DOUG ROGERS RIP

Doug and Sylvia
at an appropriate location in happier days
Click on any image for a larger version

My acquaintance with Doug dates from after the inauguration of restored Martello Tower No.7 in Killiney in 2008. Initially, I had no idea of the huge amount of research he, and his wife Sylvia, had put into unearthing vast quantities of documentation in the British National Archives at Kew and in many other archives. They also visited many relevant sites in Britain and were responsible for involving Paul Kerrigan and Martin Bibbings in the project. Without their work, there would have been no project.

 I had discovered Major Le Comte de La Chaussée and his survey of Killiney Bay which set the scene for the later building of the Martello Towers in that bay, but it was Doug who set me on the path filling out La Chaussée's role in British attempts to subvert post-revolutionary France and restore the French monarchy. And it was Doug who found La Chaussée's maps which I had been looking for for thirty years. 

And then there was the EU backed Europa Nostra heritage competition which Bill Clements suggested the Tower might enter. The questionnaire was comprehensive and demanding and required input in narrowly specified terms. It took Doug and me, acting as good cop bad cop, to beat Niall over the head to squeeze the information out of him in an acceptable form. The problem was that the way the restoration was done didn't quite fit the required format and Niall had to be "encouraged" to make some rough estimates. The fact that the Tower was shortlisted and got a special mention from the jury is in no small part due to Doug's insistence and cajoling.

  Most recently, despite being very ill Doug agreed to do a commentary for the online Bloomsday 2020 presentation (16 June) at the Tower on the saga of his and Sylvia's research. In the event he was too ill to present it himself and I read his script into the record. I was very pleased to have been able to honour his and Sylvia's research and it now stands as a tribute to Doug. You can access that particular item in the Bloomsday presentation below or just read the text.

Presentation of Doug and Sylvia's research in the 
Bloomsday 2020 event at the Tower

I was thrilled when Doug himself and Sylvia turned up at our Bloomsday Zoom session at midday. This turned into a great conversation though we only had less than a dozen people at it. I'm sort of half sorry I didn't record it, but it was intended as a free flowing conversation and that's what it turned out to be.

Myself & Doug - Xmas 2016
Royal Marine Hotel, Dún Laoghaire

I will always remember Doug as a gentleman, an Englishman with a wry sense of humour and a twinkle in his eye, a natural co-conspirator.

Doug on a lovely birthday few days
in Le Manoir aux Quat'Saisons

You can read Sylvia's beautiful eulogy of Doug, delivered at his cremation on 1 September 2020, here. There's a lot in it about Doug that I didn't know and I'm very impressed. Clearly, as well as everything else, a very modest man.

You can see Doug's death notice and, if you wish, leave a message of condolence, here.

May he rest in peace.

The Magnificent Martello Tower
No.7 Killiney Bay

VOICE FOR CHILDREN

Neil McMurray - Voice for Children

I have just had privilege of interviewing Neil McMurray, one of the hero Jersey bloggers who were blogging for Jersey, as he puts it, and against child abuse and corruption which were rampant on the island. The bloggers effectively functioned as the fourth estate on the island when the main stream media just refused to even pretend to hold the powers that be to account.

The local media (BBC, ITV, Jersey Evening Post) have long lost the trust of the people in their failure to confront the horrendous scandal of institutional child abuse on the island. Instead the people turned to the bloggers. When there was something to be leaked, it was to the bloggers that it was leaked as people knew that the material would otherwise be consigned to the MSM dustbin.

Suspended Police Chief Graham Power
and Children's Home Haut de la Garenne

In this interview Neil gives a concrete example of this in relation to the disgraceful and illegal suspension of the Police Chief in the Establishment's effort to contain the cover up.

The police investigation did not suit the powers that be and they made sure to wind it up at the first opportunity, by suspending the Police Chief and replacing him and the Senior Investigating Officer with more compliant individuals. To this day there are people out there who should have been locked up, to say the least, years ago.

I asked Neil why he prints anonymous comments and got a serious answer. You can see above the annotated bullet that was sent to Trevor Pitman, parliamentarian and blogger, in an attempt to shut him down. The Jersey State later did just that in one of the most devious operations I have seen on the island.

And discover the relevance of my remark that if Jesus came to Jersey he'd end up in Southhampton in his pyjamas.

So lots of exciting, if despicable, things to talk about. Enjoy.

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For those not fully up to speed on the Jersey situation or those needing some introduction to the subject matter of the interview, I thought it worthwhile to include some links below. These generally refer to individual matters mentioned in the course of the interview.

Neil's Blog "Voice for Children"

Advocate Philip Sinel's submission to the Carswell REVIEW on governance..

Bloggers, and State Media evidence to the Care Inquiry: TRANSCRIPTS.

Transcripts of the secret States Debate with the "damning" report that Andrew Lewis did(n't) see.

Also mentioned in the video was the interim defence case of the former Chief Police Officer Graham Power QPM that has been buried by the State Media.

Bloggers being EXCLUDED, from media room at care Inquiry.

Discredited, and disgraced, ITV/CTV was not EXCLUDED.

This is a LINK to an exclusive interview with former Deputy Shona Pitman, whom I have referred to in my comment below @21 January 2021 at 19:45

This is a general link to Neil's blog which will bring up his latest post and allow you to explore the blog.

My blog "Introducing Jersey"

This post will give you a sense of the background as I set it out in November 2012.

This post refers to the German occupation of the Channel islands (2940-45) and the position of individual bloggers as of 2016.

This is the story of the lady known as HG and the churchwarden, referred to in the interview.

This is the story of the Police Chief and his suspension. It draws on, and links to, the transcript of his oral hearing and his written submission of evidence. These documents are no longer available.

My criticism and expectations of the report of the Care Inquiry.

The contents of the Care Inquiry Report and more.

The chief troll referred to in the interview and his comments.

Criticism of the Inquiry's website, the taking down of material, the partial restoration of the site in low security mode and confined to official documents such as the report but leaving the oral hearings transcripts and evidence submitted still offline.

One law for them & another for us - or - A Jersey Cow Ate my Homework.

This is a general link to my "Introducing Jersey" blog, which will bring up the latest post and allow you to explore the blog.

HET VLAKKE LAND

Albert Folens in class

I have been thinking a lot about Albert Folens lately.

He was my first French teacher in Coláiste Mhuire in the 1950s

I didn't know then that he was actually Flemish and had worked for the Germans during WWII. Mind you, it didn't freak me out in the least when I found out. There is an honourable tradition in this country of seeking the aid of England's enemies in the national cause, Roger Casement being the most prominent example which springs to mind in this decade of commemorations. Folens's actions were undertaken in the interest of his native Flanders.

Folens was badly treated by the Belgian state, which was on an orgy of revenge after the war.

He had the good luck to be taken in by the Christian Brothers here and he taught me French. He was an excellent French teacher.

He was also very entrepreneurial and set up his own publishing company which brought us many precious school texts and filled some of the disgraceful gaps in the provision of these texts.

After his death (2003) he was traduced, in an RTÉ series Hidden Nazis (2007), and he would have been all the more so but for the intervention of the courts. This was a shameful episode in the history of the national broadcaster which today is sadly forgotten.

We are often treated to counterfactuals in history - the what if? For example, what if the Third Reich had occupied Britain. Would nobody have collaborated with the invaders? How would we remember that period today in the pantheon of empire?

Well, we actually have a good example, Jersey in the Channel Islands. On Britain's doorstep, a crown dependency directly subject to the English monarch, it was occupied from 1940 until the liberation in 1945.

The islanders were left to their own devices by the British and had to live as best they could under Nazi rule. That is a long, and in parts a deeply shameful, story but it is not for today.

One of the most controversial aspects of collaboration was the authorities drawing up a list of Jewish residents for the Germans, resulting in deportations to concentration camps and deaths.

So, after the war, did the British have their own mini-Nuremberg to deal with this? Not a bit of it, they knighted the island's bailiff, Alexander Coutanche, and tried desperately to forget the whole thing.

Ireland was nominally neutral during the WWII. There was a strong element of pro-German feeling among the population but we were never put to the ultimate test.

Anyway, I was just thinking of how unjustly Albert Folens had been treated and that there are likely no memorials or tributes anywhere to this Flemish patriot.

And here we are, trying to come to terms with one of the most difficult decades in our history, to the point even of commemorating the enemy.

Just sayin'.

You can check out my 2007 post on the RTÉ saga here.