The man who keeps Madeira live in Jersey

Joe (or João Carlos) Nunes. This is how he is known ever since he moved to Jersey, some forty years ago. He was born in Funchal, in the Levada do Cavalo area, but eventually moved to Livramento. He completed his military service in Funchal and worked for General Motors. And then he got fed up with Madeira.

No, let us rewrite this last sentence. He didn’t get fed up with Madeira, he got fed up with the constraints that were imposed on him in the Madeira of forty years ago. And it was after a he was stopped from going to work in Cahora Bassa that he eventually moved to Jersey. He was offered a position in General Motors, which would entail moving to Stuttgart, Germany, but he was closer to the British than to the Germans, so he went to work in hospitality in Jersey.

It lasted less than a year. After a year, he started doing the maintenance of a bakery, which he did for many years – even after he merged out into different interests. He now owns a small hotel, after having worked in the import and upkeep of motor vehicles. And he is happy in Jersey, where he increasingly tries to promote Portuguese and Madeiran traditions.

He is very much involved with the Portuguese community, and whenever he comes to Funchal he tries in some way to increase the dynamics of the twinning of St Hellier and Funchal. Because, he says, people need their roots, and their communities, and the twinning gives the Portuguese community – and especially the Madeiran one – a profile it would not otherwise have.

In fact, from the conversation we had, we immediately understand the joy he drives from “being” this bridge, and by the esteem he has, for Madeira, where he was born, and Jersey, where he set himself up and where he lived most his life. Otherwise, he is a quiet person, thoughtful, and that always tries to contextualize an answer to a question. And who ponders his answer not only in his own experience, but also in that of the community he is part of, with a special emphasis on the protection and promotion of the interests of the Portuguese who live in Her Majesty’s island.

Of the Portuguese in Jersey, he says they are well thought of. That they are hard working. And that they create no problems. On the Madeirans, specifically, he says they adapt better to the island. Maybe because they are already used to living onm one… But in Jersey, “we are all Portuguese”, he adds.

On Jersey, he says it’s still a quiet place, where people have no hurry, and where there is still time for everything. The population has been growing, just like the Portuguese community, of some ten thousand people, “plus the temps”.

It is a very active community, which may be explained by the fact that it is very concentrated, and because there are cultural and recreational activities that keeps it aware of its origins. And if the Clube português is now a shadow of what it once was, the truth is that there is a commission that organizes the Portugal and Madeira days, as well as a Portuguese Food Festival that takes place every summer in the centre of St Hellier, with Portuguese food and beverages, but also music. “We always make a point that there is a Portuguese singer taking part in the festivities”.

And this is how one keeps roots alive.

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