Queen honours Pam with MBE

PRIDE of place this week must go to Pam Cocksedge, who in Saturday's Queen's Birthday Honours was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire.

Not surprisingly, the much-deserved award has been extremely well received in Sark, where Pam's work for her cherished tombola stall for the Professor Charles Saint Medical Trust is the stuff of which legends are made.

It was hardly surprising either that very few Sark people were able to congratulate her in person because, perhaps true to form, she was off on that day's nine o'clock boat to the Southampton residential respite home where she has done voluntary work since 1984 - via the Lt-Governor's Queen's Birthday reception, to which she had been invited.

I am always full of admiration for those who work for nothing for the benefit of their fellow men and women (and there are plenty of those in Sark, including our legislature), but in Pam's case - certainly as far as her UK charity work is concerned - she goes that little bit further in that she pays all her own travelling expenses. With airline and boat fares what they are, that must cost her a pretty penny.

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Last week I referred a couple of times to the pleasant way in which aspects of Sark are viewed by visitors - albeit with a moan about dog muck - so it was a bit of a surprise to read in Monday's Guernsey Press the letter from Dr R. E. Alexander, who hails from West Hendon in London.

Dr Alexander and his wife and dog spent a day here and wanted their money back because, to paraphrase his letter, they were frankly horrified by noisy tractors, the 'road-mobiles' of local residents and the dusty roads.

He said that their clothes and bodies became brown with the dust - something I've not experienced in more than 20 years of visiting and living in Sark - and they were miffed because they were apparently challenged (only very slightly, it seems) when walking through someone's garden.

From the tone of the letter it seems that they were intent on walking through regardless - 'as we know the law we walked through' - which seems to me to be quite rude and displays the not uncommon ignorance of the fact that what might be lawful in West Hendon may not necessarily be so in Sark.

I'm sorry they didn't enjoy their day in Sark, I'm sorry about the noisy electric invalid carriages (where did he dream that one up?) and I really wish I could be as restrained and polite as was Tourism chairman Conseiller Sandra Williams in her excellent response to Dr Alexander's criticism.

As to the tractors, if Dr and Mrs Alexander (and their dog) bought anything to eat or drink here, then it's perhaps worth pointing out that everything they, we and everyone else who visits consumes has to be delivered by tractor.

The good news for Guernsey yachties is that it seems the new path from Grand Greve beach (on the west coast near La Coupee) is open after access was blocked for some considerable time by a landslip.

The less than good news is that not only is the new path very steep - so I'm told - but its use is very much at the user's risk, so please don't say that you haven't been warned.

* The email address for comment is fallesark@sark.net.