November

Jersey was ahead of the curve when, in 1909, it was bitten by the roller skating bug, and locals spent their evenings getting sweaty on the rink. It was such a craze that even the local police, who had been sent to keep order, soon found themselves joining in. In other outlandish news, November was also the month when the States of Jersey made it illegal for anyone to own or detonate a nuclear weapon on the island.

Two prominent spies with Jersey connections were born in November. Naval officer Philippe d’Auvergne, who spent much of his life making trouble for France, was adopted by a Frenchman in his adulthood so that he could inherit his adopted father’s fortune. Later, during the Second World War, Eddie Chapman found himself imprisoned in Jersey at the start of the Occupation. He offered his services as a spy for Germany but, on being parachuted into England, he immediately reported what he was doing to British authorities and turned against his German handlers. His double-crossing earned him the nickname Agent ZigZag.

Construction of the original Fort Regent began in this month, Jersey’s south coast was designated a Ramsar Wetland, and Jersey sent its first entrant to Miss World.

A serious spill at the power station coincided with emergency services running a training operation at the site. Corrosive acid, which was leaking from a storage vat, was so strong that it destroyed several pumps and damaged the protective clothing worn by the clean-up team.