ANYONE who took the opportunity to visit the St Helier RNLI station and crew during their open day a weekend ago could not have found any more convincing evidence of this Island’s inextricable relationship with our nautical surroundings, and indeed some of the paradoxes.

The men who confront the worst that weather and tide throw at them are those who are most attuned to the environment. Like their fellow seafarers, and notably our local fishermen, they have gained a first-hand understanding of man’s affinity with the larger scheme of things, not unlike mountain guides and farmers. And because of our position, surrounded by water, it brushes off by degree on us all.

You could go as far as to say that the sea – and hence our island status – actually influences everything we do. It has affected our history, climate, economy, lifestyle; the very people we are. It is both liberating and limiting.
Every bit of manufactured consumerism comes across it – how upset we are when the boat doesn’t come in! Our island location adds extra cost to most enterprises which depend on movement – business and holiday travel alike – and piles on considerable anxiety over meeting deadlines and appointments. We can be cut off by fog, storm, enemy action or plague. And although we can’t be immune from the material effects of rising oil and food prices, who would exchange the sound of the sea, the clear air and the sunsets for any economies of scale 100 miles north?

It’s this unique balance of contradiction which underpins our survival. It kept us from the worst of Nazi barbarity stamped on mainland Europe. In peace time it almost allows us to let in only those whom we want to; it has provided an attractive haven for the establishment of our current guarantors, the international finance industry.
Our 45 square mile postage stamp is an exclusive reference to have on your stationery. On a personal level, it allows us to distance ourselves from so many irksome, frightening social trends which we perceive affecting other parts of the metropolitan land masses around us.

So are we insular? Well, by definition, of course we are. It’s easy to tease us. ‘How do you tell a Jerseyman on holiday in London? He’s the one who walks into W H Smith and asks if the papers are in yet.’

There’s a comforting curtain which is drawn round our coast each night which insulates our daily thoughts and activities. It makes us reflect more closely on matters that affect us. Inevitably, we can be oversensitive – witness the recent bluster against the international media. But in the light of morning, do we lift our eyes across the horizon?

Of course we do – both literally and metaphorically.
There’s a hermit in all of us. When a Belgian monk set up home on a bare rock in St Aubin’s Bay back in the sixth century he had the best of both worlds – isolation when he needed it, and, when the tide went down – there were no Puddleducks in those times – the opportunity to engage with his closest land mass when he so desired.
And so it pertains to this day. Given the improvement in communications available to latter-day Heliers, we can effectively choose which links to pursue.

The problem with an island is that it can’t expand – give or take a couple of hundred grubby acres thrown out to sea ‘south of town’. It’s the sort of dilemma which faced West Berlin during the cold war. There, the price of even pretty mediocre property spiralled, and the hemmed-in population began to indulge in hyperactive displacement activity and short-termism. We can’t get away from the fact that our demand for land and facilities for working and living are rapidly increasing – 90,000 souls and rising – but we can’t go anywhere. The profligate issuing of J-category quallies only exacerbates the problem.

Clearly, a balance has to be struck to ensure broadening the gene pool and homeland investment for future generations, or we’ll face the prospect of our little island weighing metaphoric anchor and floating up the river which takes in Westminster and Tower Hamlets.

But we’re homing birds too. There’s no point in providing some of the best education in Europe – and believe me, I was recently privileged to witness at first hand the outstanding quality of students graduating from Hautlieu this year – if they then disappear below the radar because they simply can’t afford to return or set up home here and contribute to the community and economy.

Historically, the ebb and flow of people and talent has been one of the most positive influences on Island life. It mirrors the natural inevitability of life close to the sea. The tide comes in, and it goes out. Sometimes it’s calm, sometimes agitated.

Looking ahead, while we may not have the erosion problem of the coast of eastern England, the recent storms which flooded the St Helier waterfront area and denuded St Brelade of its golden sand sheet could be taken as an indication that things can disappear beneath the water. The sea gives, the sea takes away.

In the crew of the 20-year-old Sir Alexander Coutanche, we are privileged to know that there are dedicated, selfless individuals in our community ready at a moment’s notice to drop whatever they’re doing and plunge into action in order to rescue victims from the water.
Fortunately, because of our identification with the sea, the RNLI is a charity well supported locally, and we can only hope that the public, local commerce and those who indulge in waterborne pleasures will ensure that the appeal for funds for their replacement craft is readily achieved.