LIKE all past Lieutenant-Governors, Sir Stephen Dalton said goodbye to Jersey at a formal States Meeting, culminating in that ritual valedictory walk across the Royal Square to a car that whisked him straight off to the airport.
Where Sir Stephen departed from tradition was by coming back in a public role less than 12 months later. The former Chief of the Air Staff took on the chair of ArtHouse Jersey, an appointment he left this month (June) after three years’ service.
He stresses, of course, that he had checked that his successor Vice-Admiral Sir Jerry Kyd had no objection before he accepted the role, and it is true that modern technology allowed some of the chairman’s duties to be performed remotely from his home in Scotland.
Nevertheless, with a regular airlink from Glasgow, Sir Stephen has been a visible presence in the Island for board meetings, exhibitions and to see the many friends he and his wife made during his tenure as the last Lieutenant-Governor in the reign of the late Queen Elizabeth II.
“I’m so pleased [because] it’s been a hugely rewarding experience. I had always admired ArtHouse Jersey for what it does. I think the overriding factor was that we needed to make some governance and some commercial changes to how the charity was running… to make sure that it was fit for purpose,” Sir Stephen said.
What he calls “getting it into a better sustainable position financially and governance-wise” involved changing its legal status to a company limited by guarantee, introducing a policy for financial reserves and developing a planned approach to the recruitment of trustees.
He explained that the approach was to think more critically about what ArtHouse Jersey was doing and how it went about it. “Otherwise, you tend to get situations I’ve seen many times in many charities before where it just carries on doing the same thing all the time – probably a good job but no one’s actually checking as to whether it’s the right thing to be doing at the right time, in the right way.”
These days there is a commercial reality to running a charity, as he explained. “They may not be into making profit but the problem is they have got to be well run, and they’ve got to manage within their budgets.
“There are some that I think are still living in an era where the assumption is that it will always be possible to go back and get more money from government or that government won’t allow these things to fail. Well, that just isn’t true anymore. Jersey, like many governments around the world now, does not have a bottomless pit.
“I think the important thing, to my mind, is that people need to live by a rules-based system, and the rules-based system for this is: you get this money, you manage it properly, you live within your budget, and you do what you say you’re going to do.”
Among Sir Stephen’s special memories as chairman are the success of the Floating Earth installation in Queen’s Valley which attracted an estimated 31,000 visits and the recent community opera Held in the Tide staged at the restored Opera House, yet he lingers on something he believes is more fundamental still.
He continued: “I’m most proud of the fact that ArtHouse Jersey gives away a lot of money each year to budding artists; to those who are looking to develop, not only their own talents but potentially a career, whether it be music or painting, or printing, or poetry, or whatever. And I think that’s something that you should be really proud of because I think it’s really important to have that opportunity, especially in somewhere like Jersey where such opportunities are not necessarily readily available elsewhere.”
Supporting the arts is important, in his view, because of the contribution they make to wellbeing and sense of community. “I have seen the benefit that comes from people having that opportunity to engage with the arts – those who are physically or mentally having a tough time, and they go along to something and you can see the difference when they come out from it.
“You can see things, you can experience things, and [get into] discussion about things [which] makes you feel better. So the wellbeing aspect, I think, is really important and Jersey could still do a lot more to recognise that around the place,” he said.
Unsurprisingly, Sir Stephen takes a pragmatic view of arts funding, recognising that there will always be other legitimate claims on the public purse; and he praises the States’ policy of setting aside one per cent of its budget for arts and heritage, something he calls “an extraordinary example” of the Island’s enlightened approach.
“I think it demonstrates to the commercial world in Jersey just how important the arts are to the Island because the government puts in money from the public purse, and it’s apparently being well-supported by the States. That’s really important,” he said.
But he has a concern as someone who has witnessed from the inside the challenges facing an arts organisation.
“The arts in Jersey are in good shape but there’s more stability needed – there’s more predictability needed because most sponsors – including the government – allocate money on an annual basis. Well, to provide the quality of exhibitions and productions that we have been doing, you need to start that three years in advance and if you don’t know that you’re going to have that money in three years’ time, it’s a bit tricky.
“When you’re trying to enable some of the exhibitions to come from Normandy or from England, or wherever, you need to be assured that you’ve got that cover for at least three years in advance; so some sort of scheme where we can guarantee the level of income for three years, either from government or from sponsors or whatever, is really important. And it’s getting into the mind of the decision-makers that that’s not because we are trying to do anything other than to improve the quality of what we put on,” Sir Stephen said.
During his five-year term as Lieutenant-Governor – interrupted of course by the Covid pandemic – Sir Stephen was a staunch supporter of all aspects of Island life. Nevertheless, it was not difficult to detect a particular enthusiasm for the arts whether he was attending art exhibitions, concerts or the theatre. Where did it originate?
Sir Stephen is not himself a practitioner but he has always enjoyed the special quality of the arts to transport you from the concerns of your own life into an imaginary world where things are done differently.
“What’s actually being said? Why was the artist thinking that? What did the writer of the play or the producer of the music mean? Why did he, or she, do that in that way? I find all that fascinating. I’m also incredibly jealous of other people’s ability to draw or to paint,” he said.
His home is only half an hour from Edinburgh’s National Gallery of Scotland, while travelling north he and Lady Dalton can enjoy the output of one of the country’s most dynamic theatres in Pitlochry. Meanwhile they already have tickets booked for a performance by the Scottish Chamber Orchestra on tour this week to smaller community venues.
“We’re very fortunate here. We’re surrounded by fascinating performances and productions, and occasionally I have to go down to London – everyone does at some stage or other – and often there’s a couple of hours to pop into the National Portrait Gallery or wherever.”
Although he is no longer chairman of ArtHouse Jersey, Sir Stephen will maintain his links with the Island, particularly on the cultural front. He and Lady Dalton will return in October for an exhibition by the artist Rosemary Blackmore.
Does Sir Stephen have any advice for his yet-to-be-appointed successor? He responds emphatically: “Gosh, no.” But commenting on the charitable sector generally, he does offer something that others might find useful:
“I used to think that many of the charities in Jersey were run by really dedicated people but they were not necessarily those who thought in a long term commercial [way] and why should they? That’s not what they formed the charity for. They formed it to deliver either a service or they saw a need or whatever.
“But when you are a bigger charity – and there are several big ones in Jersey, of course – there’s no question in my mind that you have to have a proper commercial plan. You’ve got to be able to deliver but you’ve got to live within your means. And if any of them can’t do that, then perhaps they need a strong look at their own governance,” he said.
