Recently we’ve been covering attempts to novelise Jim Bergerac’s 1980s TV adventures. In 1988, Penguin brought out the first straight-to-novel adventures. In the same year, BBC Books, which had earlier tried to bring us Bergerac scripts in book form, tried something more audacious: a parish-by-parish guide to the island, lavishly illustrated with etchings, photographs and pictures from the TV show. More to the point, this guide was written by Bergerac himself, John Nettles, which means it can be called Bergerac’s Jersey. Think about how audacious this is: it’s like Mark McManus writing Taggart’s Glasgow. It’s more a coffee table book than a companion when travelling, but it’s definitely worth a go, especially as a period piece.

Nettles seems to have had a lot of time on his hands while on the Bergerac set. He swims most days and learns to dive and to ride horses. The book tells us about some of his friends and also the restaurants he used to visit. (Consulting my phone’s photo app, I note that at least one of those restaurants was still open when I visited in 2021.) He seems, genuinely, to know the island inside out and is able to provide history and anecdotes for each of the 12 parishes. He also provides us with tales from the Bergerac set, which, let’s face it, is what most of us came for. We learn about the time Terence Alexander teased his co-stars about how they had to swim in the cold Channel waters – before falling in himself. We read about what Sean Arnold used to say to blag a drink from rich yacht-owners. It isn’t quite as amusing as Nettles’ later memoir Nudity in a public place, but it’s too plush a volume for extended levity. 

The book feels as though Nettles is trying to do a number of things. Of course, he (and BBC Books) wants to make the most of the opportunity. He seems to genuinely want to portray the island – which he tells us he wasn’t impressed by in the early days – in a decent light. And he knows what his audience wants: self-deprecation and a bit of wit. For each of the 12 main chapters, we learn a bit of history together with a true or mythical story about the parish and some memories of filming. Sometimes the stories are interesting and sometimes…well, frankly, they’re not – but the pace of the book means that you need wait only a paragraph or two before the subject changes entirely. Turning randomly to page 86, there are stories about how Beryl Reid experienced the ‘understated shorts’ of cameraman Kevin close up, how Geoffrey’s Leap on St Catherine’s Bay got its name and how Sir Walter Raleigh saved Gorey Castle aka Mont Orgueil. Generally the jumping around is all part of the fun. There’s one page that hasn’t aged well at all – where an anecdote about shooting a scene for Jim’ll Fix It is followed by a description of the Haut de la Garenne which was subsequently at the heart of investigations into abuse during its time as a children’s home. Later in the book, Nettles describes Queen’s Valley, the home of Jim Bergerac in early episodes, before it was designated to be flooded to provide Jersey with a new reservoir (which is currently partly closed due to a rat infestation).

People talk often about how Jersey was a character in Bergerac in its own right and its small size and rich history make this an intimate read that supports that argument. Although this book is out of print it is quite readily available and if you’re building up a Bergerac library which it now turns out I am, this should be part of it.