ALTHOUGH his departure hasn’t been without pomp, with two farewell dinners, assorted tributes and a visit from a leading UK parliamentarian, one senses that Jersey’s 90th Bailiff has been comfortable with a certain level of retirement ceremony.
During a long and convivial chat coinciding with his final week in office, Sir Timothy Le Cocq referenced his enthusiasm for medieval times, his collection of swords and expressed a wish to get back on a horse.
One could almost imagine that the retiring Bailiff might have donned a cape, tucked a sword into his belt and made his way across the Royal Square on horseback after his final day in court yesterday, although in reality he wouldn’t have wanted that level of fuss.
“I’ve always been a bit of a medievalist – as far as I’m concerned, if society brooked people walking around with capes and wearing swords, as in Elizabethan England, that would have been my fine by me,” he said.
“I know you can’t really have people walking round with weapons, but the swashbuckling nature of it is has always had quite an appeal.”
The equestrian leaning formed part of a list of things to do in retirement, once the pressures of a day-job presiding over the States Assembly and heading the Island’s judiciary are behind him.
“One thing I would quite like to do before I’m too feeble is to sit on a horse again,” he admitted. “I used to ride regularly with the Jersey Drag Hunt, and while I have no intention of doing anything vigorous like that, the odd hack around the lanes or canter across a field on a friendly animal would be a nice thing to do.”
Culminating on the sixth anniversary of being sworn in as Bailiff on 17 October 2019, Sir Timothy’s last week was a busy one. As well as “day-job” commitments in court and the unveiling of a portrait, a Wednesday evening dinner was scheduled with court staff and others representing the judicial side of his dual role, followed by a similar event last night for States Members and government figures.
“There used to be one large dinner, but it was pointed out that if you do two dinners, they could be hosted in the Old Library [within the Royal Court building] and thereby save quite a lot of money, which was a sensible thing for the public purse, rather than hiring an outside venue,” he said.
The second dinner was due to be attended by the Speaker of the House of Commons, Sir Lindsay Hoyle MP, as part of a three-day visit to the Island.
Although there are differences in their roles – the UK Speaker is an elected MP, for one – they have a great deal in common, both being aged 68 and taking up their roles in 2019, and have met at a number of Commonwealth gatherings.
Sir Timothy said: “He wants to reach out to parliaments that are part of the British ‘family’, and we are among those.
“It’s not a political thing, as the Bailiff doesn’t do anything that’s political, but it’s representational and fosters an environment where parliamentarians can get together and talk and meet and feel comfortable.”
Maintaining links with Westminster and the British Crown are clearly important to the outgoing man, who talks with great pride about his role in proclaiming the accession of King Charles III to the throne in September 2022, attending the following year’s coronation and the subsequent royal visit by the King and Queen in July 2024.
But equally, Sir Timothy is conscious of Jersey’s unique position, a situation in which he takes even greater pride.
“We are a strange place, and I use that in a positive sense, aren’t we? We have this massive connection with the Crown, and I think you only had to be there during the Royal visit, to see how warmly they were received by Islanders.
“I shouldn’t have been, but I was slightly surprised that so many people turned out, and so many people really wanted to see them and meet them. So we have this enormous connection with the Crown, and it’s historic – Jersey, or at least the ruling families here, were Royalists during the Civil War, and we’ve always had this huge connection.
“But of course this loyalty comes from our Norman roots, including the origins of our laws, and having prayers in the States Assembly in French,” he added. “We have substantial Norman roots, and that continues to this day with things like parish twinning – we really are ‘mid-Channel’.”
Sir Timothy hinted during a farewell address to States Members two weeks ago, as the States Assembly adjourned for the last time before his retirement, that he might have more stories during his farewell dinner, but in reality there was no chance that the holder of a major office would in any way “dish the dirt”.
“There are things that one knows as presiding officer which are private to Members, sometimes they would be good stories, but they can’t ever be – if you can’t hold your tongue as Bailiff, then you shouldn’t be doing the job.
“Confidences are confidences, and the obligation to keep them doesn’t end with no longer being in office.”
This week has marked the end of a lengthy, albeit non-statutory, notice period since Sir Timothy announced to the States Assembly in early October 2024 that he would be retiring.
“The simple answer is I don’t have a contract, so it’s a matter of judgement,” he said. “If I’d written to the King and said ‘can I go next week?’ and he said ‘yes’, then there’d have been a week’s notice…
“But that’s me being flippant a bit, the reality is every Bailiff knows there is a long lead time needed, because people need to prepare, the recruitment of the new Bailiff and potentially Deputy Bailiff and all sorts of warrants and letters and other things that need doing.
“Everyone’s given a year [of notice], as far as I can recall, over the last two or three Bailiffs at least, if not longer.”
“Huge amounts of logistical difficulties” would ensue if there was ever a case where a suitably lengthy notice period couldn’t be given, Sir Timothy reflected, stressing that the aim was to have as short as possible a gap between his retirement and the swearing-in ceremony for his successor, current Deputy Bailiff Robert MacRae.
The new man will hold the role of Acting Bailiff for a week prior to taking the oath of office this Friday, while a new Deputy Bailiff is likely to be announced in the coming weeks.
“I very much hoped we’d have heard before now about the Deputy Bailiff, I don’t know why it’s taken a little bit more time than we would have thought – I would expect that the new Bailiff will be able to announce it at the next States sitting [starting this week] or the one after that [in the week of 10 November] – these things are always announced to the States before anywhere else.”
Having watched his successor take office, Sir Timothy and his wife will then head off for a week’s break in Spain in order to “decompress” a little, one of a number of trips in the pipeline, including some short UK flits over the coming months and an eye on longer-haul travel after that.
“I have a brother who lives in New Zealand and although he comes back to Jersey quite regularly, I have never been to visit him in all the decades he’s been there,” he said.
“I also have cousins in Australia who I haven’t seen since I was a teenager, and apart from a very short parliamentary visit to Canberra that only lasted four days, I’ve never been there either – going on holiday for several weeks isn’t something that’s been viable while in a job like this.”
And the legal boots won’t be entirely hung up, Sir Timothy anticipates.
“Provided the new Bailiff agrees, I would hope that I’ll be appointed as a commissioner of the court and thereby continue to sit from time to time, albeit much less regularly than I do now – it might be 50 or 60 days per year, something like that.
“I’m going to be sitting on our Court of Appeal, which I can do up until a certain age, and they just issued me a warrant for another five years to sit as a Deemster [judge] in the Isle of Man.”
As well as travelling, there are other things on the agenda for the ex-Bailiff.
“I’m looking forward to getting fitter and healthier – my wife’s a great walker and encourages me to be a walker as well, so I will be joining her on the coast path,” he said. “I also train at CrossFit, so will continue to do something like that and try to regain some of the mobility that sitting down for a living takes away.
“I’ve not become slim while I’ve been doing this job – getting fitter is going to be a real challenge, actually quite an interesting one for me to impose a kind of discipline that I haven’t found it easy to impose upon myself up to now.”
In recent years, the time Sir Timothy has allocated for reading has been almost entirely restricted to his professional life, poring over legal case notes, States propositions and other weighty documents, so he is looking forward to working his way through a pile of books on his “to-read” list that could number – he estimates – up to 100 titles.
“I was thinking which would be the first book I’d pick up,” he said. “The obvious one that springs to mind would be the one I bought most recently, so I’d have to look back through the whole pile to see which one is the right one to pick up first.
“I have a quite a range of interests, some historical, particularly Elizabethan history, and I’m a great reader of fantasy books – I was brought up on Lord of the Rings – so I expect I’ll enjoy mixing and matching when it comes to the books I read.”
Singing is another interest that has been on hold for many years.
“I used to be a member of one or two choirs growing up, and a barbershop quartet – those things have fallen by the wayside, and I’d hope the voice is still reasonable enough to sing a bit.”
And with that the image, even if it’s not the official script for a retiring Bailiff, returns to mind: a bearded man in a cape mounting his horse and trotting off into the distance, humming By the Light of a Silvery Moon, or another barbershop classic. It should be, one senses, a retirement to relish.
