Victorian values

ONE of Alderney's proud boasts is that it still enjoys some of the old fashioned values of years gone by.

But children from Years 4 and 5 at St Anne's School turned the clock back more than a century to find out what shopping was like on Victoria Street in the reign of the queen it was named after.

Around 20 pupils dressed up as rich and poor Victorian children and trooped up and down the island's main shopping street to buy items at the chemist, the post office, a grocery shop and a hardware store, paying with Victorian pennies and doubloons.

The children had been studying the Victorian period as a project at school and then focused on what living in Alderney was like in the era.

James Hope-Smith, aged nine, took the part of a rich Victorian for the day buying things such as bottles of medicine and a magazine.

He had mixed feelings about what it would have been like to be born all that time ago.

'I felt that as a Victorian it was not as easy to go shopping as it is today because you have to go up and down the shops to find things you need,' he said. 'Today you can find everything you need just in one shop.'

They also learned about Victorian culture and manners and doffed their caps and curtseyed to shopkeepers when they entered the shops.

'If you were poor you had to act very polite so rich people might pay you and you didn't usually get treated very well and were often punished,' said James. 'You didn't need to be as polite if your parents were well known for being rich and you would be treated better and could do more things.

'I wouldn't like to be a Victorian, though. I would miss my games console.'

Alderney Museum curator Frances Jeens organised the unique afternoon. She said the museum had got involved because they had such a rich collection of Victorian artefacts, some of which the children were able to handle.

She said: 'We have up to 7,000 Victorian artefacts at the museum, from census records to things such as horse-tooth files – and it took the children a long time to work out what they were.

'We also showed them pictures of what the high street looked like in Victorian times so they could see what they recognised in Victoria Street from the present day.

'Hopefully the outing brought the period to life for them.'