From Frank Le Blancq.
AFTER a lapse of several years, the arrival of friends prompted me to attend Saturday’s Liberation Day service and enactment in Liberation Square.
My English friends were suitably impressed and no doubt the whole celebration will be heralded as a resounding success.
As a Jerseyman, however, I noticed two unusual things. The first was the almost complete absence of flags. If this is a celebration of your liberation, my friends asked, why are there hardly any flags? No flags at all along Victoria Avenue for example, our route to town and something I couldn’t explain.
This is in great contrast to May 1945 when flags and bunting appeared as if by magic according to members of my family and friends who lived through the Occupation.
Presumably, in view of the so-called credit crisis, the Island is now so poverty stricken that it cannot afford a few dozen flags, or maybe we are saving up to pay for the incinerator overspend.
Second, I believe that every year since the Liberation, bedecked lorries from the country parishes have been parked near the Pomme d’Or Hotel on Liberation Day.
This commemorates the sudden emergence of a number of lorries on 9 May 1945, most running on stolen German petrol, to bring country folk to town and share in the liberation of the Island after five long years of occupation and deprivation.
I seem to recall a picture of the Queen standing near the decked out lorries on her visit some years ago. Why no lorries this year? Is this aspect of Liberation Day another victim of health and safety, or is there some other reason?
Are my suppositions correct? I am sure many of us would be grateful if any of your readers could shed further light on these two matters?
6 Portelet Heights,
Route de Noirmont,
St Brelade.
