Jack Roche

A FORMER Constable of St Saviour who managed to combine a highly successful business career with 23 years of service to Jersey as a States Member and father of his parish has died at the age of 85.

Jack Roche, who was much admired for his great good humour as well as his political acumen and forceful, effective promotion of policies in which he believed, was born in St Helier on 30 September 1924.

He was educated at La Motte Street School but in 1940, as a teenager, he was evacuated from the Island shortly before the Germans arrived, spending the war years in Bury, Lancashire.

He returned to Jersey soon after the Liberation in 1945. The following year he joined W A Nicholls & Sons, a merchant selling fuel and goods for the agricultural industry.

Mr Roche worked as a salesman, making many friends in the agricultural community, and eventually rose through the ranks to become managing director
He also met Joan Norman – sister of Len Norman senior, a future St Saviour Constable, whose son, also Len, is now the Constable of St Clement – at the firm and in 1950 the couple married. Their only daughter, Patricia, was born in 1951.

Mr Roche would have been the first to acknowledge the great support he received from his wife in both his business and political careers.

Their long relationship has been described as ‘a truly committed partnership’ and it was evident that he took great pleasure in family life. In his later years he liked nothing better than entertaining his great-grandchildren, three girls who, according to their father, have inherited their great-grandfather’s determination.

In addition to his role at W A Nicholls, Mr Roche served as chairman of flower exporters Vanguard Ltd and held directorships of Henry Nicholls Ltd, the Guernsey coal merchants, and Hughes and Co Ltd, the insurance brokers. His other business interests included F Allen and Co, the electrical retailers, and, most prominently, Jersey Coal Distributors Ltd, which he founded with the backing of W A Nicholls.

However, in spite of the extent of his business commitments, Mr Roche decided to stand for the States and was elected to represent No 1 District in St Saviour, taking his seat in December 1975 at the age of 51.

In a JEP interview published after his election, he was described as ‘Jack of all trades’, though his subsequent record as a Member confirmed that, unlike the proverbial Jack, he was master of the great majority of them.

In the same interview he said that he believed in the quiet approach, but again, his track record shows that this did not preclude great determination, even when confronted by bitter opposition.

During his decades in the States, Mr Roche did not aspire to a Senatorial seat, but he did serve on a wide selection of committees. These included Finance and Economics, Health, Public Works, Etat Civil, Agriculture and Fisheries, Gambling Control, Housing, Broadcasting, Fort Regent, Telecommunications, the Prison Board and Establishment.

He was also a States director of the Jersey New Waterworks Company for 13 years, sat on the Joint Advisory Council and was a director of Oakfield Industries. He made his mark in each of these settings, but his involvement with three committees in particular are a reliable guide to his strengths as a politician and his ability to turn ideas into action.

That he was a member of Finance and Economics for 14 years – an environment in which incapacity was seldom tolerated – indicates that his judgment was valued by other political high-flyers of his era.

He was, moreover, one of the more successful presidents of the Fort Regent Development Committee, though when he was elected some suggested that his priority would be to turn the old parade ground back into a coal store – the ignominious role it had fulfilled before it became a leisure centre. He responded to this assertion – no doubt with a characteristic twinkle in his eye – by saying that the parade ground was safe, at least until the swimming pool was full.

His innate common sense, meanwhile, was in evidence when, for the first time, he organised a meeting of all the Fort’s concessionaires.

But it was as a member, and then president, of the Public Health Committee that he made most impact. He sat on the committee for 17 years and led it for 11, first occupying the presidential hot seat in 1983 when deputising for Senator John Le Marquand, who suffered a prolonged illness during that year.

It was, however, in 1996 that Mr Roche faced his sternest test. Although the UK introduced an abortion law in 1968, Jersey had not followed suit and it was Mr Roche’s firm belief that the Island had been out of step with the modern world for far too long. In the face of the firmest opposition from some Members, especially those of the Catholic faith, he piloted the Termination of Pregnancy (Jersey) Law through the legislative process, with widely acknowledged sensitivity and skill, so that it finally made its way into the statute book in 1997.

Mr Roche was also a popular and well-respected Constable of St Saviour. He was elected to that office in August 1992 and served until his retirement from political and parish life in July 1998.

As a Constable and States Member he will be remembered as a person who delivered the goods, who made a point of always being on time, who spoke in public with great authority and fluency but without unnecessary rhetorical flourishes, and whose sound common sense was a major asset in the House and in the parish hall.

He will also be remembered as someone whose motto might well have been: ‘If you are going to do something, you might as well do it properly’.

In addition to his work in the States and as a businessman, Jack Roche was an active member of the Lions Club, serving as president for a period in the 1980s. He was often to be seen helping on the poolside at the annual Swimarathon, but he also worked enthusiastically behind the scenes to raise funds for a great many worthwhile charitable causes.
MBE
It was in recognition of this contribution to Island society, as well as for his political achievements, that he was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire in 1999 for services to the community.

In what must surely have been the limited amount of spare time available to him, he enjoyed gardening, fishing and eating and drinking with friends – friends who appreciated not only his generosity, but also the dry wit that served him so well not only at the dinner table, but also in the boardroom, in committee work and in the States Assembly.

In his later years he was likely to greet questions about what he was doing by the reply: ‘Keeping out of mischief!’, but staying clear of whatever he defined as ‘mischief’ did not prevent him from indulging a passion for gadgets, some of which his family are still puzzling over in that their precise function is now uncertain.

Those who knew him as a States Member, a parish stalwart or a convivial fellow diner at States day lunches at the Capannina might be surprised to learn that he acquired one of the first electronic games consoles on the market and that, at the age of 75, he began to explore the wonders of the internet.

Mr Roche is survived by his wife Joan, daughter Pat, granddaughter Rebecca and her husband Neil, and three great-granddaughters, Poppy (7), Gracie (6) and Clara (2), to whom the JEP extends sympathy.