London to get a taste of the islands

DURING the last 10 years, experience has shown me that the fewer times I refer to the largest of the Channel Islands in this column, the less likely it will be that I will incur the wrath of readers in the second-largest.

Unfortunately, I have no option but to refer to Jersey today because top chef Shaun Rankin from St Helier's Bohemia Restaurant will be working at London's Dorchester Hotel in The Grill for six days during May.

The only reason I am mentioning it is because Shaun intends featuring new-season Sark lamb on what looks to be an exclusively Channel Island menu. As well as the lamb there will be Fort Grey cheese from Guernsey and asparagus, Jersey Royal new potatoes, scallops and lobster from the other isle.

Nothing like spreading the word about what these islands have to offer – and if that means marketing the Channel Islands as a whole, then that's fine with me.

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Sark has been an extremely sad little community this week following the tragic and untimely death of Rob Adams in a motorcycle accident in Surrey last Saturday.

Rob, who was married with three children, is the 42-year-old son of Bas and Suzette Adams and brother of Zoe. He died early on Saturday evening on the A30 slip road to the M25 at Egham. Local media reports indicated that no other vehicle was involved.

News of his passing spread swiftly in this small community and it was referred to during Sunday morning's service at St Peter's Church, where Rob's father is a long-serving member of the choir.

Although he lived away from Sark for virtually all his working life, Rob retained strong family links with his birthplace and recently those links were extended into business when the company of which he was a director, Q&A People Matter, became involved in the provision of Sark residents' personal health insurance scheme.

Until then, I and many relatively recently arrived residents like me, knew Rob only through his holiday visits – always a smile and a wave – but during the last couple of years his work meant greater contact with many islanders.

I have to say that it was an absolute boon having someone like him dealing with medical insurance matters – someone who actually knew what it meant in this context to be a resident of a place with one doctor and no hospital.

Nothing was too much trouble and certainly the queries I had were dealt with promptly and efficiently, even taking the trouble to respond at weekends – the mark of a man who values clients and would be an asset to any business.

It goes without saying that the whole island sympathises with every member of Rob's family. He was a father, son, brother, uncle, nephew and cousin.

Having met him fewer than half a dozen times, I can also say that he was a nice man and, if I may, I will add something more.

His love of this place was apparent to me from the first time I met him and I thought then that he could be another son of Sark who, having been out in the big, wide world, returned in later years to give his birthplace the benefit of his experiences.

Sadly, that will not happen. His family's huge loss is also Sark's.

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Returning to the subject of favourable publicity, I have just heard that the popular television series An Island Parish will be featuring Sark in its next series. The programmes, which I hear have done a power of good for Barra in Scotland, are made by Tiger Aspect Productions for BBC2.

I hope to have more in the way of detail in the coming weeks.

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