She was called the Jersey Lily after her protrait was painted by Millais, himself from a Channel Islands family. She had black hair and stone-white skin. He painted her holding a flower and entitled the work, which was exhibited at the Royal Academy, ‘A Jersey Lily’. It was her name forever.
Wherever she went, to America, throughout Europe, as the guest of the great, the mistress of a king, she knew that one day she would go back to the small place that gave her birth. She died in Monte Carlo in 1929 and her dearest wish was answered; she was buried at St Saviour’s.
Although they are all collected in the Gulf of St Malo, the Channel Islands are well scattered, sometimes twenty miles between them. Jersey sits apart, a Victorian father in his sanctum. It is Guernsey, the mother island, that has the company of the family about her. From the splendid harbour at St Peter Port you can see that she is cast about with other islands, islets and colonies of rocks. Herm, Jethou, Brechou and Sark are there on the immediate horizon, Alderney is just beyond. One of the great joys of that place is at evening – to see the sky spread across the patterned sea and to see the bright red and blue ferry steamer from the mainland, making her entry into the setting, on her way to her berth at St Peter Port.
Sark is a surprising island for it rises high from the sea and is surrounded by a skirt of difficult water and many outlandish rocks (one looking like the Loch Ness Monster). To navigate the notorious current can be a difficult feat, but its reward is to arrive into the enclosed harbour that is the smallest registered port in the world. A tunnel, carved out in the sixteenth century, leads the passenger from the quay to the interior, a curious experience in itself. At the distant outlet of the tunnel he will find the island transport awaiting him – tractors towing ‘toast rack’ carts. There are no cars on Sark. The tractors, the horses and carts, and the many bicycles are the only means of getting around.
Feudal rule has held sway since 1565 when Elizabeth I presented the island to Helier de Carteret, a nobleman from Jersey, to fortify and to cultivate. One of the battery of cannon she sent for this purpose is still to be seen. The ruler, called either the Seigneur or the Dame, has wide power. Only he or she is allowed to keep a bitch, a dove or a duck. A levy of a chicken a year is paid by householders. During the German occupation in World War II the Dame, Sybil Hathaway, made it clear to the conquerors that she was still to be counted. She would receive German officers in a long room at her official residence, her desk raised on a dais at the far end. They had to walk a long way to approach her and only then would she deign to look up from the work on her desk. They were left in no doubt as to who was giving audience to whom.
Herm island is ruled, although not by title, by another singular person, Major Peter Wood who, with his wife Jenny, came to land there not long after World War II and found the whole place a sad, overgrown wildnerness. Their years of work and organization have borne fruit for today it is a quiet and lovely place, rich with flowers and scents, puckered with fine bays including one, Shell Beach, which is an object of pilgrimage for conchologists from many countries. The island has its own hotel and farm. I have known Peter Wood for some years and on my last visit we walked slowly around the entire island in an hour. Every now and then he would stand and point out some view or some curiosity with the enthusiasm and sincerity that you imagine he felt all those years ago when he first arrived there.
He is so familiar with every inch of that enclosed landscape that he even notices when two small boulders are in different positions from the places they occupied the previous week. He is concerned that the island should remain as it is. Herm is packed with wild flowers, scenting the deep lanes, and visitors are requested, on landing, not to pick them.
There was a stray white duck in the harbour. It had been there for about a month waiting to be fed at appointed times, quite solitary, swimming in the water of the new tide as it eddied in. ‘I can’t ever see us wanting to leave here,’ said Peter looking across the sea that was the colour of a peacock. Guernsey, the nearest civilization, looked very far away. ‘In more than thirty years we’ve become as much a part of this island as the rocks. People ask us what we get from it, don’t we get bored with it? The answer is that we get tranquillity – and that is something we could never be bored with.’ The duck on the harbour wall, with a short quack, flopped into the water and paddled around. He apparently agreed.
Small yellow aircraft hum between the islands; operated by Aurigny Airlines – Aurigny being the ancient name for Alderney which was the site, oddly, of the first airport in the islands. The planes are the subject of many legends and a few jokes. But they are sturdy, safe, and their high wings allow the passenger a lyrical view. They link the islands with Dinard in France and with Southampton and despite the fact that their longest flight is only a little over half an hour the airline boasts its own in-flight magazine.
In the first days of flying to the Channel Islands the service was operated by a De Havilland Dragonfly, a wonderful plane which, it is said, was the only aircraft ever to be retired because of woodworm – the pest got into the airframe! Before the construction of Jersey Airport the plane used to land on St Ouen’s beach (and on one occasion just off the beach – in the sea). There is still a story about a jolly pilot who used to sit in the passenger seat wearing a civilian overcoat. He would look grumpily at his watch and announce that if the pilot did not arrive soon he would fly the plane himself. Other passengers would laugh at the little joke until he got up, sat behind the controls and started the engines. Consternation had to be stifled by letting them in on the joke.
Today’s small planes buzz like wasps between the islands and nowhere is the landing more interesting than on Alderney, where the runway is just inland from the grey cliffs that look as formidable from a height of 1,000 feet as they do from below.
St Anne on Alderney is the sweetest town in the Channel Islands; cobbled streets, coloured houses, wisteria drooping from gardens, window boxes bright along the pavements; it has the undoubted air of having been somehow wafted from the Normandy Bocage region just across the water. The Germans took the bells from the church (and chopped up the pews for firewood) but they were found in Cherbourg after World War II and returned to their rightful belfry in the church which is said to have no equal in the islands. To hear those bells calling over the fields of Alderney, across the bays, the harbour, the cliffs and over the sea, is to hear a lovely sound – the sound of an island.
Chausey is the shy French cousin. People who think they know the Channel Islands well confess to never having heard of it. But it is there, not just one island but more than fifty, poking their noses from the sea, eight of them with grass and salty trees.
It took a verdict from the International Court to decide that Chausey was truly part of France and that the smaller islands – Les Ecréhous and Les Minquiers – belonged to Jersey. Marmotière, on Les Ecréhous, has a little ‘town’ – a single short street and a customs post. On Blanque Island there once lived a hermit called Pinel who received a present from Queen Victoria, a grand officer’s uniform coat – but no trousers. He was there for forty years, sometimes wearing his coat as he sat outside his house. He was followed years later by another voluntary castaway, a jolly gentleman called Le Gastelois who, wrongly accused of a crime in Jersey, took himself off to Les Ecréhous and remained there until proved innocent.
I went from Granville in Normandy to Chausey on a blissful summer’s day with a company of French fishermen who were sailing to gather the pickings of the lowest tide of the year – an amazing drop of more than forty feet which brings the rocks and islands out of the sea like the scaly backs of a herd of monsters. The men spent the day among the pools and inlets while I wandered about the delightful Grande lie, drank and ate at the inn, looked over the school wall at the island children and sat in superb isolation on the beach. Glowing with the happiness that such a day can bring I boarded the boat with the fishermen again. They were well satisfied. Their buckets and creels were full.
Back to France we went, across the silk evening sea. Sausages, thick bread and wine were produced. With some difficulty I attempted to tell my neighbour of the effect that beautiful and peaceful place had on me. I ended my recitation, ‘C’est paradis.’
Through a mouthful of bread and sausage, which he cleared with a swig of wine, he acknowledged that judging by my French I was English.
‘’Eaven,’ he nodded, ‘C’est ’eaven.’
ENGLISH CHANNEL ISLANDS situated between latitudes 48°52’–49°43’N and longitudes 1°49’–2°35’W; total area 75 sq. m (194 sq. km); approx. population: Jersey 82,000, Guernsey 55,000, Alderney 2,000, Sark 600, Herm 37, Jethou 8; Britain. Chausey, approx. population 110; France
Capri
An Island in Autumn
Only by coming back to the island people can understand what rewards life grants to those who stay.
EDWIN CERIO, On Capri
October morning came to the Bay of Naples with a soft brush of sunshine touching Sorrento, the great mountains hung with cloud, Naples itself still wet from an overnight thunderstorm, and the islands calm and composed in the pale sea. Ischia and little Procida blinked in the new sun and on Capri I opened my windows, stepped out on to the terrace and, looking around, knew at once that all that is said about Capri is true. It is one of the world’s beautiful places.
I had arrived on the previous black night in the very clutch of the thunderstorm – Wagner rather than the expected Rossini. The ferry from Naples plunged and jumped through the surprising waves, lightning smacked the sea and heaven rolled horribly. It was impossible to remain on deck and stay dry, so, with my fellow travellers and sufferers, I sat stoically trying to watch an ancient cowboy film on the saloon television. It was so old even Gabby Hayes looked young. To see him do his famous monosyllable-and-spitting act in dubbed Italian might have been engrossing had not the small ship been going up and down like a rocking horse. The Italians have an apt way with words for useful things – the vomitario on the vessel was well patronized.
All through the bumpy voyage of an hour and twenty minutes the land was never far away. Sorrento’s stationary lights seemed within grabbing distance and Capri itself, upon hopeful investigation, appeared only a couple of cable lengths ahead of the ship. What could we be doing out on that bumpy sea for so long?
Eventually, in the full sense of the word, the pitching eased and our little vessel emitted a relieved toot, high like a hunting horn. Stepping out onto the deck I experienced that incomparable feeling once more, that sensation known to those chosen people who love islands and can go to them. There it was directly ahead of us, 10,000 lights climbing the black form of a hillside. The mole of the harbour slipped by, the waves quietened at once like chastened children, the air felt warm, the scent of pasta drifted from the port. All was well.
Twice happy now, for being there and for escaping the ill-temper of the sea, the passengers hustled ashore. I had made no definite plans, but my immediate future was fixed for me by fate and a young man with a pencil moustache and a peaked cap sporting the legend Savoy Hotel. I am, as I have previously confessed, a traveller who can stand anything but discomfort and the name on the cap was the reassurance I needed. I handed him my bags and we set off at a good gait along the quayside. I was immediately glad I had discovered him, and him me. ‘Capri,’ he said somehow managing to spread one hand theatrically although still humping the cases, ‘she is like a ship, signore. Me, I was a steward on the liner called the Galileo. It was no difference to me for all my life I lived in this place like a ship at sea.’
It was not a matter of getting into a taxi. Briskly he led me through a big cave in the rock face. He paid at a kiosk without putting down the luggage and led me busily on. It was like going into one of the rides at Disney World. The aptly named funivia, a cable car, ascends from the cavern. We climbed into one of the compartments and at once the doors clattered shut and we were clanking splendidly up the flank of the dark mountain with the lights of the harbour spreading out below. It was a brief journey. The doors opened and the man from the Savoy bustled out with me in his wake. It was all I could do to keep up.
He bounded up some steps from the funivia with me in pursuit. He opened a door and we set out into one of the most lovely and surprising situations I can ever recall. We were in the miniature town square of Capri, enclosed, with old butter-coloured buildings, and café chairs and tables set around, warmly lit, and a splendid set of stone steps rising from the back. It was like a large stage, the set all ready for the opera. All that was lacking this night were the performers. The rain had stopped but a wet-nosed wind pushed through the crevices of the buildings. A solitary, elderly lady sat, rather regally, at one of the café tables sipping a drink and looking around as if wondering where everyone else had gone.
The man from the Savoy had plunged into a narrow alley, all tight shadows and curves, with lights seeping from small windows and courtyards. Music, smells and voices came from the windows. The further my friend went the faster he walked; perhaps it was the scent of home. He turned right like a soldier and down another flight of worn steps. I could smell the overhanging flowers in the darkness. Now we were there, the Savoy Hotel. It was patently a good deal less grand than its title. My guide, like a man performing a quick-change act, shuffled quickly behind the reception desk and took off his peaked porter’s cap which he placed in a drawer. ‘Welcome to the Savoy Hotel, signore,’ he smiled expansively. ‘I would like that you meet the owner.’ He thrust out his hand. ‘Gianni Tarantino. It is me.’
*
There are two towns on Capri, each one small, each charming, each different. The island is like three steps with the Marina Grande harbour on the first, Capri town on the one above and Anacapri, the second settlement, on the top step. At one time a ladder cut into the soaring rock of this limited but lofty place, gave the only access from the haven at Marina Grande and from Capri to Anacapri. There were more than 800 crazy steps called the Phoenician Staircase. Communications between the two towns were understandably few. Until the road was built in 1874 they regarded each other with suspicion and dislike, usual between neighbouring states or nations.
During my first night on the island I could hear the thunderstorm still tramping around the mainland mountains. It was like having a drunk in the room upstairs.
But by morning I knew he had gone. I lay listening to the private sounds of birds in a garden, somebody calling up from a valley, or down a hill, a single bell sounding. I opened the shutters and looked out with the surprise that is no surprise on a new scene on a new island.
My room was perched halfway up the arm of a valley, looking out over flowers, trees, ochre buildings, and beyond that the ruffled blue sea. There was that well-washed smell and balmy feel that comes after a storm. I watched a man warily pulling the coloured sun awning down over the front of his shop, cautious in case it was harbouring a reservoir of rainwater. He pulled. It was. Over the canvas the water gushed and he jumped away. Two other men laughed and shouted late advice. To one side, heading inland, the hill curved like a brandy glass, with the tiles of houses and the neat cupola of a church rising above its greenery. On the other side palms and cypresses fell away cosseting more sunny walls Flowers dripped everywhere, the splendid bougainvillaea (first brought from the Solomon Islands to the Mediterranean by Bougainville, the explorer), vivid hibiscus, the frangipani of the tropics (although named after an Italian family), alongside clusters of quiet familiar roses. Below my balcony was a banana tree in fruit.
Had I expected, as most travellers to Capri expect, a place of super-sophistication, with every sleek tourist delight on view, everyone a society name, a jet-setter, an aristocrat of the world, then I was mistaken. Capri, despite the fashions of decades, still belongs to its own people. They have seen everything and everybody, right there on their doorstep, and they are no longer amazed or impressed. Their lives, in the main, are simple, village-like, with the tourist industry floating slightly
above their heads. Even the delights for the visitor here are modest: there were no fine yachts in the harbour, no grand motor cars (no grand roads either), and the only way to reach the island is by the frequently bumpy boat or the hydrofoil. The islanders started a helicopter service from Naples but it was not a success. The landing pad is now a mass of wild flowers.
Naturally the hub, nub and hubbub of Capri town is the miniature square into which I had emerged on the previous night with such pleasure and surprise. It is splendidly called – entitled – the Piazza Umberto, an appellation which, while it sounds impressive, gives no feel whatever of its delights. Sitting in one of the cane chairs of the three cafés whose tables elbow each other for space on the cobbles, I took it all in, on that first morning, and saw that it was hardly bigger than a couple of tennis courts. And yet so much has been crammed into that space. Shops and the cafés, the municipality, the cathedral with its steps and the lovely campanile and happy clock which are across the street. Flowers spill from walls and urns, a stone prelate sends out a blessing from a small niche, like a saint sheltering from a shower; the clock of the cathedral (its bright face formed by polished tiles and figures) chimes according to its own peculiar pattern. Each quarter it strikes not only the quarter but the hour as well, to remind drowsy people of the exact passage of time.
Around the Piazza the walls of the buildings are old and rich in colour, ancient reds and cheesy yellows, with every iron balcony tendrilled with flowers. To sit there of an evening is to watch the little world of Capri. There are no cars so that everything for the shops in the surrounding alleys has to be transported by small trolleys and carts, some motorized, some pulled by men or boys. Wine, vegetables, bread, boxes, crates and carboys are trundled across the square by dark muttering men, or lads who are inclined to collide with obstacles while eyeing the local maidens. Mere visitors stand back and watch the scene for they are not included, only as bystanders. The lights come on to illuminate it all, the sounds of a debate issue loudly from the council chamber on an upper floor. You can see the councillors’ backsides on the window sills. Music and perfume come from the windows. The Capriots stand and chatter in groups, children play, dogs, cats and the occasional smirking goat wander obliquely. Tourists sit back like an audience. More people gather on the rising steps at the back of the square. The lights are bright. You realize you are watching a stage. It is the beginning of an Italian opera. At any moment you expect the activity to be stilled by someone in a doublet entering right, throwing his arms out, and singing loudly that ‘The King is Coming!’
My World of Islands Page 15
