SARK’S first fully democratic legislature will be elected in about four months’ time but the first tentative steps at electioneering have already started.

The legislation paving the way for an assembly of 28 directly elected conseillers to replace the 40 land-owning tenants and 12 people’s deputies who have governed Sark since early in the 20th century has been approved after years of often-acrimonious wrangling. That means the first general election will be held in December and 14 members will be elected for a four-year term while the same number will hold office for two years.

Earlier this week, five likely candidates – although none is confirmed – told an invited audience of their hopes and aspirations for the future.

The five, sitting deputies Paul Armorgie, Tony Le Lievre and Paul Burgess, along with Chamber of Commerce president Peter Tonks and businessman Bob Parsons, described themselves as an independent group that has launched a ‘common-sense charter for Sark’.

The group is clearly aiming to convince ‘middle-ground’ voters (those who are not in what some describe as the polarised minorities in relation to the Barclay family’s development programme) that there is merit in a new Chief Pleas pursuing their ‘common sense policies’, which they list as:

• Keeping Sark independent
• Developing the economy and infrastructure
• Enhancing the standard of living for residents
• Enhancing the quality of holiday experience for visitors
• Preserving and protecting key features to keep Sark special
• Encouraging inward investment where it is supportive of the above aims

A public meeting is apparently on the agenda so the next few months will be interesting.

Carline and Paul Tongs have taken over Hugo’s at Dixcart Hotel. (0621720)

The revamped Hugo’s Bar and Restaurant at Dixcart Hotel opened its doors for the first time at the weekend.

The new hosts are a couple well known to many Guernsey Press readers – singer/pianist Paul Tongs and his wife, Carline – and they told me of the chance remark which led to them taking over part of one of Sark’s oldest hotels.

They were on a short visit to the island earlier this year and staying with one of Paul Tongs’s oldest friends.

‘I mentioned that Carline and I had never actually worked together and said we would welcome the chance of doing so,’ said Paul. ‘Within minutes, literally, we were meeting Kevin Delaney (who manages the Barclay family’s interests in Sark, part of which is the Dixcart) and just minutes into that meeting it seemed to be all done and dusted.’

Although the Dixcart Hotel – said to be the oldest in the island – is being managed separately and the bar and restaurant is called Hugo’s, an acknowledgement of the premises’ connection with one of its more famous guests, Victor Hugo, the whole place is invariably referred to as ‘The Dixcart’, something Paul readily acknowledges.

‘It’s always been the Dixcart, hasn’t it, and there’s no reason to change it,’ he said. ‘In fact, we’d like to research more of the history of the place – who’s owned or managed it over the years, when it first opened and what sort of characters have been involved – and make our customers aware of all that.’

There is a distinctly French flavour to the bar and restaurant – a combination perhaps of the Victor Hugo connection and French-born Carline’s influence, not to mention her husband’s talent for the sort of music associated with that atmosphere.

After being closed for what seems to be far too long, it was nice to see the old place up and running again.

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