LOOKING BACK: Dialling in for a meeting, 1940s style!

Tuesday 08 October 2024

We tend to think of dialling into meetings as a modern occurrence. However, nearly 80 years ago, a Christian movement in Jersey called Toc H used the latest technology at their fingertips to allow a bedbound but dedicated member of their group to do just that.

The wonderfully named Dick Turpin, who had been confined to bed with arthritis since 1922 and totally blind for most of that period, was able to keep in touch with Toc H meetings in the 1940s using a microphone and loudspeaker, relying on ‘the kindness of his fellow members and the States Telephone Department’, according to the group’s records that are held at Jersey Archive.

When the social action group’s new headquarters was opened in St Helier in 1948, a telephone line was kept open for Dick for the whole of the official celebrations, day and night.

Pictured: A group of children on a visit to Fort Regent organised by the Toc H Women’s Section in 1977. (Jersey Evening Post)

He wrote a report of the official opening on 13 May that year, part of which reads: “After the speeches the Ceremony of Light was taken by Sir Alexander Coutanche from the stage which was beautifully decorated with palms and flowers. This I could sense was a most impressive moment in the proceedings.”

The report goes on to say: “The members were sorry that they could not take ‘Dick’, the microphone with its white face, with them for this trip [around the island].

“This was the only time during the week-end that the microphone was silent; even in the early hours of the morning mysterious noises came from the loud speaker; at one period it was the chairman searching for the top half of his pyjamas, which had somehow mysteriously disappeared!”

Pictured: A Toc H car sticker, “sold by Fred”, pasted into the branch’s Minute book, 1965. (Jersey Heritage)

Toc H, which is no longer in Jersey but continues to operate internationally, has its roots in a First World War soldiers’ rest and recreation centre called Talbot House, in Poperinge, Belgium. Its driving force was the Reverend Philip Thomas Byard Clayton (1885-1972), known as ‘Tubby’.

The first Toc H centre in Britain opened in London in 1920, and by 1925 it was an international movement with branches as far away as Australia. The movement is based on practical social action, its aims summarised as the ‘Four Points of the Compass’: ‘to love widely; to build bravely; to think fairly; to witness humbly.’

Toc H had a presence in Jersey in 1929, and by 1938 it was an organised group. The Occupation put a stop to the members’ activities, but they re-banded very quickly – the first official meeting after Liberation was in June 1945.

Pictured: The Ceremony of Light Service held at St Saviour’s Church on 31 Oct 1946 at which the branch’s ceremonial lamp was lit for the first time. (Jersey Heritage)

By 1965, Toc H had branches in Grouville and St Helier. Jersey Archive holds the St Helier (‘Town’) Branch’s archives, which have recently been catalogued.

The St Helier group originally met in two rooms in Stopford Road, but from 1945 worked to establish a permanent headquarters. In April 1947, a plot of land was given to them by Mrs Gruchy; part of her garden at Ronceville, on the corner of Plaisance Road (now La Route du Fort) and St Clement’s Road, St Saviour.

Building work started in November 1947 and in May 1948, the headquarters was officially opened by the Lieutenant-Governor, Sir Edward Grasett.

Pictured: The entrance to the Toc H headquarters, probably when brand new in 1948. (Jersey Heritage)

The building was adapted from a wooden hut which had originally been erected by the Germans in People’s Park. The headquarters consisted of a large hall (with a stage), a small chapel, a meeting room, a ‘pilot’ room and a kitchen.

The hall was designed so that it could be used as a youth hostel. It regularly hosted youth and other groups during the summer months, allowing many children from across the UK to take their first ever holiday.

Located next to the Howard Davis Park, visiting bands also stayed there. The Scots Guards apparently used to keep sentries on duty, which must have felt rather jarring compared with the usual summer holiday groups.

Pictured: The St Helier branch’s Men’s Section with Toc H founder, the Rev Tubby Clayton (with pipe and dog) during his visit in Feb 1958. (Jersey Heritage)

The St Helier branch started with just a Men’s Section, but a Women’s Section began at the end of 1945. It set up a twice-weekly youth club (Talbot Boys’ Club, started in May 1948, later re-branded ‘The Seagulls’), and an Old Men’s Club started in 1961.

Some of the many organisations that the Branch supported in 1965 included Basil House Boys' Hostel; Sunshine Homes for Blind Babies; La Préférence Vegetarian Home for Children, St Martin; the Home for Infirmed and Aged Women at Glanville, St Mark’s Road; and the Gardner’s Home for Old Men, Clarence Road.

In January 1947 and February 1958, the Jersey Toc H was visited by the organisation’s founder, Rev ‘Tubby’ Clayton, together with his Cairn Terrier, who accompanied him everywhere, and in June 1949 Miss Macfie, the founder Pilot of the Toc H Women’s Section, made her first visit to Jersey.

Pictured: Toc H branch members, with their lamp and banner, marking the national Toc H’s 50th anniversary in May 1965. (Jersey Heritage)

The Toc H movement celebrated its 50th anniversary in 1965 – which was marked locally by a floral display in Howard David Park, a fête at Samarès Manor and a Guest Night at the St Helier Toc H, which was attended by the Lieutenant Governor.

Toc H’s work continued in the following decades, but by 2006 the headquarters had closed. The site has now been redeveloped, and there is nothing left there to remind us of the many decades of social action carried out by Toc H’s members in Jersey.

FIND OUT MORE...

For more stories from the archives, take a look at the Archives & Collections Online catalogue online HERE.