‘WILL the last one out switch off the lights?’ So went the graveyard jibe that hung over the city of Seattle in Washington State when the recession in aircraft manufacturing caused a slump in the profits of the giant Boeing company in the 1970s.

It would be sad to think that after today’s ‘family discovery day’, the resident ‘goodwyfe’ will be snuffing out the oil lamps as the Hamptonne Country Life Museum goes dark. It’s a sad fate to befall what is after all a recent acquisition to the Island’s heritage portfolio.

Bought for the National Trust of Jersey in 1987, this ‘beautifully restored farm with a collection of thatched granite houses, stables and meadows’, as its website attests, will only be available for special events and weddings. Sad because the soul of the place will inevitably ebb out of it without the daily activity, smell of wood-smoke and access by public and small animals alike.

Jersey Heritage attributes the demise of this unique working portrait of a country living, and the question marks hanging over other sites, such as the award-winning Maritime Museum, to the decline in visitor numbers.

Whether it results from the way such attractions are marketed, the amount of public cash invested in their daily vibrancy, the moribund Jersey tourist industry in general or sheer public apathy is hard to attribute – but it’s probably fair to suggest it’s a combination of all these factors.

Retaining and maintaining our heritage sites and infusing them with vitality and purpose is a job Jersey Heritage performs with considerable public support, much of it unwritten. In an age of ephemera worship, bucking the trend is a hard – and expensive – act.

So acting on the advice of Locum Consulting and closing the doors to the public could be an enlightened wake-up call. In a context in which we take so many rich examples of our ancestry and environment for granted, it’s hard to prioritise what to promote and what to let slip away. But the lyrics of the much-quoted Joni Mitchell song, ‘You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone’, carry a ghostly warning.

In the current climate, it may be easier to squander £10 million of ‘new money’ on creating an arguably unwanted but short-term headline-grabbing public park for a few votes at election time than be seen to underwrite existing infrastructure even if it represents the Island’s latent soul.

Heritage has such a broad remit. Only last week the Council for the Protection of Jersey’s Heritage was upbraiding the draft Island Plan for its ‘relentless release’ of agricultural land to development.

But you see it’s not just land that is lost under tons of carbon-releasing concrete, it’s the heritage that went with it – the lives of those who worked it, the crops grown there, indeed the very ‘culture’ that enshrines the island’s personality.

Now there are definitely those in the political coliseum who would have culture play a supporting role to economic development. Indeed there are arguments advanced by some of our political card players in favour of shuffling the current pack so as to hive off heritage – that is, the tourist side-show element of culture – from its current administrative ESC basket and amalgamate it with tourism, leaving the remaining branches of cultural development and artistic expression to compete for funding alongside education and sporting skills. It is certainly true that impoverished heritage and moribund tourism do have synergies.

They are, after all, the display cupboard of the Island and means for it to earn bread and butter – even though at the moment there appears to be difficulty in marketing a stale crust. Critics might be forgiven for dismissing such a move on the basis that it would further reduce cultural or artistic stimulation.

Twinned clog dancing and exchange beer fests might bring in short-term cash to the town coffers but would do little to promote interest in the overall rich mix. An events-led business strategy is a risky path, since without the ‘attraction infrastructure’ it provides only shallow return.

The once crowd-pulling Battle of Flowers may be as spectacular as ever, but struggles to deliver more than window-shoppers. We’ve seen the tie-up between ‘dreamy castles’, empty beaches and care-free bicycling in Tourism’s TV adverts. But watch any of those ‘escape to the sun’ programmes and what do you hear those wanting to visit – and even stay – in other countries always mention?

Along with the desire for good food and weather – the boxes we can confidently tick – come inevitably, and consistently, the people and a decent lifestyle. We don’t, God forbid, offer sealed, self-contained hotel microcosms – the ruin of some previously popular tourist resorts which failed to see the writing on the wall, where profits depart on the next plane out, straight into the pockets of potential zero-ten beneficiaries.

So back to Hamptonne. Short of drafting in the entrepreneurial Ruth Watson to rescue our very own country estate, with bright ideas for ‘posh camping’ and other money-spinning projects, there are some clear messages to be drawn from its impending hibernation. We are indeed extremely fortunate in the heritage sites we possess as a community.

But there is no room for complacency. We can certainly bank such assets for a while, but they need to be capitalised upon or they die. Mausoleums don’t make fun attractions, and theme parks do little to enrich understanding.

There is a middle way which depends on keeping the heart in our heritage, promoting its life and activities which inspire the young to explore and adapt – and ultimately, pass it on.