JERSEY: THE CHANNEL ISLAND WAY: 2: Bergerac’s Stuntman

OR:    WHAT DO I KNOW ABOUT JERSEY?

On my way to the airport with my suitcase on the seat next to me, staring out of the train windows as the rain sodden London suburbs trundled past, I thought back to a wilder time.

I had been a plant engineer in a Ford factory down on the south coast, working silly hours with a team of blokes who all worked incredibly hard and played with the same vigour. One of my colleagues was a young, quite good looking chap. His way of letting off steam was to dance until the small hours in one of the city’s nightclubs with as many of the most beautiful girls as humanly possible. To spice the night up a little, he used to take on the persona of more and more unlikely characters at each visit. He had been a deep-sea diver, a fireman (all women love firemen) an Arab Sheik’s illegitimate son; you get the picture. But his best-loved character, which he assured us all, had never failed to succeed, was Bergerac’s Stuntman.

At the time Bergerac was a massively popular TV programme, filmed on location in Jersey, which, being just to the south of Southampton, gave his credibility with the girls an added authenticity. However, do you ever remember John Nettles ever doing any stunts? It didn’t seem to bother the hordes of beauties that my friend had to fight off…

But I digress!

The flight over to Jersey went smoothly and I was met at the airport by a taxi driver who whisked me to the hotel, The Inn in St Helier, in time to meet my fellow blogger, Mark from ‘Beating the Bounds’ and Arthur Lamy, our guide for the next couple of days, at the bar. Arthur had actually written the guide to The Channel Island Way, so he was the obvious choice to take us around it.

ARTHUR & MARK

It was great to meet them both and over dinner we got to know a little about each other. If you haven’t seen Mark’s blog, you really have been missing a treat as his photography is stunning and I am sure he won’t mind me saying that he’s an incredibly lovely bloke. I am really looking forward to his take on the trip. I left all the nature photography to him as he really knows what he is doing and I am sure there will be a riot of plants and creatures over at his place, all beautifully portrayed.

I mentioned to Arthur that rather shamefully my only knowledge of his island had been gleaned from the zillions of episodes of Bergerac; the last episode of which had been screened some twenty years ago. This was possibly not the best source, seeing at it concentrated on the misdeeds of the tourists and the ne’er do wells of the island… But this was alright, as Arthur is a top-bloke and assured us that we would discover the island’s charms, beauty and history with him as our guide.

As Arthur was heading back home after a really lovely meal, he casually let us know that in a previous job he had sold John Nettles three mountain bikes.