Where In The World Wednesday: Jersey

Where in the World Wednesday is a weekly feature run by Classy in Philadelphia, that I came across through P at *Insert My Blog Name Here*. The idea of WITWW is to post a picture of you someplace in the world...it doesn't have to be somewhere foreign or tropical. It might even be somewhere in your own hometown.

I thought taking part would be a good way to brag about show you some of the places both near and far that I have been lucky enough to visit in recent years. I won’t be posting pictures of myself as I much prefer to be behind the lens, but I think the concept is the same. Why don’t you participate too? Just use the WITWW button created by Feris in your post, then visit the comments on Classy in Philadelphia to see who else is taking part and leave your link in her comments section so that other participants can visit your blog too.

So, I’m starting off this week quite close to home.... on Jersey, the largest of the Channel Islands, which is located just off the coast of Normandy, France. Jersey has been a self-governing British Crown Dependency since 1066, and is therefore not part of the United Kingdom. Low income taxes lure tax exiles to the islands, and visitors can take advantage of the tax-free shopping opportunities.

Map taken from HERE

Victor Hugo described the Channel Islands as “pieces of France fallen into the sea and picked up by England”. Indeed, Jersey holds many similarities to mainland Britain, but is typically sunnier and warmer and has subtle French influences....particularly in the place names and the food.

The island has beautiful beaches and coastlines with spectacular cliffs, authentic French restaurants and a rich cultural heritage of monuments, from prehistoric tombs to medieval castles. There are also several grim reminders that the islands were occupied by the Germans during World War II...such as the artillery direction-finding towers dotted all around the island. Jersey is home to the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust too.

B and I spent a fabulous, sunny week on Jersey in spring 2003. We stayed in a B&B and hired a car to explore the island from top to bottom...it’s possible to cross the island in under half an hour (and that’s driving on the narrow little roads at the maximum speed limit of 30 miles per hour).

We'd bought our first digital camera just before the trip, and experimented a lot with the different settings. Here's a selection of my pictures...

Plemont Bay

Devil's Hole

Corbiere Lighthouse

St Ouen's Bay

 

 Royal Bay of Grouville

Royal Bay of Grouville with Mount Orgueil Castle in the background

Mount Orgueil Castle

Tulips in the Churchill Gardens

The grounds at Samares Manor

Elizabeth Castle - access by causeway at low tide, amphibious vehicle when the tide is full

Lalique glass altarpiece in the Glass Church

"Camel Rock"

And Now For My Mom's Story

Today is Mothering Sunday in the UK...the equivalent to Mother’s Day, which falls on May 9th this year in most of the rest of the world. I've told you a bit about my dad's early life in my last post, so perhaps today is a fitting time to tell you a bit about my mom.

She was born in a small South African town, just a few days before the outbreak of World War II. My grandfather and most of his six brothers promptly signed up for active service, and while my grandfather never left the shores of South Africa as his welding skills were more valuable to the army on home soil, my mom’s uncles were sent to Egypt, where they claim to have almost single-handedly defeated Rommel’s forces.

Desert warfare

As for most families at that time, the war years were hard on my mom’s parents...they struggled to get by on my grandfather’s army pay, food was scarce and my grandmother was never well and often in hospital, leaving my young mom in the care of a cantankerous hostel owner. A year after the end of the war, my aunt was born....much to the disgust of my mom who longed for a new brother to replace the one she lost to pneumonia in 1941. My grandparents just managed to stop my mom from pushing her unwanted baby sister out of the window of a third floor apartment, otherwise she may have grown up an only child.

When my mom was nine years old, the family emigrated to the then British colony of southern Rhodesia. My grandfather was wary of the National Party that had come to power in South Africa in June 1948, and he believed that the family would have a better life north of the border. And so they packed up their belongings and took the train up to Salisbury (now Harare). I won’t dwell too much on the rest of my mom’s childhood... it was not a particularly happy one. My grandfather battled with alcoholism that made for an insecure home life and that would eventually destroy his health.

Salisbury

Luckily, my mom rose above these challenges and completed her school education aged 16 and entered secretarial college. Six months later she was a highly competent shorthand typist and soon found a job working in the offices of government.....she was working as a secretary there at the time Ian Smith unilaterally declared independence from Britain on 11 November 1965, and it was there in 1962 that she first met my dad, who at that time was working for the Rhodesian Tourist Board. They were engaged within six weeks, married a year later, and lived together moreorless happily ever after... through the turbulent 1960s and 1970s, the hopeful 1980s and the declining 1990s in Zimbabwe, until it became obvious at the start of the new century that they would have to move to safer pastures. The rest, as the saying goes, is history....

'The King' - my mom's first love

My Dad's Story

I wrote this quite a while ago and have been deliberating about posting it for ages. I'm not sure it will be of any interest to anyone...but then the same could be said for everything most of what I put up here. It may just give you some insight into my background.

When my dad was very ill last year, he started reminiscing a lot about his early life. I suppose having a serious illness does that to you....you start taking stock of what’s gone before, as you’re not sure what lies ahead. I’m going to tell you a bit about my dad’s early life, which I've pieced together from a lot of conversations.

He was born in 1935, just outside London....the second of five children (four boys, with a girl in the middle). The first three children were born within a couple of years of each other and then my grandmother had many miscarriages, which took a toll on her health. My dad’s other two brothers are 15 and 21 years younger than him, so they didn’t really play a part in his childhood.

My grandfather was a carpenter by trade and my grandmother was a skilled dressmaker.  During the Second World War, my grandfather managed a shipyard that converted merchant ships into gun battle ships. He also did repair work on some of the bombed buildings in London. He was in fact repairing the damage to St Pauls Cathedral when another bomb fell that destroyed his work and all his tools. My dad can remember the noise and fires from bombing raids over London vividly...every night his brother and he slept in a cold Anderson Bomb Shelter in their back garden, while my grandparents took their chances in the house, with my aunt who was just a baby. Luckily for them, no bombs fell close by.

St Pauls in 'The Blitz'

When we were growing up, my dad always used to harp on about he had to walk miles to school (in the snow of course, as it was apparently always snowing). In reality, school for my dad was just over the road from their house...we found this out years later when when he took us on a trip down Memory Lane to the places of his childhood. My grandparents both came from large families, so my dad had a load of aunts and uncles around while he was growing up. One of my grandfather's sisters had a child out of wedlock following a brief romance with a “Yank” soldier stationed in Britain during the war...it was apparently a big scandal in the family at the time.

After the war ended, Britain was a pretty grim place....London was virtually a bomb site, food rationing would carry on until the mid 1950s and jobs were scarce. So it was probably no surprise that my grandfather decided to move the family out to the then colony of Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), which promised a good life of hot sunshine, wide open spaces, good food and jobs for those willing to work. Along with masses of other immigrants, the family set sail from Southampton for the long voyage to Cape Town and docked into Table Bay on Christmas Day, 1947....my dad remembers it being a scorchingly hot day.

The Royal Visit, Cape Town 1947

From Cape Town, the family travelled up north by train, finally settling in Bulawayo. There my dad restarted school and also took violin lessons. He became an accomplished musician, and was even offered a place at the Royal Music College....but being a musician was not a manly enough job for any son of my grandfather, and the stubborn old man refused to sign the scholarship papers, thus dashing my dad's hopes of becoming a professional violinist. Instead, aged 16 my dad took up an apprenticeship as a printer (back in the days when printing was done by type setting), and his music became a hobby that still brings him much enjoyment today.

Bulawayo City Hall

As a young man, my dad had many sporting achievements...he played rugby at provincial level, was a strong swimmer and earned a life saving medal. He was passionate about cars and spent months overhauling a Jaguar E type, back in his carefree bachelor days. Always keen to study new things, he went to university as a mature student in the early 1980s to obtain his Bachelor's Degree in modern history, another of his great interests. I remember going to my dad's graduation as a young child, and I think he was quite proud to attend mine..... a good education for his children meant everything to him.

Type setting printers

When I was younger (and sometimes still today) I clashed with my dad over almost every issue. Possibly we have personalities that are a bit too similar...he is incredibly stubborn, argumentative at times, fanatical about everything he does and persistent to the very end. I think I'm the diluted version...

It's been a year since my dad was first diagnosed with advanced cancer. He is still going strong and the most recent scan shows no further disease progression. Sometimes stubborn persistence can be a good thing.

January 20th, 1974

On this day, 35 years ago, I entered this world....what was happening at the time?

I was born in Zimbabwe, which at that time was called Rhodesia with Ian Smith as Prime Minister. At the time, civil war, known as the ‘Bush War’ by White Rhodesians and as the ‘Second Chimurenga’ (or 'rebellion' in Shona) to supporters of the Front for the Liberation of Zimbabwe, was ongoing and would culminate in the creation of the Republic of Zimbabwe under Robert Mugabe in 1980.

South of the Limpopo River, Prime Minister Balthazar Johannes Vorster (better known as John Voster) was following white public opinion in South Africa by supporting Rhodesia publicly, but was unwilling to alienate important political allies in the United States by extending diplomatic recognition. Later that year, he would pressurise Ian Smith to accept in principle that white minority rule could not continue indefinitely.Nelson Mandela had already been incarcerated at Robben Island Prison, off Cape Town, for 10 years.


On the other side of the Victoria Falls, Kenneth Kaunda ruled Zambia as a one-party state, while Seretse Khama was the first president of a democratic Botswana. The Front for the Liberation of Mozambique were mounting their guerrilla campaign against Portuguese rule, and would take control of the territory by April that year, gaining independence from Portugal the following June.

Internationally, the Cold War was simmering away, the ‘Iron Curtain’ was firmly in place and there was an East and a West Germany. Leonid Brezhnev was leader of the USSR (which comprised 15 'union republics') and Richard Nixon was in the White House. In just over a week’s time, Nixon campaign aide, Herbert Porter, would plead guilty to the charge of lying to the FBI during the early stages of the Watergate investigation. Nixon’s resignation would follow 8 months later.Mao Zedong was Chairman of the Communist Party in China.

The United States had withdrawn from Vietnam the previous year, but fighting still continued between the communist North and the government of South Vietnam. Two days earlier (18th January), Egypt and Israel had signed an armistice agreement officially ending their 1973 war. The agreement became known as Sinai I because it was signed in the Sinai peninsula and involved Israel’s occupation of that strategic desert. Sinai I had been achieved after a heavily publicised week of shuttling between the two countries by US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who for his efforts was hailed in the media as the 'Superman of diplomacy'. It was only later that American taxpayers would learn that Sinai I laid the groundwork for the start of unprecedented massive aid to Israel by the United States, which continues to this day.

British Prime Minister, Edward Heath, still had two months’ tenancy on Number 10 Downing Street, before Harold Wilson (Labour) would move in for his second term. A fortnight earlier, the Conservative Government had introduced The Three-Day Week to conserve electricity during industrial action by coal miners.

Conflict (‘The Troubles’) was ongoing between elements of Northern Ireland's nationalist community (principally Roman Catholic) who wanted Northern Ireland to be politically reunited with the rest of Ireland, and the unionist community (principally Protestant) who wanted it to remain part of the United Kingdom.

Trousers made from about four square miles of fabric (typically polyester - the new staple fibre) had begun making an appearance, together with massive shirt collars, so big that you glided if you fell over. Platforms were everywhere, but had not yet reached the heady heights of 1975, when, to be 'hip', at least 2 inch soles and 5 inch heels were required.While the 'No Style' hairstyle was the barnet of choice, the mullet was already popular, due in part to the influence of David Bowie, who wore the haircut circa 1972-1973.

'The Sting' (Paul Newman and Robert Redford) and the original 'The Exorcist' were showing in US cinemas, and Peter Benchley's novel, 'Jaws', had just been published (16th January).

The New Seekers were top of the UK singles’ chart with their second biggest hit, 'You Won't Find Another Fool Like Me'. Towards the end of 1971, the group had recorded an adaptation of the Coca-Cola jingle, ‘I'd Like to Buy the World a Coke’. Reworked as ‘I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing’, the song became a worldwide success.

The top selling album that week was ‘Sladest’ by glam rock group Slade.Meanwhile, in the US, Al Wilson’s ‘Show And Tell’ was the #1 single, and Jim Croce’s ‘You Don't Mess Around With Jim’, first released in 1972, was in its second week at the top of the album chart. Renewed interest had been sparked in Jim Croce’s albums following his premature death in a small commercial plane crash in September 1973. He is probably best remembered for the songs ‘Bad, Bad Leroy Brown’ and ‘Time in a Bottle’, both #1 hits in 1973.

'Time In A Bottle' by Jim Croce (written for his unborn son):

If I could save time in a bottle

The first thing that I'd like to do

Is to save every day 'til eternity passes away

Just to spend them with you.

If I could make days last forever

If words could make wishes come true

I'd save every day like a treasure and then

Again I would spend them with you.

But there never seems to be enough time

To do the things you want to do

Once you find themI've looked around enough to know

That you're the one I want to go thru time with.

If I had a box just for wishes

And dreams that had never come true

The box would be empty except for the mem'ry of how

They were answered by you.

But there never seems to be enough time

To do the things you want to do

Once you find them

I've looked around enough to know

That you're the one I want to go thru time with.