Creux Candles an extraordinary event

LAST weekend's Sheep Race Meeting – when boats from Guernsey and Jersey brought upwards of 1,000 people to Sark on the Saturday alone – appears to have been a great success.

Although figures for the amount raised for the island's principal charity, the Professor Charles Saint Medical Trust, will not be released until the cheque handover later this year, if numbers attending the three-day event are anything to go by then the trust will benefit by many thousands of pounds.

From conversations I had with visitors attending the event and island residents associated with the hospitality industry, it seems that everyone involved pulled out all the stops to ensure that Sark's guests had as good a time as it was possible to give them.

All that said, Sark moves on and apart from general day-to-day tourism business we have the annual St Peter's Church Fayre next Saturday – 6 August – where, in common with virtually every event in the island, an extraordinary amount of money will be raised in the space of just a few hours.

Don't ask me how they do it, but if it's been a while since you have attended a traditional church fayre, then Sark will be well worth a visit next weekend, if only for afternoon tea and cakes and a browse through the many hundreds of books that will no doubt be on offer at a fraction of their cover prices.

A week later, it's what I believe to be a quite special event – Candles on the Creux – where as the sun goes down, Lawrence and Wendy Roberts and a small army of helpers will attempt to light a couple of thousand candles on the walls of Creux Harbour, probably the most picturesque little port anywhere.

It is an extraordinary sight and for those like me for whom the walk up Harbour Hill is as off-putting as the prospect of running a marathon, I'm told that the toast rack buses will be on hand.

As well as the candles themselves, there will be food, music and entertainment and the proceeds of sponsorship will go towards the costs of providing emergency services both here and in Guernsey – a most worthwhile set of causes.

Earlier that day there'll be a South Africa Day at the Millennium Field, which will feature all that is good in terms of food and music associated with that beautiful country.

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I saw an announcement in one of the notice boxes the other day proclaiming a visit at the end of next month (or the beginning of September – it hasn't been finally fixed yet) of members of Guernsey's Border Agency which, for those of my generation who might wonder what it is, used to be called customs and immigration.

It has been organised by the Harbours and Pilotage Committee – which is to be commended for doing it – and hopefully it might explain, particularly to those who insist that it's not very difficult for Sark to provide someone to look at passports if direct services from France are ever allowed, that life is a little more complex these days.

I know that various groups and individuals have been talking about such services for ages but the difficulties centre on the movement of terrorists and illegal immigration more than they do on smuggling in more than the permitted quota of fine cognac.

One of the more sensible ideas I've heard is for Sark – either by its government or by the tourism industry clubbing together – to finance the attendance of professionally qualified border control personnel to allow for such services.

It will be interesting to see what comes out of what could be an important discussion for Sark.

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