Air evacuation should be opt in or out

THERE have been calls in Sark for residents to make known their wishes regarding the transport used in emergency medical evacuation to Guernsey.

Sark Scribe editor Bob Parsons said that it was great to have the facility of emergency evacuation by air when needed. He added: 'Perhaps there is some merit in all of us making our personal preference known to our families, but if an emergency arises I would be happy to know that help would be coming and that our doctor will ask for whatever he feels is needed.'

The Sark Newsletter took up the theme, inviting readers to 'take the decision-making out of the doctor's hands altogether' by completing a cut-out form and returning it to the publication, stating that even in a life or death situation they are 'under no circumstances to be evacuated from Sark by helicopter'.

The concept of making wishes known in advance of possible incapacitation is an excellent one and I support it. However, in this instance I would advocate cutting out the middle men – in the Scribe's case one's relatives, who in such circumstances will inevitably be stressed, and in the Newsletter's, that publication – and instead indicate one's wishes directly to the doctor as quite frankly it's no one else's business.

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Last week's linking by me of the young pirates I saw while on a quiet walk and tonight's Sark School Film Festival and Oscar Night was a case of adding two and two and getting at least five. The two are not linked.

The pirates were starring in a film, Pirates of the Channel Islands, which will be screened at an afternoon assembly on Friday 24 February at the end of the school's literacy week. That said, when I saw the youngsters they were all worth an Oscar nomination.

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Criticism is sometimes better ignored, but often there is a limit to how much it can continue to be ignored. In recent weeks the Sark Newsletter has decided that once again I am one of those in its sights, suggesting that I am cosying up to Sark's 'establishment' and, because I refuse to conform to the Newsletter's agenda on what I should write, I am 'a disgrace to journalism'.

That accusation strikes at the very heart of what I have sought to achieve for almost 40 years, for the last decade in Sark. It is also particularly damning in the light of an MBE awarded to me in 2001 for 'services to journalism'. In referring to that, I am breaking a promise I made to myself when receiving that award that I would never mention it in print. That is a measure of how strongly I feel about the Newsletter's personal and professional insults.

During those 40 years I have always accepted peer review of my work – comment and assessment from other members of my profession.

In the Newsletter's eyes, it seems that the only place fairness and objectivity come before the pursuit of power is in the dictionary.

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