The ever-changing sands of Grandes Rocques
Those living at Grandes Rocques have fond memories of the area as it was and the people who inhabited it, as Rob Batiste reports.
ALAS, you'll no longer find too many real 'Guerns' and natives of Grandes Rocques.
But among them are Fred Domaille, 81, and wife Joyce, 77, an Ogier dating back to the time when Grandes Rocques Road – which runs from the Wayside Cheer junction and the filter which separates the Galaad and Carteret roads, virtually parallel with the beach – was full of Ogiers.
The two are a grand old couple from an era when their road was aligned by carrot field's one side and greenhouse after greenhouse on the other.
Dotted among the mass of glass was the old Guernsey cottage, Beaulieu, where Joyce was born and grew up before moving 100 yards east to the border of the Port Soif football ground and the charmingly attractive Linda Cottage.
She estimates that she and near neighbour Rex Le Sauvage are the only survivors of the pre-war years when the neighbourhood pub was the Grandes Rocques Hotel, men were men and loved a 'spree' (binge) and virtually the whole road was, in some way, an Ogier.
Of all matters Grandes Rocques, arguably the least change has been with the bay itself.
'The changes have been subtle,' said Fred.
'The dunes used to sweep down to the beach and there were not the big rocks that there are now,' he continued, with reference to the rock-armouring that has taken up half the length of the beach and kindly provided a home for all the local rats that think nothing of a night feed from the scraps left on the beach.
Like most west-coast beaches, Grandes Rocques experiences regular changes in sand levels.
'Sometimes there are pebbles across the beach and at other times they are covered by sand,' says the former Navy man.
And while Cambodia had Killing Fields, Grandes Rocques had the Carrot Fields.
As a boy in the 60s, I vividly recall the carrot patches that lined the beach side of Grandes Rocques Road.'
The sandy nature of the entire area made the land ideally suited to growing carrots and no doubt the tamarisks, which provide a natural seashore windbreak, were put there for a purpose.
Apparently, the Lenfesteys were the main carrot growers of the area, but sadly nobody has bothered to keep up the tradition for many years.
'It's too much like hard work, and you can buy them cheaper from Israel,' said Fred.
Other services in the immediate post-war years arrived in quaint old ways.
'Our milkman was Will Bougourd who used to bring our milk with a can and a measuring jug, fetched off his little hand cart,' recalled Joyce.
Then there was the barber, long before Keith Le Page began operating his modern successful hairdressing business. But it was from the same building, recalled the Domailles.
'First it was Mr Falla and then, I think, a Mr de la Mare, who used to come down from the Bridge on certain days.'
