Jersey

Ward Rutherford

Published by David & Charles, hardcover with dustjacket, illustrated


The largest of the Channel Islands, Jersey is compounded of three conspicuous elements — sky, sea and granite, and every image there seems to be shot through with them: a canopy of sky, cloudless in summer, the many-coloured sea, blue and sparkling between steep, heathercovered headlands, and the ubiquitous island granite breaking out of the ground in red escarpments and the stone used for building churches, farms and manor houses from time immemorial. Here is one of the world's most successful small communities, attracting a million tourists each year and, recently as a tax haven, an international banking centre.

Ward Rutherford, a Jerseyman and an established author and broadcaster, describes the island in all its facets and gives the essential information that anyone interested in the island can want. As a British possession only fourteen miles from the coast of France, Jersey has had an unusual history as an outpost in Britain's many wars with her nearest neighbour and during World War II it suffered the strange ordeal of the German occupation.

Its own parliament is in St Helier and the laws are based on Norman and pre-Norman traditions. It remains a ruggedly independent society with its own unique place in the world.

In spite of successful tourism, the Jerseymen remain a proud people whose environment is still basically dominated by farming, fishing and the sea.