A slice of life from the old days on the breadline

That bit of the childhood was as close to idyllic as it’s possible to get – certainly in the context of the circumstances in which I grew up – although when she was in critical mode my old granny used to say that my sister and I were being allowed to run wild. That said, when I look at the restrictive way in which the current generation of youngsters is being raised, with activities which cost invariably money and need a parent to drive the brats wherever, the old girl may have had a point.

But back to the tale and the story last week that CI Bakery is to close because it can’t compete with bread imports from the United Kingdom took me back to a knock on the door of our Trinity home one dark evening well over six decades ago. The proverbial ‘man at the door’ – which with genuine fear in my heart I thought was Mr de la Haye from up the road who’d seen me (thankfully from a distance) in his orchard that afternoon – was in fact Mr Therin who had the shop across the road from the Le Vesconte Monument just up the road from the church and the parish hall and, more to the point, was the baker.

He asked to see my mother and introduced to her the man with him – Ralph Le Marquand, the owner of Le Brun’s Bakery, to whom he had sold his bread business. I can’t remember much else about it other than this vague recollection that I was no longer despatched on the one-hour plus round trip to Mr Therin’s to collect the bread because Le Brun’s delivered theirs.

The thing I remember with absolute clarity was that the old man preferred Mr Therin’s bread to that produced by ‘the bread factory’ and made his views known at every opportunity he had in the ensuing decades. It followed, of course, that with this dislike of the product came a parallel dislike of all things associated with Le Brun’s, to the highly embarrassing point where even as a guest in a relative’s home, he would ask if whatever he was eating – be it bread or any other of baked products – came from there.

Unfortunately for the image of Le Brun’s, the view expressed by the old man was not held by him alone and it has to be said that the bakery’s image was sometimes the subject of the occasional bit of humour. I can remember running into one of that lot in the Big House years ago who was still laughing outside in The Square at something he’d just heard in a debate.

Our elected representatives had been discussing a Social Security proposal to give assistance to people who, for medical reasons, had to eat gluten free products. The then committee president, then Senator but now Constable Len Norman, with that deadpan look that he has carefully honed and perfected over many years in politics, told the States that ‘it may come as a surprise to some Members but there are Island residents who will never, ever enjoy the delights of a Le Brun’s white sliced’. By all accounts, most Members fell about laughing.

However, as has been said elsewhere, the said demise of the bakery’s heirs and successors – and the even sadder consequence regarding the loss of jobs – might hopefully bring about the creation of at least a few business opportunities if someone seeks to fill the void.

It would give me and many others a lot of pleasure to see a 21st century version of Trinity’s Mr Therin emerge from this sad business after more than 60 years. As the old saying goes, what goes around comes around.

IN more hope than expectation it would be nice to think that by the time this has been published the threatened strike by bus drivers will have been called off and sensible discussions will have taken place in an attempt to resolve this dispute without depriving the travelling public of a much needed and (by me and many others of my age and more) much appreciated service.

There is usually more to these sort of things than is in the public domain but it seems to me that if there is a procedure for resolving disciplinary matters – as seems to be the case with the driver sacked after being convicted of driving without due care and attention following a passenger falling out of an open door – then surely that procedure should be exhausted before strike action is even contemplated.

One comment I felt was interesting was that of the bus company’s chief executive Dai Powell, who urged the travelling public not to direct hostility at drivers because the ‘dispute seems to be with the union and not the majority of drivers’.

That pretty much tied in with what the driver of the bus I got on a few days ago told me, saying very clearly and certainly not in a whisper that very few of his colleagues wanted to lose money by going on strike.

And finally,

As someone who as a kid probably spent as much time during the summer holidays in the sea as I did out of it, I felt sorry that former Jersey Swimming Club president Neil Faudemer failed in his attempt to complete the 19-mile swim between here and Guernsey last week. It was a brave effort and, given the amount of preparation he must have had to do, one which deserved success. That said, surely it’s time to call it a day Neil, before someone gets hurt.