One-Man Revolt On Sark

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30561, 2 October 1964, Page 13

One-Man Revolt On Sark

(N.Z. Press' Assn.—Copyright) SARK (Channel Islands), October 1. A one-man revolt raged today on the Channel Island of Sark. The rebel is Mr Malcolm Robson, owner of the electricity plant that supplies the 600 residents of the little British island off the French coast With a flick of a switch he plunged them all into darkness last night The blackout lasted 30 minutes. Islanders rushed to Sark’s three stores and

bought the entire supply of candles. “That’s just a taste of things to come,” Mr Robson warned. “If things don’t get better I’ll cut off the supply entirely.” Mr Robson is warring with the Chief Pleas, the advisory council to the island’s hereditary ruler, Mrs Mary Hathaway, who has the title “La Dame.” Mr Robson got angry when the Chief Pleas ordered him to take down an electricity pole which the council said ! was on someone else’s land. He told the council: “I’m getting fed up with inter- ■ ference, and unless you order • that no further action will be I taken against me, I shall shut

f down the plant.” That brought cries of f “blackmail.” i At 6 p.m., just as darkness I was falling, Mr Robson threw ’ the switch, blacking out the island and cutting its comi munications with the outside ' world. Mr Harry Bell, chairman of ■ a Pleas committee on eleci tricity, said: “We are trying to decide whether the i islanders should have some i kind of control of the elec- ' tricity supply—but not a I nationalisation scheme. “The pole that caused the i trouble is on somebody else’s ■ land, and Mr Robson has been • told to take it down. And I > can’t see that his blackout ; will help his case.”