Families reunite at long last as borders lifted

The lifting of Covid-19 isolation and testing requirements for fully vaccinated passengers coming in from the Common Travel Area was only confirmed by the Civil Contingencies Authority eight days prior to the stated date of 1 July.

Some may have doubted whether this could be trusted, with Delta variant cases rising rapidly across most of the UK.

However, when the first flight of the day, Aurigny’s Embraer jet from Gatwick, finally touched down at 11.33am, friends, relatives, colleagues and business partners got ready to welcome the new arrivals with hugs and handshakes.

Arm-in-arm with her cousin Catherine James and aunt Mary Large, Tania Pearce struggled to express her elation at being reunited after nearly three years.

‘Oh, I just can’t – I can hardly put it into words. We’re used to seeing each other every three months, so it’s been a long, long, long time,’ she said.

Mrs James said she was delighted finally to get back to Guernsey but the flight had been very unsettling. The jet had circled the island five times while fog stubbornly clung to the airport, with most of the rest of the island enjoying bright sunshine.

‘I’ve never had that coming into Guernsey, ever,’ she said, ‘and I’ve flown here a lot. Usually they duck down straight in but that – I’ve never had a whoosh back up twice.

‘I just said “Give me the tablets now”.’

With the ordeal over, the family could think about their holiday, which promised further reunions.

‘My other aunty doesn’t know we’re here,’ Mrs James said.

‘So we’re going to go and give her a shock now.’

Margo Blondel, who went to the airport with her son Louis, had been waiting for two years to see her parents, who took advantage of the relaxation of restrictions to come to the island for a one-week visit, to include a family wedding to be held tomorrow. They have not been able to manage a visit due to isolation requirements and she has been unable to visit them in the UK for the same reason.

‘Louis hasn’t seen them since he was two years old, so he’s doubled in age,’ she said.

‘We’re just going to have some nice Guernsey food and take them out to all their favourite places.’

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Contrasting with the joy abounding at the arrivals hall was the frustration felt by James Pearson, an operating department practitioner assisting surgeons at the Princess Elizabeth Hospital, who was trying to get back to England to meet his girlfriend. When he came to Guernsey in early January, they had promised to visit each other every month, but lockdowns and isolation rules have meant no visits taking place in either direction.

‘It’s been really difficult, actually’ he said. ‘I think I underestimated just how difficult it would be, trying to maintain a relationship and not being able to see family and stuff. It’s been really hard.’

He arrived at the airport at 6.30am, intending to fly to East Midlands via Jersey. When the Jersey flight was cancelled due to the fog, he booked a flight to Southampton, in the hope of heading north by train. However, with the flight from Southampton to Guernsey having not got off the ground, he came up with a Plan C of getting a seat on the jet to Gatwick.

‘I’ve got a week off and this is day one,’ he said. ‘I feel like I’m kind of halfway through already.’

Irena McElwee was also up at the airport early to meet the first flight in from Gatwick, for a much anticipated reunion with her daughter, who she had not seen for two years. The visit had already been curtailed from one week to just four days, in order to take advantage of the isolation rule change from 1 July. When the fog descended, however, the frustration grew.

‘It’s quite sad. I’ve got work soon, so I’m going to have to go home and she’s going to have to arrive on her own and get a taxi home,’ she said. ‘I finish my shift at seven o’clock in the morning, so I won’t get to see her until then, unfortunately, so I’m a bit peeved to be honest. Isn’t it just the darnedest thing, eh? The one day that it opens for people that have been double-jabbed, we get this. It seems like one thing after another.’