Originally Posted by
jlemon
My grandfather's ancestors on my mother's side of the family came from Jersey. And I just happen to resemble my Mom's dad quite closely.
Therefore, I would love to visit Jersey some fine day.
This is just a trivial sideline.
Jersey was a common holiday resort when I was a kid. There were still restrictions on how much money you could take 'abroad', so as Jersey uses British money there was an advantage here, you could spend what you liked. We went, alas, by ship, from the harbour town of Weymouth, it was about 6 hours across the sea. Those were the days just before proper car ferries, and I recall my grandfather's car, along with a few others, being craned aboard one at a time, where they were just put down on the open deck in various places. There is a half-French culture there plus the tax-free atmosphere, many went to enjoy cheap alcohol prices; of course I was too young to appreciate this. However, a couple of elderly lady relatives came over two days later by plane and we picked them up from the airport, maybe the first airport I ever visited; subsequent investigation leads me to believe they travelled with Jersey Airlines, part of British United, on a De Havilland Heron from Exeter. The arrived completely deaf; they always were somewhat this way but the Heron was unpressurised and they had been badly affected, and shouted at us all for the rest of the day.
Fast forward to just a couple of years ago. I had done a lot of travelling on BA, the Gulf multiple times, USA trips, etc, and for those from the US you would not believe how challenging it is to get status on BA. From lowly Blue I had got Bronze, and had got just so VERY nearly to Silver (free lounge, etc). The BA Tier Points are zeroed every 12 months and this was a couple of weeks away. The best thing to do was a Mileage Run in Business Class from London Gatwick to Jersey, so I planned a day trip there just in time, with a day's interesting activities around the island.
Then Mrs WHBM
came and told me the news about what you can read about in post #3788 above, towards the beginning of the third paragraph, and all thoughts of the Mileage Run just sort of evaporated ......... so I still haven't been there since being a kid. And to cap it all, I've since been knocked back down to Blue again.
Sorry, all. Now back to One-Elevens.