Review of the Year – March

HUNDREDS of metres of sea wall along Victoria Avenue was smashed as Jersey was subjected to two days of storms and raging seas. Many homes and businesses were flooded in the storm described by the Transport and Technical Services Minister, Guy de Faye, as worse than the Great Storm of 1987. In the aftermath, Victoria Avenue was closed and a temporary wall was built. The giant granite cap stones along the sea wall had been simply tossed aside by the huge waves and many businesses suffered flood damage. The honorary police were praised for their efforts during the storm, when more than 60 officers helped tp control the situation and keep traffic moving.

THE storm had far-reaching consequences as two houses were destroyed at the Ecréhous. There are about 25 huts on the small islands nine miles south of Jersey and though most were unharmed, two were blown away and another was left in a precarious state, with the front of the building removed and the roof hanging by a thread. Because the storm occurred during a high tide, the houses were exposed to the elements and home-owners described it as the worst damage they had suffered since the early 1960s. The Minquiers, however, remained largely unscathed, probably because the propert ies on that clutch of small Islands are slightly higher above the waterline than the Ecréhous.

THE police uncovered two more underground rooms at Haut de la Garenne in addition to the two which were found in February. Former deputy police chief Lenny Harper said that they had also found a number of items in the first two cellars which corroborated the victims’ reports of abuse. Some of these items were later revealed to be ‘rusty pieces of metal’. And archaeologists working at Haut de la Garenne said that the fragment of a child’s skull which was found there may date from the 1920s at the earliest. The fragment of skull was later declared ‘almost certainly a piece of wood’ by Detective Superintendent Mick Gradwell and police confirmed that they were not treating the investigation as a murder case.

The Portuguese community lost their meeting place of the last 40 years when they were forced to close their James Street club. The Portuguese Club owners said that they could not afford to bring their building into line with health and safety regulations. More than 100 people toasted the end of an era at a farewell party at the club, which had been the meeting place for the Portuguese community since 1968 and still had 300 members. The club, who cited the smoking ban as a contributor to their decline in popularity, promised to begin a search for new premises in an effort to reprise the club’s more prosperous years when they had up to 800 members.

ONE of Jersey’s oldest institutions, Hamon’s the drapers, announced that they were starting to ‘wind down’ their business. At the time, the proprietors announced that they may still be open for Christmas, but that the decision had been taken to eventually close. Co-proprietor John Hamon said that there were no plans to sell the shop and that he and his brother, Edward, would consider opening up a reduced business from another location. True to their word, Hamon’s are still open this Christmas and Islanders can shop for clothing, cotton goods, curtain and dress fabrics, tea towels, haberdashery and overalls. The family-run business has been trading on King Street since around 1845.

Pictured: The dramatic scene along what was the sea wall along Victoria College