Air Commodore Robb, left, and Werner Rang pictured on Liberation Day 2009. Werner has just been made a member of the Royal British Legion. (0770923)

A FORMER member of the German occupying forces during the last war has been made a member of the Royal British Legion.

Werner Rang, who will be 90 in just a few days, said that he regarded it as a great honour to have been nominated as a member of the Legion’s Sark branch.

Werner met his wife Phyllis while serving as an assistant to the German doctor during the Occupation. The doctor cared for the island civilian population as well as the military and Phyllis, then a teenage Miss Baker, acted as interpreter.

Werner was for many years in charge of Sark’s ambulance as well as serving two terms as the island’s Constable and as a result he was awarded the British Empire Medal for services to the community.

He and Phyllis retired from running their jewellery business in The Avenue only late last year.

That followed them being given a lifetime achievement award for their services to the island’s commercial life by the Sark Chamber of Commerce.

Werner’s membership was proposed by Dr Robert Robb, who some years ago was Sark’s doctor after retiring from the Royal Air Force.

‘I am very proud and honoured at being made a member of the Royal British Legion,’ said Werner, who joked that it was ‘perhaps something to do with the European Union’.

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I have been taken to task in the online comment section of this newspaper (thisisguernsey.com) by Conseiller Peter Cole over my questions in last week’s column about the purpose of the recent visit to Sark of three officials from the United Kingdom’s Ministry of Justice.

Conseiller Cole suggested that all I had to do (and presumably he includes the majority of the island’s adult population in that observation) is ask him or indeed any member of the General Purposes and Advisory Committee or the committee secretary.

After saying that Sark does not have a press officer to issue regular bulletins, the conseiller says also that my ‘ignorance’ of the visit of the Justice Select Committee says more about me than about any supposed secrecy by Chief Pleas committees.

Given that I heard initially about the visit from a Chief Pleas member who asked me if I knew what it was about and that a subsequent inquiry by me of another conseiller produced little more than a blank look, I actually think it says more about the way the island is being governed and which Chief Pleas members are in the clique and which are not.

Regarding Conseiller Cole’s observation about Sark not having a press officer, I had on my computer screen a few moments ago an email sent to me by the committee secretary on 2 October last year, attached to which was the General Purposes and Advisory Committee press statement.

Ironically, it related to the committee’s response to an inquiry from the Parliamentary Justice Committee.

I wonder if that’s the same body as the Justice Select Committee to which Conseiller Cole referred in his comment?

If it was, then the welcome presumption of openness which existed just five short months ago was just a flash in the pan, I suppose.

I read the other day that Sark is getting a new postcode – GY10.

Apparently we’ve been sharing the GY9 code with Alderney, which explains why some of my mail arrives with an Alderney franking machine stamp on the back – signifying that it’s done a delaying detour to the northern isle on its way to me.

Alderney Chamber of Commerce’s Tony Le Blanc is quoted as saying that they are ‘grateful to Sark for being accommodating’, although who or what in Sark he doesn’t make clear.

I don’t want to add to the workload of Chief Pleas members so I’ll just leave it at that.

The email address for comment is fallesark@sark.net.