From Stephen Harewood.
I WRITE with regard to the controversy surrounding the lifeguard issue. There has been unprecedented support for keeping the Australian lifeguard team as opposed to utilising a much respected RNLI team, at huge savings.

However, another alternative has not even been mooted. It would save our Island thousands of pounds and would actually improve the service.

Briefly, in the 1960s a good friend, Jersey’s Dave ‘Oggy’ Mead, won every single discipline in the friendly surf carnivals we had with the Aussie beachguards. Having proved that he was actually fitter and more qualified than the Aussie team, he applied for a job with Tourism as a beachguard. He was turned down because he wasn’t Australian.

As a result – and this may sound far-fetched, but it’s absolutely true – Dave headed off to Australia in disgust and secured a job as a beachguard there. And not on any old beach, but on Sydney’s famous Bondi beach.

He subsequently rose through the ranks to become chief beach inspector for Bondi. Surely, more than 40 years on, Jersey Tourism and the supporters of only Australian beachguards should now consider employing locally sourced beachguards, provided they are equally or more qualified.

I am sure that the current beachguards are no doubt extremely experienced, and
of course their service has been very much appreciated over the years. However, there is always room for improvement in this area – namely education in beach and sea safety for schoolchildren and visitors (this could be a new angle for tourism),
especially on days when the sea is flat calm and there isn’t a lot for the
beachguards to do except play Scrabble.

A strong policy of the RNLI is prevention is better than rescue. In these times of cutbacks and unemployment, it seems the perfect moment to start afresh by employing local people with the right qualifications.

I know several locals who have gone to Australia to get their beach and lifeguard qualifications so that they can work around the world, but sadly not in Jersey because they are not Australian.

Maybe as a starting point, the head of the Aussie beachguards, with excellent experience in running the service, could recruit locally qualified people with good experience and knowledge, without the cost of expensive flights and housing for their full team. This would provide the best of both worlds and a better service for half the cost.