From Chris Fairbairn.
CHRISTMAS spent with my cousins up at Grosnez is a joy.

Well, except for the year when the turkey exploded in the oven, demolishing the scullery and giving our neighbours an early surprise, not to mention their pets, who had an even earlier feast of red-hot stuffed festive bird – possibly the first time the 12 lb monster had ever flown, and the last.

When the lunch was over and the ‘pressies’ had been given out, my little cousins sat round the fire to hear my Christmas story. Wearing my new hand-knitted socks, a gift from my Auntie Bee in Sark, I began telling the little ones a fictional story based on an absurd idea I dreamed up after a restless night anchored at the Minquiers.

Once upon a time there was a lovely big tidal harbour which had existed before ‘time was money’, full of friendly fishermen who loved to work on their boats when the tide went out. When the tide was in, they went fishing in the big bay, and life was good and simple. One day, the people who ran the ancient harbour decided to flood it and make it into two luxury marinas, leaving just 75 of the 400 drying moorings for the poor fishermen.

When the harbour people called a meeting, every fisherman came along and protested. The harbour boss man then wrote to the fishermen and said that the plan was just a ‘conceptual idea’ and that he would talk to everyone and get their views, but secretly the plan had been agreed and work would start in a year or two regardless of what the fishermen might say.

A little voice asked: ‘Why didn’t the harbour man speak to the fishermen before the plan was made to hear their views first?’

‘Well, Emily,’ I replied, ‘if he had done that, he might have heard things that he did not want to hear’.

‘And, Uncle Chris,’ she continued, ‘why do the harbour people want to build two new marinas on dry land, costing us millions of pounds that will eventually take a lesser number of boats than before and cost the poor fishermen up to ten times more to berth there?’

‘Well, my love,’ I replied, ‘the nasty overlord called WEB has ordered it, as he wants to build luxury apartments around the harbour, and big tax-dodging yachts are better for business than small fishing boats, and if they don’t do what he says, he will cast a spell on them.’

A small hand clutching a half-eaten mince-pie went up – ‘Uncle Chris,’ the little voice beneath inquired, ‘Will the fishermen fight back and lobby their politicians?’ ‘Well, Rozelle, that is a great idea, but it could only happen in the real world, and my story is one from the world of make-believe.’

‘Strangely enough,’ she replied, ‘the Saturday edition of ‘‘The Post’’ on 2 January ran the same story, and the plan is real!’

‘Well, Rozelle, the report may be real, but this plan really is make-believe’. The children agreed. Building a marina on dry land and kicking out the fishermen was truly make-believe, and they all fell gently and contentedly to sleep.