prise them from the rocks.

Fishing for crabs is a trifle more advanced, although that too needs nothing more than a bag or basket to put them in. But you learn with experience that a stone of a certain shape or lying in a certain way is more likely to harbour a crab than the thousands of other stones around you. Once you have got the hang of it, it grows on you, like backing horses. After all, every time you turn over a stone you are backing yourself to ford a crab under it.

Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. And if you should be unfortunate and back a whole string of losers, your stake has only amounted to a few foot-pounds of energy. The more sophisticated crabber carries an iron hook with which to probe under stones that are too heavy to be lifted. Others hunt in pairs, one prising up the bigger stones, the other feeling with his hand underneath. I do not recommend this to beginners. A six-inch crab has the wherewithal to make its presence rather too painfully felt. A crab in the bag is worth two on the forgers.

It is an unwritten law of crab hunting that you should carefully replace every stone you turn, so that the crabs coming in on the next tide will have somewhere to lay their heads. Believing that every incoming tide would roll all the stones about to fresh positions, I used to think it didn't matter very much; but my theory has been disproved, so it is better to stick to the rules.

In the back of every crab catcher's mind lurks the dream that some day he will turn over a very big stone and find A LOBSTER! It is a dream that rarely comes true for the lobster is a wise animal (contrary to popular belief lobsters are animals, not fish) and eschews stones that are likely to be turned over by crab hunters. He prefers deep dark crevices in the rocks, where he knows that only a fool will dare to insert his hand. Of course the easiest way of catching lobsters is to set lobster-pots and come back the next day to collect your catch. But that is no more a sport than catching rabbits in a snare or mice in a mouse-trap.

Your real sportsman tracks the lobster to his lair and drags him forth with an armoury of iron hooks of different shapes and sizes. It is a sport that calls for a tremendous amount of patience and perseverance, for it is easier to locate a lobster than to coax him out of his crevice alive. To most low water fishermen, especially those who like hunting alone, this is the highlight of adventure. More bloodthirsty fishermen avoid the rocky part of the beach and follow the tide down well over a mile until it discloses broad stretches of silvery sand.

Here meek middle-aged men, who have never lifted a forger against anyone in anger, get a kick out of paddling up to their knees with uplifted spear, earnestly watching the sand for the tell-tale wriggle that betokens life below. Then of a sudden the spear comes down, and if the aim has been good, up again with a flapping plaice transfixed.

Here too come the sand-eelers, though no longer in their hundreds as of old, when the sand-eeling party was an annual event in the life of every farmer. All the family came, with relatives, neighbours, and friends, driving down to La Rocque in their dog-carts or the old box-shaped Jersey vans. The old people brought their knitting and sat on the rocks near the slipway, telling each other stories of the phenomenal catches they had once been young enough to make. For sand-eeling is no dotard's sport.

Only the strong in wind and limb can face the mile and a half scramble over rock and shingle without slipping on the seaweed or falling into one of the gullies that the receding tide has left. And there is no sitting and resting on the way back. If you don't hurry you will find that the tide has stolen a march on you and the gully that you splashed across cheerfully on your way down is now filled with water up to your waist and is getting deeper every minute.

So only the stalwarts go down to the water's edge, armed with rakes or sickle-like hooks according to their school of thought. Those who favour rakes have the advantage of remaining upright, but the pressure of the handle on your shoulder is likely to make it sore for a few days unless you are blessed with the toughest of skins. If you would rather have backache you use a hook.

In either case the procedure is simple. The sand-eels always congregate more or less in the same spots. The hooksman makes a few trial slashes with his hook. If there is no sign of fish he moves on until he comes to a productive patch. Then he settles down to a routine of scratching in the sand with the hook and transferring the slippery silvery sand-eels to his basket with his free hand.

Those who use rakes usually work knee deep in the sea and carry long narrow boxes instead of baskets. First the box is adjusted so that it hangs at waist level in front of the body. Then you drive the sharp-pointed prongs of the rake into the sand, rest the handle on your shoulder, press on it firmly with both hands, and solemnly walk backwards a- dozen paces. By this time, if you are lucky, several unfortunate sand-eels will have got impaled on the prongs of your rake, which you now pull out of the water and hold over the long box. Unless they are mortally wounded, the sand-eels will wriggle themselves into it without much assistance from you.

To the uninitiated, all this sounds rather like hard unskilled labour. And for what result? To catch a hundred or so little fishes averaging eight or nine inches in length and as fat as your middle finger? Delicious as they are, fried in Jersey butter (before rationing days !), I don't think the thought of africot of sand-eels is the mainspring that drives people down to the sea to catch them. Nor is it entirely the picnic spirit, for it might have become traditional to make up festive parties for prawning, or crabbing, or limpeting. But it didn't. For centuries it has been the custom forJerseymen to make up parties to go sand-eeling, either by day or by night. For of course the full moon coincides with the

lowest tides.

It used to be so much a part of public life that laws were passed about it. In 1589, for example, it was decreed that `in order to safeguard the morals of women and girls they are forbidden to take part in sand-eeling at night except when accompanied by their husbands, fathers, or masters.'

Nocturnal sand-eeling expeditions were apparently too often an excuse for drunken orgies, quantities of liquor being taken to drink on the way. But the daylight parties were real family affairs, with a picnic feast of cider, cold pork, and baked apple dumplings when the catch had been safely brought back to land. It is a pity that they are dying out.

Jersey Our Island - Travelling Blind Part 1

A return for an old regular history section - Jersey Our Island, transcribed for this blog.

Published in 1950, this book is an interesting snapshot of the Island and its customs as it was in the immediate post-war period, and not without humour. Most guide books of the time give the tourist information, or give the impressions of an outsider to the Island, but this is in "inside view", which is rarer.

Anyone who wants more background details on the extraordinary story of Louisa Journeaux (mentioned in this extract) can find it here.

https://www.theislandwiki.org/index.php/Louisa_Journeaux

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louisa_Journeaux

Jersey Our Island - Travelling Blind Part 1
by Sidney Bisson

There is one road in Jersey along which I will not willingly walk. It is the coast road from St. Helier eastwards to Gorey.

A hundred years ago it was said to be one of the pleasantest walks in the island, with the sea on one hand and verdant slopes on the other. Today it is an extreme example of how unchecked building can spoil the countryside.

Never were houses so closely packed together or so incongruously juxtaposed. Londoners often complain of the monotony of their suburban architecture. They ought to be thankful that a benevolent bureaucracy has preserve them from the evils of building without a thought for one' s neighbour.

Variety is even worse than monotony when it is allowed to run unchecked. Packed so close together as to be almost touching, in some places two or three rows deep, square houses, long houses, tall houses, low houses, old houses, new houses, tiled houses, slated houses, every kind of house you can think of. And not all ugly. Some of them are most attractively designed if only they had space to lend them dignity.

I fmd the only way to digest this surfeit of architectural salmagundi is to climb aboard a bus, shut my eyes, and trust that the conductor will remember to push me off at my destination. In this way I can shut out the supersaturated suburb of Greve d' Azette and carry my mind back a hundred years to the day when race meetings were held on its beach and the Grand Marin Musical Parade was a resort of fashion. One of its claims to distinction was the cunning arrangement of its bathing machine so that “the eye of female delicacy is not invaded by the proximity of the Bathing Machines appropriated to the gentlemen, which are placed at a distance.”

Nor was the eye of delicacy the only part of the female anatomy that had to be protected from invasion.

The Victoria Bathing Establishment, which seems to have been a successor to the Musical Parade, provided against an even greater terror. A write-up of it in a local guide sets forth that `the absence of rocks in the exact site of the Victoria bathing locale also precludes all chance of a visitation from the octopus, which usually frequents confined waters.'

Boating was not without its terrors for the fair sex either, if one can judge from the adventure of Miss Louisa Journeaux in 1886. Her eye of delicacy must have been firmly closed when she allowed a young man to take her for a row round the bay after church on a moonlit Sunday evening in spring. All might yet have been well if the young man had been a competent oarsman. But apparently he wasn't. Or else his fair companion distracted his attention so much that he forgot what he was doing.

Anyway, as they floated idly about the bay one of the oars slipped from his grasp and started to drift away. With more haste than discretion the young man forthwith jumped into the waters to recover it. Then he either lost his head or was swept away by a current, for instead of getting back to his lady love he found himself standing dripping on the shore. Louisa, bereft of oar and oarsman, found herself drifting out to sea.

Strong in the hope that help would soon arrive, she had the presence of mind to put up her umbrella when it started to rain and to bale out the boat with the hat that the young man had considerately left behind. But no help came, either that night or the next day or the next might. It was Tuesday morning when Captain Landgren of the sailing ship Tombola bound from St. Malo to Newfoundland came across the astonishing spectacle of a tiny rowing boat with a little lady in it, waving her umbrella at him as if he were the driver of an omnibus.

He immediately hove to and took her aboard, but the lady's  troubles were not yet over. Being a respectable married man, the  captain decided to land his passenger at the nearest port before  continuing his journey. Providence willed otherwise. That same  from the afternoon a violent storm blew up which drove the Tombola away  coasts of Europe straight into the Atlantic. There was  nothing to be done. Louisa had to go to Newfoundland too, after which she eventually sailed to Liverpool and so back to Jersey, after having taken an absence of nearly two months. Seldom can a young lady so long to get home from church.

At Green Island the road which has been running so south-east from  St. Helier for about a mile swerves suddenly north- eastwards. The `island,' a grass-covered rock about two hundred  water only feet long, is of the semi-detached variety, being surrounded by  at high tide. In my schooldays it was a favourite spot for picnics, and I used to find it made an ideal pirates island as here one stormy afternoon that I first discovered that I was growing up. The wind had blown the end of my tie out of jacket and I stood there facing the breeze for a very long time with my hands in my pockets, enjoying the flutter of silk against my cheek and neck.

And somehow the thought came into my  head as I stood there that the day  past, and that the days that stood  that had gone before were the ahead were the future, and that  every tick of my new watch added something to the past and  took something away from the future.

 Having lived for eleven years entirely in the present, the discovery came as something of a shock, and I went home more than usually silent. However, as  none of my school friends seemed to worry much about it I soon  forgot and went on living in the present. But I can never pass  Green Island now without wondering whether the little boys who away. It is still play pirates there are conscious of time ticking remorselessly  not the sort of thing one wants to ask a child.

Maybe there is something in the air round here that makes young people see visions and dream dreams. For only a stone'sthrow away is the Witches' Rock with which is associated the legend of a young local fisherman. Like most legends, its details vary according to the teller, and the young roan in question is variously referred to as Hubert or Reginald or Roland.

But the gist of the story is clear. Reginald (or whatever his name was) was in love with Madeleine, the most beautiful of the village maidens. And Madeleine was in love with him. All they had to wait for was a phenomenal catch of fish which would enable Reginald to take that little seaside cottage that they had their eye on, where they could live happily ever after.

Madeleine, it seems, was quite content to wait until Providence brought the fish into the net. Not so Reginald. He was the type who would have filled in football coupons to get rich quick if there had been any in those days. Instead he took to dabbling in black magic, which involved staying out very late at night and inventing excuses for not meeting Madeleine. In vain the poor neglected girl upbraided him, until one night something really big happened.

Having stayed out late as usual, Reginald felt so tired on his way home that he sat down at the foot of a rock to rest. In a few minutes he was asleep. When he woke up he rubbed his eyes in amazement. Before him was a bevy of dazzlingly beautiful maidens, dancing in idyllic surroundings and bathed in celestial light. One in particular took his fancy so much that he forgot he was a mere mortal and ventured to speak to her without an introduction. Far from being offended, the maiden seemed to like it, and seeing that Reginald was rather shy she kissed him rap turously on the lips and told him to come back for more the following evening.

Of course Reginald could not keep such exciting news to himself, and by noon the next day the whole village knew. Poor Madeleine was beside herself. She had never expected to have to deal with a supernatural rival and in despair she invoked the aid of the parish priest. The wise old man felt sorry for her and told her exactly what to do. Then, comforted by his advice, she set off for the site of the rendezvous.

It was just as well that she did, for a horrible sight met her eyes. There was no beautiful maiden wreathed in celestial light. Instead there was blinding hell fire illuminating a flock of fiendish harpies capering and shrieking in an abandoned dance. She was just in time, for at this very moment the unwilling Reginald was slowly being drawn into their midst.

Mindful of the priest's advice, Madeleine pulled her crucifix from her bosom and waved it in the face of the foul hags who had turned to stare at her. Immediately everything was dark and still. Then out of the silence came a faltering step and Reginald fell into her arms. There is hardly any need to add that Reginald never again went dallying with sprites and that he eventually made a model husband. The rock is still there, enclosed now within the garden of a private house. Godfrey, who has seen it, assures me that it bears most clearly the cloven hoofmarks of the Devil.

Jersey Our Island: Sentiment and Smells – Part 2

Published in 1950, this is an interesting snapshot of the Island and its customs as it was in the immediate post-war period, and not without humour. Most guide books of the time give the tourist information, or give the impressions of an outsider to the Island, but this is in "inside view", which is rarer.

Jersey Our Island: Sentiment and Smells – Part 2By Sidney Bisson

Instead of renewing my acquaintance with the devil I went off in search of what the maps and guide books term Les Mouriers Waterfall. Now you would think that a waterfall would be a local `beauty spot,' a place for picnics and pilgrimages. Yet I have never come across anyone in Jersey who has seen it. Not even Godfrey. I asked him the reason for its unpopularity. Was it haunted? Or inaccessible? Or just not worth seeing?

His eyes seemed to twinkle more mischievously than usual as he smiled his pitying smile at my ignorance.

`It's not that,' he said with a shake of the head. `It's the smell. You can't get to within half a mile of it without a respirator.'

More than that he refused to say, bolstering his obstinacy with the old adage about remembering something better if you found out for yourself.

I've come across stagnant waters that smelt, though not quite half a mile away. A stinking waterfall was something new. I simply had to go and find it, trusting that a damp handkerchief would serve the office of a respirator if the smell got really bad.

My search started promisingly. A winding road brought me into a valley, down which a bridle path meandered between slopes carpeted with gorse and bracken. Below the path a brook gurgled merrily. There was no smell except the indescribable scent of lush vegetation. I began to wonder if Godfrey had been pulling my leg.

Then as I approached the last bend something assailed not my nose but my ears. I stopped and listened. It was not the sound of the sea breaking against the rocks. Nor of a waterfall tumbling into the sea. There was no mistaking the rhythmic chugging. It must come from some kind of engine.

I saw what it was as soon as I rounded the bend. A dam has been built to collect the waters of the brook, and the noise came from a pumping station that pushes them back to the top of the hill. It spoils a valley which I found charming by the very simplicity of its scenery, but I am told it is a necessity. The original collecting grounds in the southern valleys have not been able to cope with a rising demand for water, so the Waterworks Company has had to seek its waters further afield. And of course it has destroyed the waterfall that once tumbled into the sea over a perpendicular granite cliff. Today there is a mere trickle, which you can hear rather than see.

The smell? A great heap of whitened bones outside a ruined building near the pumping station gave the answer. Before the war this was a knacker's yard, and you cannot obtain by-products from dead horses without considerably polluting the atmosphere. It is a pity that the waterfall has disappeared now that you can approach it without fear of asphyxiation. But it was pleasant to sit awhile on the thrift-covered rocks and listen to the rumble of the sea.

The upper part of Le Mourier Valley reminded me irresistibly of a scene from one of Balzac's novels of country life. The quiet sunny slopes dotted with age-old cottages; the velvet-eyed cows in tiny meadows munching the lush grass; old, old women in black sun-bonnets tending their little plots; a pair of lustreless eyes in a bearded face, peering over the hedge to see what stranger dared to intrude on this life of a hundred years ago. I felt sadly out of place in sports jacket and flannels. A swallow- tailed coat and pegtop trousers would have been more appropriate to a scene that has changed as little in a century as the song of the brook that waters it.

What a place to spend the evening of one's life. Only ... when one has been spoilt by a multitude of switches, hot and cold taps and lavatory chains, could one bear the prospect of lamps that have to be cleaned and filled each day, water that must be drawn from the well, and an earth closet that has to . . . Enough. There is no sentiment without smells. Far better sweep every- thing away and fill the valley with hideous bungalows, pull up the trees and plant electric pylons, bury the brook in the bowels of a modern sewer.

I shook myself and went on to look for something new the grand-sounding North Marine Drive, which was built to provide work for the workless during the German occupation. When I first heard of this road that had been driven for three-quarters of a mile along the wild north coast, I shuddered at the sacrilege. Cliffs demand footpaths on which to scramble, not roads for speeding motorists. I was prepared never to visit that part of the island again.

I am glad that my curiosity overcame my loathing. Either by glorious accident or a triumph of design, the new road fits snugly into its surroundings. And even if it does tempt a char-a-banc or two on a summer's afternoon, it has opened up a series of breath- taking vistas to those whom age or ill-health debars from scrambling. I publicly take back all the hard words I have privately uttered against those who planned it.

Jersey Our Island: Sentiment and Smells – Part 1

Published in 1950, this is an interesting snapshot of the Island and its customs as it was in the immediate post-war period, and not without humour. Most guide books of the time give the tourist information, or give the impressions of an outsider to the Island, but this is in "inside view", which is rarer.

Jersey Our Island: Sentiment and Smells – Part 1
By Sidney Bisson

THE tomatoes were already beginning to ripen when I kept my promise to myself to come back and look at the interior of St. Mary's Church. How they have managed to ripen at all this summer is a mystery. By all the rules of the game the unusual amount of rain should have given them all `the disease.'

For in spite of frequent spraying Phytophthora infestans usually wins if the summer is very wet. But a wet summer in Jersey is usually warm as well. This summer has been wet and cool, and the cool weather, a farmer confided to me, had been a blessing in disguise. If it had been wet and warm nothing could have saved the crop. As it is, some growers have had to spray as often as three times a week during the wettest period. Even so, whilst watching the pickers I noticed that a goodly number of fruits were rejected and thrown on the ground between the rows.

Phytophthora infestans had taken his tithe.

I might have spared myself the trouble of returning to St. Mary's. The inside of the church is plain and unremarkable. Perhaps if I had been able to appreciate it properly I should have termed it simple and dignified. But repairs of some kind were in progress. Masons were hammering vigorously at the stone walls, and the vaulted roof re-echoed the sound of their blows. It was not the best kind of atmosphere for appreciating the dignity of a church. I walked out disappointed.

A little way past the church a road branches off down a pleasant valley to the little bay of Greve de Lecq. It is odd how fashions in bays change as in everything else. When I was a boy, Gorey and Corbière were the favourite resorts, both for residents and visitors. There was a good reason for their popularity.

Both were linked to St. Helier by miniature railways. With the expansion of bus services, the railways were put out of action and visitors sought fresh fields. St. Ouen's Bay, Greve de Lecq, and Rozel came into the picture. Today the fashion is for St. Brelade.

Greve de Lecq is one of the few places that the German occupation has improved. At the height of its popularity its beauty was spoilt by the wooden shacks and stalls of numerous dispensers of tea and ices, which sprawled over the foot of the valley. The Germans swept these away, and their gun emplacement, in spite of its grim memories, seems to fit in better with the natural surroundings.

One feature that has disappeared appealed particularly to the older generation of tourists: the camera obscura. Working on the principle of a submarine's periscope, it projected onto a white enamel table views of the surrounding coast and countryside. When I visited it many years ago, the old man who worked it claimed that it had given him a wider insight into human nature than he could have obtained by reading any number of books. In the quiet evenings when the bay was deserted and lovers repaired to the bracken-covered slopes, he would focus his machine on them and study the technique of love-making!

Greve de Lecq has been aptly described as `not a bay, but a cove.' To anyone who has read accounts of the voyages of ancient navigators the word conjures up visions of just such a spot as this, with its tiny beach, hemmed in by rocky slopes and backed by a green valley.

In 1872 someone had the bright idea of turning the cove into a harbour. The first pier proved too small for practical purposes, and various extensions were planned and started. It is difficult to understand the need for anything more than a small fishermen's harbour at this spot, but at that time Jersey had a merchant fleet of over three hundred sailing ships, and it may have been intended to relieve the congestion in St. Helier's harbour which was also being enlarged.

Although for a few years excursions to Sark were run from the new harbour, it eventually turned out to be a white elephant, like several other marine works in the island. Heavy seas in the winter of 1884 washed away part of the extensions and the project was abandoned.

A footpath from Greve de Lecq Valley leads to Crabbe, where there is a rifle range, originally built for the Jersey Militia and still used by local rifle clubs. Rifle shooting is popular in the island, and a team goes to Bisley annually to compete in the Kolapore competition.

The idea of an island of 50,000 inhabitants competing against the Mother Country and the great Dominions is not as ridiculous as it sounds. Jersey has several times reached third place in the competition, and was once on the verge of placing second when an excited marksman fired at the wrong target. This year the island provided the youngest competitor ever to reach the final stage of the King's Prize, and with one or two other promising youngsters coining along, local marksmen are hopeful that one day they may return with the coveted trophy.

It is not everybody who would choose to build a house on top of a tomb, even a prehistoric one. But that is what someone has done at La Hougue Mauger, on a height overlooking Crabbe. The Bronze Age barrow has been flattened, and a little granite house with cheerful red roof and blue painted woodwork now stands on its site. It is true that no human remains were found when the barrow was excavated, but the presence of the usual grave furnishings of the time leave little doubt as to its original purpose, and there was evidence that the tomb had previously been rifled.

Builders of the eighteenth century were in the habit of taking stones from these prehistoric monuments to save themselves the trouble of quarrying, and many have vanished or are incomplete. Whether or not the present occupier is troubled by Bronze Age spooks, he certainly has the advantage of a marvellous view.

Standing on the highest point in the vicinity, the house looks out over the sea to the grey shadowy shapes of Guernsey and Sark on the north-west horizon and the sandy coasts of Normandy on the north-east. On a very clear day it may be possible to see as far as Alderney. In the foreground the eye can roam over a broad stretch of the wild north coast of the island.

As I stood in a gap in the hedge looking out over the sea, two beings came and took stock of me. The first, a human, I took to be the owner of the field in which I stood, so disapprovingly did he stare.

Before I could enquire whether he objected to my mild trespass, he sped away on a bicycle, leaving me at the mercy of the other. It was a lizard a form of reptile so rare in Jersey that a law has been passed forbidding their exportation. Why anyone should want to export lizards passes my comprehension.

That is another thing I must try and remember to ask Godfrey. It is said that if you catch a lizard by its tail it darts off, leaving its tail behind like the sheep of little Bo-Peep. I did not have a chance of finding out if this was true. I tried to edge forward to get a better view of the creature and it disappeared completely.

As neither patient waiting nor prodding the hedge with a stick caused it to reappear, I pushed on towards La Falaise, an old farmhouse that is claimed (on rather slender evidence) to have been a mediaeval priory.

The main building dates back to 1708 according to the date carved on the lintel. Behind it is the structure that is supposed to have been part of the priory. Whatever its original use, it is certainly a curious piece of architecture. Its weathered granite wall is pierced at one end by a Norman gateway, at the other by a rectangular opening surmounted by a lintel with wedge-shaped ends.

Immediately above the lintel is a square opening reaching to the roof. Besides this, there are two other `window' openings in the wall one a mere square peep-hole, the other more like a normal window, but very low in comparison to its breadth.

In the courtyard formed by the angle of these two buildings is an old well of the typical Jersey type.

A few yards away stands another old house which is also associated with the `priory.' There are still a number of houses in the island with stone staircases, but this is one of the few I have come across in which the staircase is built in a semi-circular `turret' projecting from the back of the house. It is lighted by a series of tiny square windows.

As if to counterbalance the religious atmosphere of the `priory,' a steep path from here leads (downwards, appropriately!) to the Devil's Hole. The devil used to welcome visitors to his cavern in effigy (and still does, for all I know; for I must confess that I was not feeling energetic enough to scramble three hundred feet down and back again on a summer's afternoon). I can recall that he looked very fearsome to me at the tender age of seven, with his red tongue that waggled when you pulled a string.

Of course the point of the exercise is not to see the devil but the Hole. Memory portrays it (and so do picture postcards) as a natural tunnel worn through the rock by the sea, which roars through it with the noise of an express train. To make matters more terrifying, the shoreward end of the tunnel is at the bottom of an almost perpendicular ravine.

Jersey Our Island: Another Glory – Part 3

Published in 1950, this is an interesting snapshot of the Island and its customs as it was in the immediate post-war period, and not without humour. Most guide books of the time give the tourist information, or give the impressions of an outsider to the Island, but this is in "inside view", which is rarer. And a view on Queen's Valley, now submerged beneath water as a reservoir.

Jersey Our Island: Another Glory – Part 3

By Sidney Bisson

After the cold silence of the prehistoric tomb it was a relief to find the warm solitude of Queen's Valley, which lies half way between La Hougue Bie and the sea. It is here, supposedly, that Victor Hugo used to come and write when he could tear himself away from his contemplation of the ocean.

Le vallon oii je vans tous les jours est charmant,

Screin, abandonne, seul sous le firmament,

Picin de ronces en fleurs.

It cannot have changed much since he used to sit here and watch the sheep grazing and the little shepherdess drying her feet on the reeds after she had waded across the brook. There are no sheep left, certainly, but one might still write with equal truth

`if it were not for the sound of the workers in the fields, one might doubt the existence of an outer world.'

First the path  follows the brook, nestling under a bank of honeysuckle and bramble. Then it climbs away behind a shoulder to come out again when you are high enough to see the green valley spreading before you and the brook curling away into the distance through the lush meadows.

From the road at the bottom of the valley you catch a glimpse of Grouville Church, where, if you are anxious to return to St. Helier, you can climb a hill and see a view of which an enthusiastic nineteenth century writer exclaimed: `If a Person can behold the Scene in Spring, Summer, or Autumn without temporary Ecstasy, Science forbid that he should ever attempt to paint, or even criticise, a Landscape.'

Instead I followed a winding road into another green and quiet valley with a tributary brook. Though only slightly less enchanting than Queen's Valley it does not seem to have been deemed worthy of a name.

After this the road climbed steeply to give a sudden and unexpected view of Mont Orgueil and the French coast framed in a farmyard gate. And as we climb the scenery changes. Watered meadows give place to field after field of tomatoes, for this is some of the most productive land in the island. But now and then with characteristic Jersey suddenness the land dips and you catch another glimpse of the sea. To the South this time, just to remind us that we are on an island.

It is from one of these glimpses of the sea that a footpath dives down steeply to the tree-lined Swiss Valley, the last before reaching St. Helier. The immediate neighbourhood on the town side has been much built over, but so far the valley remains unspoilt.

In sad contrast is the Grands Vaux Valley to the North of St. Helier, which I visited another day. Here within easy reach of the town was a walk which the older guidebooks recommended. To-day a clutter of unsightly bungalows straddles the foot of the valley. Further up, the brook which ought to meander through the meadows is confined in an ugly concrete channel, as straight as if it had been drawn with a giant's ruler.

As if that were not enough, a row of unsightly poles carrying electric cables has been planted in the middle of the valley, when they might just as easily have been fixed along the road.

I pushed on sadly, wondering what the next indignity would be. It was revealed as I turned a corner a hideous dump stretching right across the valley, an attempt, apparently, to fill in the floor to make it suitable for building. I had never before felt quite so ashamed of my countrymen who could allow such desecration.'

[My anger was misdirected. I discovered later that a large reservoir was to  be built here not houses.]

As I struck up a road that would take me away from this scene of desolation, my anger was partly appeased by the sight of an attractive eighteenth century granite cottage. Since we have very little domestic architecture earlier than that, it is lucky for us that eighteenth century work in Jersey has something of the charm of English Tudor.

Across the road is a relic of a former resident's consideration for wayfarers (not that many come this

way, I imagine) a drinking fountain with the inscription

`Nornine Del Fons Viatoris. E. Stirling fecit, 1868.'

It is the same Mr. Stirling, I presume, who gave the pretentious name of Stirling Castle to a hideous Victorian mansion which stands a little further up the hill. Whoever he was, he would feel sorry, I am sure, if he knew that his fountain for wayfarers had run dry.

At the top of the hill are two unusually ornamental farmhouses, one obviously modernised, the other decently mellow, with the arms of the Poingdestre family worked into its walls.

Then, after passing a curious mixture of grazing cows and concrete bungalows, the road dips again into the other valley that runs towards St. Helier.

After the desecration of Grands Vaux I was prepared for anything in the Vallee des Vaux, as this other one is called. I remembered from my childhood ducks swimming on a brook and a picnic when we called at a farm for milk and were given goats' milk to the indignation of the adults in the party. That, I think, was when I first heard of the curious custom of the young people of St. Helier who during the month of May used to get up very early in the morning and go in parties to the nearest farms to drink milk warns from the cow.

My spirits went up when I rounded the corner. The brook still runs along the roadside, and under it, and out again on the other side. What is more, it is still a home for ducks. It is true that it has a rather tired look, as if it knew that before long it was going to suffer the fate of its neighbour. Still, it manages to stay above ground, and in a more or less natural channel, until it reaches the outskirts of St. Helier when it is excusable for it to disappear into the bowels of a laundry.

Not only did the brook stay by me all the way ; the whole valley remains pleasantly rural with its grassy slopes well dotted with gorse and trees. My friend Godfrey has since told me that the preservation of this valley so near St. Helier is due to the interest which the National Trust for Jersey has taken in it and the public spirit of its owners. The Trust, I gather, is seriously handicapped by lack of funds, a strange state of affairs in an island where appeals for charities are usually overwhelmingly successful.

What is wanted, of course, is a law scheduling the most beautiful parts of the island as perpetual open spaces, but my fellow Jerseymen object strongly to being told that they cannot build where they please.

If I had been writing a guide book and not taking a holiday, I can think of lots of other places I should have visited. There arc other valleys besides those I have written about, other hills besides those I have climbed. I have not been in all the parish churches, nor described all the archaeological curiosities. But nobody on a holiday wants to see everything, and I am not going for any more excursions. Unless, perhaps, I lean back in my armchair, prop my feet on my desk, and take an excursion into the future.

Jersey Our Island: Another Glory – Part 2

Published in 1950, this is an interesting snapshot of the Island and its customs as it was in the immediate post-war period, and not without humour. Most guide books of the time give the tourist information, or give the impressions of an outsider to the Island, but this is in "inside view", which is rarer.

Jersey Our Island: Another Glory – Part 2

By Sidney Bisson

I had to break off the old man's flow of reminiscences at last, as I had promised myself a visit to a place far older than any of the traditions he could recall the prehistoric tomb of La Hougue Bie. When I told him this, he asked me if I knew the legend of the place. I did, but I let him tell it in his own way before I left him.

`Time past,' it appears, the pest that ravaged Jersey was not the Colorado beetle but an enormous fire-breathing dragon. As there was nobody in Jersey capable of standing up to it, the inhabitants had to call in a well-known dragon slayer, the Lord of Hambie in Normandy, 'just like we had to call in an English firm, you know, to exterminate those Colorado beetles.'

When Hambie came over with his squire Francis a terrible battle took place, in which Hambie was only just successful. Seeing his master lying there exhausted with the struggle, Francis thought it would be an excellent opportunity of finishing him off, for he was head over heels in love with the Lady of Hambie. So he chopped off the Lord of Hambie's head and returned to Normandy with a long story about how his master had been mortally wounded in the fight and how his dying wish had been that

Francis `would step into his shoes.'

`Dirty dog,' I couldn't help remarking.

'Ali, but she was not so green as she was cabbage-looking. Ah, my, no!' said my farmer friend, taking a whetstone from a cow's horn filled with a dark liquid and passing it rapidly to and fro across his sickle.

The lady, in fact, demanded proof. Which the squire offered in the shape of a miniature of herself which her husband always wore next to his heart. She was convinced then that he was dead, but still not that he wanted her to marry Francis.

`I don't know too well what happened then', said the farmer, `but anyways, before the wedding he confessed. So she was lucky.'

I'm glad he believes that. The usual version is that she only discovered his guilt after the wedding, through his talking in his sleep. `Anyways,' she had a great mound built in Jersey and a chapel on top of it in memory of her husband, so that she could see it from her home in Normandy.

The mound is still there, and I can vouch for the view. Since you can see Normandy from the top of it, no doubt the Lady of Hambie could see it from her window. What is interesting, now, is what is underneath the mound.

If you pay sixpence you can see.

Archaeologists are not much impressed by legends, and a long time ago they decided that the mound was erected by no Lady of Hambie but by prehistoric man. Eventually the Société Jersiaise bought the place and its members started excavations.

Before long they brought to light an exceptionally well preserved burial chamber of the megalithic period. It is, in fact, regarded as `one of the finest memorials of its time surviving in Western Europe. It certainly attracts more visitors than any other of Jersey's many prehistoric monuments perhaps because it happens to be right along a bus route!

A spiral path leads to the top of the mound where still stands a mediaeval chapel. You can believe, if you like, that it is the one which is mentioned in the legend, but one must remember that it was the custom of the early Christian missionaries to adapt pagan monuments to Christian uses, and that is probably what happened here. A second chapel was added in the sixteenth century by Dean Mabon, a local ecclesiastic of doubtful reputation. In the crypt of his chapel Mabon erected a reproduction of the Holy Sepulchre, which he claimed to have visited, and impressed the faithful by working `miracles' with simple mechanical devices.

Another building which once stood on top of the mound (it is a huge mound, forty or fifty feet high and nearly two hundred yards round at the bottom) was the Prince's Tower, so called after the Jersey sailor who became a ruling European prince.

Philip d'Auvergne joined the Navy at an early age and had already had many amazing adventures before he was appointed First Lieutenant in the Saucy Arethusa, which started the most amazing adventure of them all.

With another young man called Horatio Nelson, he had accompanied Captain Phipps's optimistic expedition to the Arctic regions, which was intended to discover the North Pole but `not to proceed any further.' He had fought in the American War of Independence, where he took part in the siege of Boston, was wounded at the bombardment of Falmouth, and lost his first command in an action with the French.

And he was only twenty-three.

By pure chance when the Arethusa was wrecked and its crew taken prisoner, d'Auvergne came into contact with the Prince of Bouillon, which was then an independent principality on the borders of Luxemburg. For years the Prince, whose family name was also d'Auvergne, had been looking for someone to succeed him. His son was a half-crazed invalid who was neither expected to live long nor to produce an heir, and researches into the family pedigree had failed to reveal a suitable successor.

Now, struck by the similarity of their names and convinced that a family relationship existed between them; the Prince took a fancy to the young Jerseyman and decided to adopt him.

Though Philip d'Auvergne was no doubt flattered by the Prince's intentions, he nevertheless conceived it his duty to return to England when he was unexpectedly released. Having taken part in an unsuccessful expedition against the Cape of Good Hope, he was next sent on a colonising mission to the South Atlantic, where he was shipwrecked and abandoned for some time on a desert island. Rescued at last, he was able when peace was proclaimed to take up his residence with the Prince, who had now formally adopted him.

In 1791 the succession to the Duchy of Bouillon was fixed. James Leopold, the invalid son, was to succeed his father, then failing a direct heir, the throne would pass to Philip d'Auvergne. With great ceremonial he visited the Duchy and was presented to his future people.

In 1792 war broke out again, and once more d'Auvergne returned to the service of his country. This time he was appointed to the command of the Jersey Naval Station. Outwardly it was a sinecure, but secretly Captain d'Auvergne was entrusted with the organisation of assistance to the rebellious French Royalists.

It was at his headquarters at Mont Orgueil that supplies for the ill-fated Quiberon expedition were collected. It was his agents, mostly Jersey men and women, who made the perilous journey to France in small boats on dark nights and landed arms and ammunition. The tower which his soldier uncle had built on La Hougue Bie became a link in his signal service. And whilst all this was going on, first the old Prince of Bouillon, then the young James Leopold, died.

When peace was restored by the Treaty of Amiens, d'Auvergne immediately took steps to establish his claim to Bouillon, which had come under the protection of the French government. But the French, knowing his record as a supporter of the Royalist cause, put him in prison, from which he was only released on condition that he immediately left the country.

Before he had accomplished anything war had broken out again, and for the last time he returned to his post in the Navy. He was appointed first Rear-Admiral then Vice-Admiral, but the biggest prize seemed to have slipped from his grasp. Finally, however, when the French monarchy was restored and Napoleon seemed to be beaten, he was able to establish himself as Prince of Bouillon with the approval of the King of France.

His reign was not destined to be a long one. Napoleon's return from Elba plunged Europe into a new war. When he had been safely exiled to St. Helena the boundary makers got busy in Vienna. A fresh claimant had cone into the field, and although Admiral d'Auvergne's legal right to the Duchy seemed clear enough, the Congress decided against him. Broken with disappointment and impoverished by costly appeals against the decision, the sailor prince returned to England. A few months later he died in some obscure hotel.