By John Boothman
HISTORIANS would like you to think so, while others are sceptical. Henry Ford said history was ‘mostly bunk’, and philosopher Georg Hegel thought the only lesson from history was that nothing was learnt from it.
But perhaps those who diligently chronicle the past are on to something. In 1651, the brutal nine-year English Civil War came to an end with the abolition of the monarchy and its replacement by an authoritarian republican regime. The 1789 French Revolution and the 1917 Russian Revolution had similar outcomes.
English king Charles I believed in his divine right to rule; he was an autocratic leader who paid no attention to those counselling caution. In January 1649 he was convicted of treason at a show trial and beheaded. French king Louis XVI shared Charles’s belief in absolutism and ignored courtiers urging concessions. Had he paid closer attention to Charles’s downfall, he might have escaped his rendezvous with the guillotine in January 1793.
By the beginning of the 20th century, Tsar Nicholas II was an outlier among European monarchs – he believed in a mystical link between himself and the Russian people, and made few concessions to popular unrest and demands for a more representative system of government.
After seizing control, the Bolsheviks didn’t bother with a show trial: Nicholas and his whole family were summarily executed in July 1918. If, like most of his wiser royal contemporaries, he had embraced constitutional monarchy and representative democracy (or even studied the fates of Charles and Louis), perhaps the revolution could have been avoided entirely, and millions of lives spared – including those of the Romanovs. We’ll never know.
Here, too, echoes from the past can still be heard – if we listen closely enough. In 1694, clergyman and historian Philip Falle lamented the decline of agriculture (or as he put it more colourfully, ‘This decay of tillage’), which he attributed to cheap foreign competition for wheat; the increase of stocking-making, ‘which, to speak truth, has rendered the generality of our poorer People idle and lazy, and has given them an aversion to Husbandry, as a more painful Occupation’; and ‘the conversion of the best arable grounds into Gardens and Orchards for the growth of Cider’. The consequence of all this was that ‘the Island doth not now produce that Quantity [of corn] as is necessary for the Use of the Inhabitants.’ The shortfall had to be made up by imports from France (in peacetime), England and Poland.
Knitting, cider-making and farming continued in the decades that followed; smuggling, privateering, oyster farming and cod fishing came and (mostly) went – though as late as the 1830s cider was still the main source of farmers’ wealth.
Ships had been built in Jersey since ancient times, mostly for local merchants and fishermen, but the industry flourished in the Victorian era. The main material was oak, imported tariff-free, and while there were shipyards at Gorey and Havre des Pas the chief centre of activity was in St Aubin’s Bay. By the 1860s no fewer than 18 yards were in production, and the Island had become one of the foremost shipbuilding centres in the British Isles. But as steam supplanted sail, and wooden hulls gave way to iron, decline set in; by 1890 nothing was left but a couple of repair yards. Neither for the first time nor the last, the Island economy went through a cycle of reversal and regeneration.
The big splurge
Whatever criticisms may have been laid at the door of the States over many centuries, extravagance has seldom been among them. Personal thrift, low taxation and frugality were the watchwords of those aspiring to elected office. Only in the present century has parsimony decisively given way to profligacy. Fifty years ago, the annual States budget was around £10 million; today, it is closer to £1,000m. Even allowing for rampant inflation, that’s quite a jump.
Last week brought news of a major government computer project nearing completion. The grandly-named Integrated Technology Solution (ITS) was launched in 2020 with a budget of £28m, increased a year later to £40m; and the estimated cost is now £63.5m. That, however, seems unlikely to be the final figure. A well-informed source tells me that the eventual tab will exceed £70m, and this for a system that is entirely internal, with no visible benefit to those (us) who have paid for it. ‘Digital Jersey’ still seems a distant prospect where public services are concerned.
Meanwhile, we have been treated to another instalment in the saga of the Opera House, whose chequered history surely outdoes any dramatic performance staged there. The present building stands on the site of the 1865 Royal Amphitheatre. This burned to the ground in March 1899 and was replaced by a new theatre, which in turn suffered a serious fire in May 1921.
The present building largely dates from the redevelopment that took place then. It was bought by the States in 1995 for £1.3m and a further £7m, mostly public money, was spent on renovation. Such has been the subsequent deterioration that now – barely 20 years later – another £11.5m has been earmarked for a full restoration.
Why was a public asset allowed to reach such a state? Whatever happened to routine repairs and maintenance? Answers please, but not on a postcard – we can’t afford the stamp.
Born free
The past may belong to historians, and the present to politicians and consultants, but the future emphatically belongs to the young.
One compensation of growing old is that your offspring tend to have offspring of their own. Becoming a grandparent is among the great joys of later life.
I realise that stories of other people’s children and grandchildren are tedious, but occasionally an incident occurs that deserves to be shared. We recently had a visit from Danny (6) and Maisie (4) (names have been changed to protect the innocent).
On arrival at our house, their first priority is always the ‘beauty salon’, in which the victim, yours truly, is given various treatments. Since the products – lipstick, eyeliner, nail varnish etc – are all made of wood, no material improvement in my appearance is so far detectable, which means that the sessions need to be regularly, and brutally, reprised.
A refinement introduced by Danny, who perhaps has a bright future in the prison service, is that the person undergoing treatment is tied to the chair with ribbons round their wrists and ankles, to prevent any escape. (The same ploy might be adopted by other beauticians with nervous clients.) On this occasion, he asked if I had a much longer ribbon – one long enough to go round my tummy. From then on, the dialogue went as follows:
Me: ‘Why does it need to go round my tummy?’
Danny (giggling): ‘To support the baby in there.’
Me: ‘But I don’t have a baby in my tummy, I’m a man.’
A brief pause – then Danny: ‘You’re a man on the outside, Grandpa, but a woman on the inside.’ Cue shrieks of laughter from both children.
Later, when the beauty salon had mercifully closed for the day, the horseplay was getting a bit rough, so I reminded them to be careful of my unborn baby.
Danny: ‘It’s all right, Grandpa, you’re not pregnant any more. You’ve had it.’
Me: ‘Where is it then?’
Danny and Maisie: ‘It ran away.’
Can’t say I blame it.
