A BOAT bobbing off Guernsey in an aquamarine sea beneath fluffy white clouds was framed by soaring cliffs and a huge plate of succulent crab sandwiches sitting on a stone wall in the foreground. This was the kind of holiday masterpiece that the Channel Islands seem to offer at many a turn down their narrow country lanes. It came as a surprise to find dozens of similar pristine bays, rolling green meadows, stirring history, fine food and people bursting with the kind of banter that would be the envy of the most genial of Dublin taxi drivers.
Indeed, countless British and Irish tourists poured in during the 1970s and, once again, in the 1980s when the nine-series Bergerac TV crime blockbuster drew viewers to the enviable lifestyle and bucolic surroundings (despite the regular fictional murders). A similar invasion is hoped for next year when the series reboot launches with Kildare-born Damien Molony in the starring role on the free-to-air channel U&DRAMA and the free streaming service, U. I spent a few days island-hopping tand was absorbed by the quaintness and the breadth of activities available in three very different places in these British Crown dependencies.
Biggest and most bustling of the Channel Islands, the capital, St Helier, was just a 75-minute Blue Islands flight from Birmingham and was mostly filled with family groups and grey-haired men (like me) and women, as opposed to the pink-topped hen parties and rowdy stag groups that were frantically downing early morning.