From Mike Stentiford, president, National Trust for Jersey.
CALL me old fashioned – certainly! Call me biased – definitely! But didn’t the JEP’s colour centerfold on 14 September say all there is to say about the true character of Jersey?

Having offered hands-on assistance to the National Trust’s Heritage Open Day on many previous occasions, this particular one proved to me to be one of the sunniest, busiest and cheeriest of them all.

That this should be the case is entirely due not only to our generous sponsors and all those ‘genuine Jersey’ folk who came along to support the big day but to the scores of helpers who pulled out all the heritage stops to make the day the success it truly was. It’s worth reflecting, perhaps, on how often we refer to the good old days without realising the incredible hardships of the time.

No switching on of a light bulb, no instantaneous flow of tapped water, no instant media reports to keep us abreast of the news and certainly no regular mode of transportation to get us from one parish to another.

But there, because of such annual open days, at least we all have a momentary opportunity of seeing just how simple, hard and tedious life was a century ago.

All the more reason then for adding compound interest to all those current blessings we so often take for granted.

How fortunate we are that with so much meltdown happening around us we can still contemplate the austerity of a bygone age while accepting that life in Jersey today, however stressful it might have become, still has the power to provide us with the very best of the past along with the undoubted gifts of the present.