Carl an outstanding island ambassador

CARL Hester's love of Sark and eagerness to talk about and show off its beauty continued until the very end of the weekend he and his friends and equestrian colleagues spent in the island.

I say that because the customary route to the Sark Shipping boat at Maseline Harbour takes all but a small minority of visitors down Harbour Hill, either on the toast rack bus or by way of the picturesque path adjacent to the highway.

However, for those who know Sark, as the island's gold medal Olympian clearly does, there is another route – one which takes you past the paths leading to Dixcart and Derrible bays, along to the headland overlooking Les Laches with its views of Jersey and the Normandy coast, down a path which offers a brief but stunning image of Creux Harbour from a couple of hundred feet up and then on to the boat.

If Carl wanted to offer his group of almost 40 a lasting impression of Sark's beauty – and, hopefully, encourage as many of them as possible to come here again – I doubt he could have done better.

He really is the most splendid tourism salesman and ambassador for this small community.

Going back to the weekend, Carl's appearance at the annual Horse, Dog and Pet Show on Sunday hopefully bolstered the attendance figure at an event which, despite the hard work and enthusiasm of its organisers and regular participants, is sorely in need of an injection of something or other to ensure its continuance.

In common with many other residents and visitors, I have attended every show for the past decade and have seen how much effort those involved have put in to introduce innovative measures and entertain those attending.

But despite their extremely devoted work for a cause which is clearly dear to their hearts, the number of entrants – and particularly those involving the carriages which are synonymous with Sark – seems to me to be gradually reducing each year.

They tried again this year with an excellent demonstration of the work involved in preparing a horse for carriage work, with an extremely informative (and interesting – the two don't always go together) commentary by Julie Jackson on how Helen Magell went about getting Helen's young horse, Glenside Ronaldo, used to wearing harness.

Ron, as he is called in the stable, is a three-year-old recent acquisition and earlier, led by Julie, he had been judged champion horse.

Perhaps with demonstrations such as this the organisers may have touched upon a winning formula. I certainly hope so, because the demise of this lovely day out would be a sad day indeed for Sark.

Chief Pleas sits next Wednesday evening with just a couple of items on the agenda – the appointment of a temporary chief secretary following one of the recommendations in the Belinda Crowe report and a piece of legislation being recommended by the Harbours Committee.

Unbeknown to the majority of people here, the vacancy for the new civil service post has been advertised by the administrations in Guernsey, Jersey and the Isle of Man with a closing date for applications of 15 August – before the agenda was made public.

I found it strange that while they seek to adopt one of the Crowe recommendations, our elected representatives ignore the report's overriding message – the absence of and need for transparency.

The other measure down for debate seeks to make it mandatory for those running trips for tourists to the Brecqhou gardens to inform the harbour master of sailing times and passenger numbers, with the Harbours Committee saying that without this information 'passenger safety continues to be put at risk unnecessarily'.

I hold no brief for those operating this service but have to say that there appears to be nothing in the committee's report to support such a damning assertion.

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