Busy Hands are Never in Want An Island Parish

Covering an area of just two square miles,

Sark is the smallest of the main Channel Islands.

This picturesque and tranquil place has a unique status.

Being a British dependent, it's part of the British Isles

but it has its own Parliament and laws.

The other unusual characteristic of this island is there are no cars,

so the bicycle, the tractor or horse-drawn carriage

are the only modes of transport.

Sark may be just 80 miles off the mainland,

but in many respects, it's a world away.

I think we're lucky to live on Sark. We're spoilt.

Over 50,000 tourists visit Sark in the summer,

but out of season, this close-knit community of only 600 people

must rely on each other to get through the winter.

And the two churches on the island, the Methodist Chapel

and the Anglican St Peter's, have an even more important role.

St Peter's has come to our rescue in the days of unemployment.

January's harsh weather will be a test for all Sark's inhabitants

and many will do a variety of jobs to get through the lean times.

But for those on Sark, the island is a lifestyle as much as a home.

People love the things they do. They love the diversity of what they do.

It's New Year's Day.

And at the island hall,

the scene is set for Sark's annual competition.

The theme this year is three-day eventing.

But this is Sark's unique take on the sport.

The Master Of Ceremonies is builder Dave Cockesedge.

Participants start on the car park here.

Over the first fence, into the water jump,

and then they come up onto what they call the hill

and if they're over time they're penalised.

Then they move on to the dressage

where they have to interpret the music

and they get points deducted and added for the best-looking one and what have you.

The next competitor to arrive is Puffin Taylor.

She's always prepared for a spot of horseplay.

I've got that hat and I'm going to put my puffin hat underneath it,

so it hides, and then I'm going to bring that up so it's like ears.

So that's going to be the horse's head.

-No-one's bribed us yet!

-This is the bit that worries me.

-Are you making it up as you go along?

-Yes, more or less.

Don't let everyone know!

TANNOY: On your marks, get set, go.

The first horse up is Ben and his friend Glenn Williams.

It's silly this, isn't it? Perhaps that comes of living on Sark.

If you're not like it when you arrive, you soon get into it.

For some competitors, last night's celebrations are taking their toll.

TANNOY: A fine.

Whilst others clear the jumps with aplomb...

Oh, yes!

..and display some New Year exuberance.

One, two, three.

Before long, it's the turn of Puffin and her friend and hind legs, Jane Sams.

Over the first fence.

All four legs are working in harmony through the cross-country section

but their greatest test is next.

Now onto the dressage.

GRAND ORCHESTRAL MUSIC

-Nice movement there.

-Yes, nice bit of movement.

Chop-chop.

Well done. Excellent.

APPLAUSE

I tell you what, the dressage was taxing, wasn't it?

We got out of breath.

The back doesn't know what the front is doing, obviously.

And in gold medal position for that great effort,

Puffin and Jane!

THEY CHEER

Well done, Jane. Congratulations. Well done.

Perhaps they thought we were professional!

Come on, then.

Dave Scott moved to Sark as a child.

By his early 20s, he'd embarked on a shepherding career.

For the last 30 years, he's been building up his flock of ewes.

He now has almost 100.

Come on, girls.

They've got a big old area up here to roam round.

There's not a huge amount in the grass this time of year,

so there's more goodness in the hay because it was cut in the summer.

You know, you've got a belly full of hay to start their day with.

And then they go and top up around the place with all various vegetation that's on the go.

Dave's sheep might be fed and happy,

but there's no time to put his feet up.

Here you go, little one.

Back home, he and wife Estelle, a charity worker,

have one-year-old Robin to look after.

And during the winter,

Dave takes on other work to supplement his shepherd's income.

The wintertime's about my busiest time, really.

You know, you'll see me up a tree, delivering logs. We do all sorts.

Just got to check the chain.

Nothing worse than having a blunt chain saw, especially when you're up a tree.

With no tourists around,

it's the perfect time for some of the trees on Sark's main street, The Avenue,

to get some much-needed attention.

I take the lower limbs off,

so just trying to work out the best way to do it.

If you get snow on them, they'll come tumbling down.

It's the nature of being over here,

you need to be flexible what you do to earn a living.

Most people have got different hats to put on.

Or they put the same hat on but do different jobs, you know.

Look up there. It's Daddy.

We often find him up trees, don't we, darling?

He said he was busy off up trees today and then he left the house.

And that's where we found him.

Look at that.

Yeah, I don't like the sound of him and running chain saws up trees

so I just look the other way generally.

After the excitement of Christmas and New Year,

and without the tourists, business slows down on Sark.

The Post Office is run by Caroline.

And like many others on the island,

she must also show resilience in the lean times.

Obviously we don't get many visitors out of season

and, yes, you do struggle to make ends meet,

but you hope that your summer's good enough

so you can put a little bit by and it'll see you through the lean times.

You know, when you have a system where there's no NHS or benefits to call on,

you have to be willing to work.

It's no good coming to Sark thinking you're going to have an easy ride.

You do have to work and I think that's a good thing.

I've always thought that Sark is a very close-knit community

and I think on the whole we do try and help each other out as well.

You know, we allow people to put notices up here

and hopefully they will pick up jobs from that.

Dave and his friend Dick Adams, a fisherman in the summer months,

must turn their hands to most things to get through the winter.

Their job at the moment is for the Anglican Church.

Mm, deeper than you think.

Well, the project is to straighten up all the gravestones to tidy up the cemetery.

You know, a lot of these stones have been here for 100 years,

as if nothing had happened to them. They were in a sorry state, really.

Well, we sort of advertised that we were looking for a bit of work.

Yes, it was a project that they'd got.

BELL TOLLS

There, I think.

Just give it a little wobble.

Yes.

Get the technology right.

Yes, I think we'll get away with that. Yes.

Yes.

See, the whole thing of the island has changed.

The fishermen who used to fish during the summer months

through till, well, generally to the end of October,

and then they used to go on road repairs and that.

Just with the aid of a crusher and a roller, stuff like that.

It gave employment through.

But now that you bring in what we call the MERI crusher,

which is a big tractor, which crushes and lays the roads,

the world we live in at the moment, you've got to be realistic.

Unemployment is worldwide, basically.

And it's crept into Sark, inevitable it would.

Yes, St Peter's has come to our rescue in the days of unemployment.

Okey-dokey, David.

With no airport, everyone and everything arrives on Sark by boat.

And through the winter,

the most important one is the Sark Viking,

the cargo boat that makes the ten-mile journey from Guernsey three times a week.

Every drop of diesel, every bag of cement,

every can of baked beans arrives here.

The ships that come to this island are very important.

The lifeblood of the island.

As one of the harbour masters,

it's Peter Burns's job to make sure the entire operation runs smoothly.

You get a different perspective on Sark being down here.

When you live up on the top, you've got the life that happens up there.

You're not really aware of what's needed to keep all that running up there.

But when you come down here, you immediately are.

Many on Sark have a couple of different jobs.

Jeremy, the crane driver, is also the island's magistrate,

and on a low tide like today,

he's unable to see the boat he's unloading from.

So he relies on Peter for direction.

It's a standard procedure using standard signals and things...

Like, that means take the weight.

That means go down.

That means go up.

It takes a while to realise how the crane works.

You have to think like a crane driver.

You've got to be in tune. You get the speed of the crane,

you know what's happening, so you're in a flow.

There's only one absolute rule.

If anybody goes, "Whoa!" or "Stop!" you stop.

For over 200 years there's been a Methodist chapel on Sark.

And for the last three of those years,

it's been run by lay preacher Karen Le Mouton.

Morning, Sally.

In the long, quiet winter months with no welfare state on the island,

her work is often away from the chapel amongst her parishioners.

In the winter, it's different. It's a different sort of ministry.

It's more engaging with people that are here all the time.

Just coming alongside people whenever they need you.

Karen's been a lay preacher for almost ten years now

but all that could be about to change.

It's funny how God takes you on little steps.

I think he's been leading me down this path

but I hadn't known what the end result would be.

I thought it was just going to be the lay worker on Sark,

but obviously there's more steps that he wants me to consider.

It's Karen's hope to become ordained as a fully fledged Methodist minister.

Well, the first step would be offering myself as a candidate for pre-ordination training.

And that would be a process, then, of discerning whether

God's call is right for me and for the church.

Karen's journey begins on Sark, as she takes the shuttle service,

known to all as the Toast Rack, down to the harbour.

She's off to catch the ferry to the neighbouring island of Jersey.

I think my tummy's jumping about as much as the Toast Rack is, actually!

Karen will face the local Methodist committee today.

It'll be their job to decide if she can progress to the next stage.

There's a panel of 16.

So...we'll see!

'It's not a job, it's a vocation,

'and if I am ordained,

'then that would be for life.'

The other church on Sark is the Anglican St Peter's.

And the church committee, including Puffin and Sheila,

are busy with a spot of upkeep.

There is no permanent vicar at St Peter's at the moment.

The post is unpaid

so finding someone who can afford to take the job is a challenge.

Until they do, they're relying on locum vicars to work a month at a time.

Despite the uncertainty for the parishioners, there is an upside.

I think it is quite good because I think it's helping the church

and the congregation can decide what we would like.

You know, we're an ageing congregation, really,

so they'll bring in ideas

and that's good to see because we've got to bring the church alive again.

So, today's service will be the first taken by Neville Jacob,

Sark's temporary Anglican vicar for January.

Hymns - that's what I need to work out.

Have we got the hymn numbers, John?

'Well, I'm an unemployed vicar, in fact.'

So, I thought having been unemployed for about 18 months, I thought

it would be a good way of just keeping in touch with a bit of vicaring.

It's the calm exterior, you see. It smoothes over everything else.

Like a lot of people today, that's the way it goes, you know.

It's the same for people in the Church as elsewhere, really.

'It's like a very traditional style of Church here.

'It's something that I can see means a lot to people here

'and they get a lot of benefit from it.

'It's good for me to join in and just do it the way they do it, really.'

And that way, I'll sort of learn once more, you know,

what the island's about, really.

Beloved, we are come together in the presence of Almighty God

and the whole company of heaven, to offer unto Him

through our Lord, Jesus Christ, our worship and praise and thanksgiving,

that we may know more truly the greatness of God's love

through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.

I can see just having been here a week that people in the parish

work so hard to keep things going.

I can see it's a very strong, vibrant community of people.

And slowly I've begun to learn people's names.

It can be a struggle, but I feel that I'm getting there.

The great loneliness in British society today

is largely due to the fact that people don't know each other.

Neville's first service in a year-and-a-half seems to have gone down well.

Especially with leader of the choir, Baz Adams.

I think it was great.

He would be the ideal person for Sark, really.

He's got a nice way with people.

Everybody doesn't suit the job.

And he's just one of these things who just fitted like a glove, you know.

Yeah, Wednesday, that sounds good.

'To be honest, I' thought with an 18-month gap,'

your memory would sort of fail a little bit on how you did things.

'So, the art is to try and make your way through'

whilst making it look as if you know what you're doing, really!

In the winter, Peter's job as harbour master is only part-time.

Which leaves him free to concentrate on his passion - music.

Peter's got dreams of turning his hobby into a profession.

So he's building a studio in the back garden.

I have wires running under the ground into the house,

where I can connect microphones in various places around the house,

and then feed it back out here into the recording desk.

And then we'll come here to edit and mix things.

Peter came to Sark ten years ago.

In fact, over three quarters of the island's population

are outsiders or blow-ins,

drawn to Sark's peace and tranquillity.

It sounds really...

you know, cheesy, but I'd written a song when I was a kid

and it was, you know, "I want to live by the ocean,

"I want to live by the sea, where a man can learn to understand

"and let his soul run free."

I remember those lyrics perfectly well and Sark, I suppose, is that.

# Take my hand

# Lead me to a gentle land... #

Somebody told me that Sark chooses you. You don't... You know.

And it'd be nice to think that Sark chose me.

I just love it here. It's such a lovely, peaceful place.

The people on Sark are really... You know, they've got great ingenuity,

and they have to because you can't just do one thing. You can't survive.

And that's the way it is here. People love the things they do,

they love the diversity of what they do, and it makes for a much more interesting life.

Sark attracts individuals for that reason.

You know, Sark is full of individuals

and what the individuals love is that nobody's telling them how to be.

You can be yourself on Sark.

The thing I noticed when I came here especially was that

when you go to work, it's like being part of your life.

It's not like in the city where it feels you go to work

and then you're free at the weekend and then you can be yourself.

Here, it's like when you get there it's part of you.

The whole thing, the whole work ethic was just... Seemed so natural.

It's mid-January and Sark wakes up to a blanket of snow.

I think the children wanted to not go to school

but they all managed to get there, or most of them did!

As there's no transport system here to grind to a halt,

things carry on as normal.

People cope because they're used to walking.

It's a small island so we just see if your neighbour's in, see if they need anything.

The island pulls together, which is great.

Neville, St Peter's locum vicar,

might only be here for a few weeks, but today's a perfect opportunity

to see the islanders' hardy constitution first-hand.

-OK, take care in the...

-Yeah.

-..ice.

I think people get on and do what they have to do.

Still going out doing their shopping and those tractors just pass by.

People are going to school and things like that.

I didn't bring any gloves with me either.

My fingers are absolutely freezing, but, erm...

I'm not letting on about that!

Whatever the weather, shepherd Dave Scott must

feed his flock of 90 pregnant ewes out on the headland every day.

Come on! Come on!

Today, he's got a treat for them.

A bonus from his tree surgery work

and a much sought-after delicacy in the sheep world.

Ivy.

There won't be a scrap of it left by the time I come back tomorrow!

Just be a few sticks.

Come on, girlies.

Dave's ewes are only a month away from giving birth now,

and with 75% of his income reliant on successful lambing,

keeping his girls healthy is key.

This is known as a gorse hayrack.

Come on!

You've got to check them once a day,

so you give them enough for a day and then they don't waste any then.

Lay preacher Karen is back from her interview on Jersey.

And she's had news from her Methodist elders

on her bid to become ordained.

-So, tell me, how did it go?

-It was a unanimous vote that, yes,

that they're affirming my calling to go to the next stage.

I think by the end, I expected to be sort of shouting

from the rooftops with joy, but actually, I was very subdued

and very quiet, but I think it was just the exhaustion, really.

The emotional exhaustion.

The next and final hurdle facing Karen and her dream

of becoming ordained will be a trip to Hertfordshire,

to meet the Methodist Church hierarchy in a month's time.

The entire enterprise will rest on this.

'I hope that even if I wasn't successful,

'I would still grow in my faith and develop.'

You don't know what God's got planned, really.

So, Karen is back,

but for Neville Jacobs, the temporary Anglican vicar,

it's almost time to return to his home on the mainland.

On his last day,

there's just time to visit one of Sark's most famous landmarks.

There's the window in the rock. Sheer drop.

This is where you have to just sort of stop.

How are you feeling about your time on Sark?

I feel rejuvenated, yeah.

What people don't know is I haven't been to a church for two years,

really, since, and that was really just because

when you lose your job, even if the reasons are quite...

understandable, you still feel a bit lost,

and perhaps I was feeling a bit lost.

You know, I hadn't had a parish, really, for 18 months or two years,

and I wanted to sort of see if I could manage that role, really.

Feeling a bit emotional now.

Yeah...

I think it would be a good post.

Do you have too much back on the mainland to consider taking the job full-time yourself?

Well, I need to earn some money! HE LAUGHS

-Bracken! Bracken!

-In the days to come...

Somewhere down there in the misty murks,

there'll be ormers to be had.

..spring tides on Sark provide the islanders with some unique opportunities.

They'll take some bashing!

A talent competition brings some of Sark's private performers...

into the public domain.

My hands just froze. I kept thinking, "All these people are watching me!"

And as Karen's journey to become ordained reaches its final hurdle,

she faces a difficult decision.

You're kind of torn, feeling you want to be there

but you know you've only got this one chance.

I'm just praying that everything will work out at the right time.