Roy Le Herissier - Life and Times of Norman Le Brocq

everybody.

time Um, Roy is probably known to all of you, but, um, he tells me that he did a BA and then a PhD in politics, um, and, um, Worked as you were a lecturer, weren't you? Yeah, yeah, and then worked as a consultant.

I, I threw that you did, you did, you did a lecture? Oh, various spots around the world, around the globe.

Came back to Jersey in the 1990s, um, I was, um, stood as deputy for Saint Xavier.

And anything else? I was in the in the service. Yeah, yeah. Oh well, we won't get into that.

Oh, so what was your book about? It was about the Jersey Constitution.

Yeah, yeah.

Are there any copies in the shop? Can we? Well, they used to be.

You can still get them on secondhand, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

So there we go, bit of a rough introduction.

Thank you.

OK, thank you.

Uh, OK, this will be recorded on film and it will, uh, not embrace the audience.

So, but if any of you don't like the notion of it being on film, uh, you're quite welcome to leave. But you may find other reasons to leave as it progresses. Well, Norman LeBrock, obviously he was.

famous or notorious for one thing, he was Jersey's only communist politician, and in fact when he was in politics, there was only one other communist, and as I understand it, there's only been one other communist representative in the UK, a Scottish MP, so there were only two, Norman being one of them.

Norman was born in 1922, a 100th year. He died in 1996 when he was aged 74. He won a scholarship to Victoria College.

He left there at about the age of 17.

His most not other than his political conversion, which I'll come to, but his most notable move there was he would not take part in the college cadet force because of his views on presumably war and pacifism.

Um, and that basically is it, except for one unfortunate and major traumatic incident in his life.

At the age of about 11, going on 12, he woke up in the morning and all his family were dead. Uh, his two siblings and his mother and father, and, uh, what had transpired had happened, this was in 1934.

They had uh slept on the same floor and one of the parents, it was never known who.

One of the parents had turned the gas on and split the, um, the pipe, so the gas seeped out. And they all died, the two siblings. Norman was sleeping on the top floor and survived, and he was the first obviously to confront the situation. Uh, and you'll hear him talk about it when we uh.

Get on a bit of tape.

Well, not in great detail. He's never talked about it, uh, in any detail. for maybe obvious reasons, so let's see if we can get the tape.

Moving. The introduction and here are his own words now by the Who I'm going to need a bit of uh.

go.

I should Thank you ladies and gentlemen.

Uh, when I was asked by Michael Giddens to where I was prepared to address you on, uh, things that I knew about during the occupation, I thought probably the best way I could tackle this was to just browse through personal reminiscences, uh. Uh, firstly, because if they are personal reminiscences, I know that they're factual, whereas if you start pontificating about things that you think you know that other people did, sometimes you come adrift. So I'm going to speak specifically about things I was involved in during the occupation, and I hope it does prove of some interest to you. At the start of the occupation.

I was a lad of 17. I had left school, uh, and started to work as a very junior junior clerk at the gas company in their offices there. Uh, I was.

I was an orphan, my parents were dead. I was living with an aunt in town, but uh my official guardian was my paternal grandfather out at Saint Peter's. Um, I was in a quandary of the various evacuation moves just prior to occupation, because my grandfather had been taken quite seriously ill, and I felt on the one hand, a desire to. Go away, on the other hand, uh, a duty as it were to uh stay and uh uh uh see my grandparents through whatever might happen. In the end, that one and I stayed. Uh, my desire to go was probably partially political.

I had uh by that time to form quite strong definite political opinions.

I think uh. My sixth form experiences at Victoria College, uh, during the time of the Spanish Civil War had, uh, sort of formed whatever political ideas I had at the at that specific time. I suppose my politics thing, if I can come to that was a sort of rather.

Theoretical, probably with hindsight rather mixed up and confused adherence to Marxist ideology, but I must say it was a very um teenage, uh, and rather confused, I, I freely admit with hindsight, uh point of view at that time. Uh, I'll tell you how mixed up and confused it was because, uh, I was also a member of the Methodist Church, and in fact during 1941, I became a lay preacher for some time, uh, in the local Methodist Church.

About the same time, and I'm very bad about specific dates, but uh sometime in 1941, I met a chap called Leslie Hewin.

Uh, Les was, uh, to play quite a big part in, uh, my life and in fact many people's lives during the occupation over here.

Les as a young man in the tail end of the 20s or possibly the very early 1930s. as an apprentice plumber at that time and uh served his time at Tom McCan's in uh uh New Street, Les had emigrated to Australia.

Where he joined the Australian Communist Party and in fact worked for them as a full-time organiser at one time.

In uh, I'm not sure about when, but probably about 1938, or beginning of 1939. Les Hug informed the idea of coming to fight in the International brigades in Spain, but at that time nobody was recruiting in Australia for the International Brigades and he had to, Uh, collect enough money to pay his passage to Europe, which he did.

He landed, uh, somewhere in Italy from Australia at almost exactly the same time as the government forces in Spain collapsed and the international brigades were disbanded, and uh Les's great adventure, it didn't happen. He then came back to his native island to collect enough money together uh to get back to Australia. Um, he was caught here by the occupation and in fact uh uh worked over here right through the, uh, um, the occupation, finally got himself enough money to get married and get back to Australia, I think about 1947, 1948. He's still alive as well. Thank you Who OK.

You may have gathered certain things there how he moved into communism.

He maintains that was, by the way, an address to the Channel Island Occupation Society. He maintains that it was the Spanish Civil War that was the major influence, and it was this guy Les Helen, and we got a photograph of Excuse me, you've got a photograph of the early JDM with Les Hulin. Uh, check in on the, uh, photo which we can. Move around.

He did go back as Norman said to Australia, but they kept in touch till the end of his life. The other thing was his little dalliance with Methodism which you sometimes get those two things going together, two sets of beliefs, believe it or not, even though obviously communism is a godless ideology, obviously, but occasionally the two do come together.

But it was the battle against fascism, Spain, and to an extent, Germany.

The strange thing is, like Russia, of course, Jersey was not an industrial society. Norman did write a little book which I'll send around where he talks of all the industrial disputes and the growth of trade unions and so forth, but obviously Jersey wasn't an ideal fertile ground for the formation of communism. The Jersey Communist Party was founded. In 1939, it was obviously a small group of people and remained a small group of people.

During the war, and that's what Norman was talking about in that talk, uh, he associated with three people, Hewland who couldn't get back to Australia, Stella Perkins, who some of you will know as running the bookshop on St James Street for the JDM and then Norman himself. And, and their main activities were aid to prisoners, which he, he flew quite close to the wind. Uh, distribution of the printed word, distribution of leaflets, and so forth and so on, again, highly dangerous stuff, and at the end of the war, an attempt to foment a rebellion amongst German soldiers, and they found a chap called Murbia, I think was his name. And he, he gave them an entouree into the German forces. He was very anti-Hitler and again, fairly dangerous stuff. And the other thing which I'll come back to, he got involved obviously with Russian and eastern prisoners and one of the most famous he got involved with was this guy Bill. Who was looked after by Louisa Gould. Some of you will remember, but put that in your mind because we are going to revisit that story. And as a result of all this, uh, it was Norman, I think, who founded the Westmount commemoration, which of course we just uh experienced.

He was also involved in a wartime discussion group where there was a group of people, there was one in England, as you may recall, but there was one here.

They were trying to Work out what direction the island should take after the war, and Bob Roswe was a member, although Bob makes it clear in his most recent book that uh he obviously wasn't on the Norman's political wavelength, although maybe he could have been, but he wasn't. And the Jersey democratic movement, which has had a long history, um, uh, a lot of, uh, bifurcations, as I say, splits and re-slits and reunifications. Uh, it was formed in the war in about 1943 and of course it only officially disbanded quite recently, as you probably know, although I suppose the reformed jersey would see themselves as the heirs apparent. Politics was very lively after the war.

There were mass meetings at West Park, which Norman often addressed. There used to be 5, according to the JP who were his nemesis, by the way, there were 50 to 800 people in attendance at these meetings, and there was always an inevitable conclusion. There used to be a shouting match. Uh, who's going to pay for it? was the standard called out of the audience, and then another wag would say Moscow. And then the whole meeting would collapse into chaos, and there were about 2 police officers present, and Ger Norman and his tight little group would then run to the police station to get away from the overexcited mob. That, I mean, it was fairly live politics. This was in the lead in to the 1945 election. When they had high hopes, rather as in England, where the Socialists obviously were to um be very successful in the election, they had high hopes of, uh, winning.

And their manifesto will not strike you as terribly radical. There should be adequate compensation for states members. There should be a modern equitable divorce law. There should be an augmented all-island police force. Remember this is when the honorees could only allow the state's police to operate by permission within their parish. So it was all very localised. There should be compulsory health insurance. There should be free education to 16. A maximum working week and minimum wage, etc. But they were accused by the JEP of having behaved with utter dishonour during the war.

And there was a never ending conflict, and there's no doubt this stayed with Norman and the Communist Party for years, this conflict and the feelings that had been aroused by the run-in with the JP.

The JP essentially called them treacherous. They said they had given the Germans documents towards the end of the war, which should never have been released to the Germans, and that put the JDM on the back foot for quite a long time. This this uh ongoing conflict. And it led to some very, very Very uh strong editorials from the uh JEP. Uh, the JDM, their view was that the JPP, this was the advent of two political parties, the Jersey Progressive Party, with names like Rumford, Kraszewski, Le Marcon, names that were to resonate in the succeeding years, the Jersey Progressive Party, who formed partly to deal with the perceived threat of the JDM and the Jersey Progressive Party.

Uh, they essentially, uh, operated in the urban areas and they left the rural areas to look after themselves because they assumed that there would be a JPP type victory in the. Rural areas, but nevertheless, there were two major parties fighting that election.

And uh The JPP was described by the JDM recognising the so-called progressives for what they are, political stooges for our present states.

New masks hiding a face of reaction. They are sponsoring a new party led by friends, relatives, and associates of the present state's members. Uh, nothing changes.

Um, but the end result was the JDM were well and truly trounced at the election. They only got one member in, a guy called Stephen Venables. He became a deputy in town, and the rest went to the JPP. But on the vote itself they did reasonably well. They, they got about even in the rural areas, I think they got about 26% of the votes. And In the town area they got about 42% of the votes for JDF, so they did quite well on a vote total basis, but certainly not in terms of members, and the JPP was to assume power and it could be argued that basically it's them and their heirs who've remained in power ever since, you know, they're the people, so they've always been on the back foot as a minority, basically. OK.

So Norman meanwhile was running for most elections.

He ran for 6 elections before he was elected in 1966, and even then there were 2 big breaks in his period of office until about 1987 where he lost the election. And there was one infamous case, and it's mentioned in Reg Joan's memoirs where Reg was basically wheeled out deliberately to oppose Norman LeBrock. In one of the town areas, I think #2, and he and Reg won it. He won that election. Um, but he makes it quite clear what he was told, uh, about the notes of the so there was this incredible fear. You've got to remember at this time, the Cold War was well and truly underway. And the fear that people felt about communism and so forth had quite clearly percolated down.

They renewed their manifesto in 1961, the JDM And I'll give you a couple of quotes because they do resonate on the question of housing.

They have no policy, the JPP, except to bemoan the lack of sites and the high cost of building. On the traffic problem, they have no solutions save traffic bollards and no parking signs. So much for the road to inspectors, Jeff. Jersey, it said, is a parasitic community that cannot support itself except by attracting to its shores those who want to escape from their social duties in Britain.

This was before the takeoff because it was to occur quite soon after the takeoff of the finance industry. And again, they were, they wanted parish assemblies to elect meeting chairs and that there'd be parish councils for larger parishes, something that Crocroft is actually now trying to bring or was trying to bring intoin Helio.

The large businesses, bar a few UK ones, must be owned by the people of Jersey.

This is where their policy had a communist or socialist stamp to it, but the rest of it was fairly standard social reform material. Um, And small business owners should be encouraged to set up cooperatives. Uh, there should be the provision of more general and varied indoor amusement for tourists.

Uh, Port Regent was yet to appear and of course it became that venue, so to speak. There should be an end to the private development of all coastal areas.

We've we've been there before. And at Channel Island Technical College to offer all kinds of vocational training. And lastly, another source of financing social amenities would be the ending of a large slice of states expenditure at present devoted to highly paid positions at the top of the governing machine.

So there we have it.

So Norman entered the states in 1966.

Losing my pictures here. in that kind of environment which I mentioned and that's him campaigning.

Uh, that photo there is of, uh, another, uh, left representative, Jimmy Johns.

He's ageing in from the left on that photo. And here's Norman, we'll come back to it, but that's doing what he did throughout most of his life by chairing the Channel Island cooperative movement, and that's him opening the St.

Peter's store, which oddly enough, the building of which was approved under his presidency of planning, he approved the design. Conflict there maybe.

OK, I've talked about uh Essentially when he entered the states, he was in the political wilderness.

And uh he moved various projects and social reforms around divorce laws and so forth. Not, not a lot got through, not as many, not the cascade we've seen in the last 2030 years, but he did move very, and he remained very much a social reformer. Uh promoting social agenda, his break came when he was invited onto The Island Development Committee by Pierre Hors.

He became vice president of the committee and on the departure of Horsfall, he became the president.

And as he said at the time, and it's all very sad, I never thought anyone would invite me to do anything. He'd basically been ostracised within the states to that point. And what happened was a very interesting friendship developed which I'll come back to.

Between him and his vice president called Sir Martin Leain, two more unlikely partners you could not imagine. McCain was straight out of the British diplomatic service with all the attributes he would associate with that. And they got on very well. They got on very well. Horsfall, I said of Norman Le Brock, I haven't had a better vice president. He's practical. He's deep caring for the well-being of people. If he said something, it was worth listening to, and he was a very logical person. And he served in 1987.

Uh, there was, I'll go back to it, there was an interesting incident occurred, but Shenton tried to get him voted off the planning committee.

He moved a vote of no confidence in LeBrock, and of course it was the custom if you won a vote and he won by one vote, Shenton, if you won a vote, you yourself would take over the committee. And but he refused to.

So a few weeks later, it was put up for a vote again and Norman got back in, he was basically voted back in. Shenton said, um, I wasn't after the policy of the man, I was after the state of the planning department. That was all chaotic and so forth and so on, but uh, he was to be heavily criticised, centred by the uh the left, and there were, and there was a time when Norman was accused of bringing in an island plan by Mr. Dunn, that he, he was told it was a capitalist document. And Mr.

Dunn said he's with us. It would be naive and silly not to recognise Deputy LeBrock's predicament as a lone voice in a hostile state's assembly, and this is one of the few occasions we get to hear what Norman's thinking is actually, because he very rarely discussed the issue of communism, although you could go to all these classes about it if he were so minded. The party did run all these classes, but he very rarely discussed that. It's only in that book. Um, which I'll send around maybe, sorry, I'm jumping from the camera. It's only in this book called Jersey looks forwards.

where he writes the history.

Of the labour movement in Jersey.

He writes the history of the labour movement in Jersey.

Uh, but it's not that theoretical, the book. He, um, he talks of class and all the working class all the time, obviously, but it's not that theoretical. And anyway, he said in, um, reply to this criticism that he was bringing a capitalist plan.

It would be amazing if it were anything else than a capitalist document. The older I get, the deeper is my conviction that Karl Marx's analysis of man's history and society is the only one that stands up to scrutiny. Once elected, and I could participate.

I could participate or I could remain on the sidelines and refusing responsibility but keeping my socialist principles pure. This is always the issue when a radical or an opposition, a strict opposition person comes into government. What do they do? I mean you had that in a sense with Tony Benn. I mean, Tony Benn became a pure socialist once he left government, but when he was in government, he was a politician. For example, he pushed Concord. When he was technology minister, although it made no economic sense, but he was a Bristol MP, it was a Bristol Aircraft factory, and he did the same with the Triumph Motorcycle Company, as you may recall when he set up a workers' cooperative.

But anyway, this is. Norman's saying, look, I've got a compromise within the system. I'm in it. They've given me a position of power and influence. I've got to compromise. Um, there's one incident I'll just revert.

That's Norman at work.

When he was in the states, he didn't get paid obviously, he was the man who pioneered it, and there was this thing called the buckets, his uh his. Uh, supporters used to go around, uh, with a bucket on Saturday mornings, it appeared.

But he by then, having started, as you heard in the gas company, he moved to be a stonemason and trained himself, and that's him building, I don't know if you recognise the spots. Yeah, Charing Cross, that's him building it, so, um, that's what he did in between states meetings, basically, because he obviously had to um.

Earn money.

But there was an incident which it's worth recalling.

In 1966.

He went to Moscow on a one month visit. And uh as the JDP delighted in saying, paid for by the Soviet states, they made sure they uh they got that in. And he went there and I'm trying to find out, uh, there was a famous quote that emanated. From there, which again he got into trouble.

He called Jersey in an interview just before he left, semi-feudal.

The island had low taxation, low wages, nepotism, graft, and corruption. Now we all know that to be untrue, but anyway, he got into deep trouble with, as I said, these nemesis for JDP, so it all started off. But a very interesting thing happened. He was in Moscow, and it's Bobba Swir who tells the story, and far away in Siberia there was a chap. In one of the gulags who was called to the commandant's office and told, You're getting on a plane. So he got on a plane, this chap, but he didn't have any choice obviously, and he ended up in this very big building in Moscow, which he thought was the Lubiana, you know, the headquarters of the KGB, and he ended up in this very big building. And all of a sudden the door opened and who was on the other side, but Norman LeBrock and Les Huan, I think Les Huon was with him, and it transpired.

This was built. The chap who Louisa Gould had looked after.

And uh Norman had made representations that he be allowed to meet him, and at that point Bill was actually released. Because Norman confirmed who he was and so forth. So it's a very interesting uh human story. As another aside, um, unlike a lot of communists, Norman never wavered like when Hungary occurred, when the revelations about Stalin occurred, when Czechoslovakia occurred, Norman never wavered. His adherence to communism remains strong. He maintains he told the Soviets. His views on Hungary when he was there, but again this was raised as an issue, but he never certainly wavered, whereas a lot of people deserted a lot of the Europeans and the Brits, they deserted their communist parties at that time, as you probably know. So that's just, uh, sorry, just going back to a very interesting little story.

Back to the Island Development Committee, it was a reforming committee under Norman. He brought in zoning, which not everybody likes. He brought in an island plan, and I, and he was, although a lot of people seem to be claiming credit, he was responsible for Liam Yale, you know, redeveloping some wans, getting rid of those mini dumps. That were along Saint Juan's Bay, but it said a lot of people have been photographed with Mick Romrell against, uh, let me out saying I did it anyway. He, uh, he eventually left the planning committee.

And he became chairman of the Hedges Council, and his very last position with the states, which might be construed as the running the Siberian power station posting which he used to get in the Soviet Union, his very last position was head of the Jersey Walls Council, and this was a little group in the states who gave grants to people whose granite walls were falling down. And the states gave grants, and of course Norman, having been a stonemason, he did actually have the technical ability obviously uh in that area. So uh that that's uh quite interesting. He um As I said, he left the states in '87.

He still remained the only working person in the states, as I remember.

There was no one else at that point succeeding him. All this time he was chair of the Channel Island Co op, but then he threw his lot in with that most middle class of organisations, the National Trust, and became president of the National Trust.

And there's no doubt at that point. The environmental side of his thinking, you know, had taken over. He'd become a committed environmentalist, um, although, as I said, he never ever gave up his, um, His beliefs, so he did remain in that sense faithful. He withstood the isolation.

He became what we might label these days a social democrat rather than a communist. So to that extent he maybe was a disappointment. There, there remained all the time a little communist party, but it was never obviously a mass movement in Jersey, but there was a little communist party, but they had merged their interests with the JDM, the Jersey Democratic Movement. The only group. Who didn't. There was a group called the Jersey labour Party founded in 1921, very active like the English labour Party with trade unions, but they gradually collapsed. They never became a big force in Jersey, although I think there were attempts and there was some. Uh, religious gentleman involved, a rector, I can't remember which parish or I don't know which parish. There was an attempt to revive it, but it never really, uh, got off the ground. So So he made a major contribution to the states.

And while the JP never warmed to him at that time.

The world was to change later.

And the JP editorial.

Following his death, said Mr.

Le Brock proved that his humanity was matched by practicality, sound common sense, and a capacity for hard work. If it is inevitable that he will be remembered for a political stance, let us recall that he was a communist who was also an ardent democrat and a common man who also had uncommon talents.

That was the uh JP's words upon his death.

Now there was an official tribute given him at Saint Savis Parish Hall by what today we call the establishment, and I'll give you a couple of quotes from what people said because I've no doubt he would have been unbelievably embarrassed to have heard all this, to have heard how much he was seen as having gone, so to speak to the other side. Sir Martin McCain said he was an intransigent democrat. He was convinced of the need for change. This man, who I've been informed was devoted to the subversion of the system by guile and revolution, was in fact calm, good tempered, and cooperative. He just on the side.

That was a time in Jersey there were 2 diplomats in the Jersey states at that point, and there was a 3rd distinguished Jersey diplomat who never entered the states called Sir Samuel Fall, but Sir Robin Maritt was in the states, and he apparently had sent. Norman, uh, a message saying, look, Norman, I know when the revolution comes, I'm going to be executed. Could you put a word in for me? So, uh, things were getting along fairly well with uh these strange bedfellows, uh, so to speak. And we had the then current bailiff.

Um, our highly esteemed candidates at the moment in St. Clements, Sir Philip Baloch, he said for years a voice in the wilderness, he found in late life many of his ideals becoming accepted government policy. So, uh, that's an interesting, uh.

Insights from somebody who, uh, you wouldn't have seen on the same side.