Overwinter track notes:
Wintering Now
I grew up on the island of Jersey in the Channel Islands. When I was small in the 1970s my Mum had a friend whose son went to the same primary school as me. They were wealthy, lived on a farm and had a boat. One day they offered to take us with them to visit Les Ecrehous, a strip of rocks in the 14 mile stretch of channel between Jersey and France.
Les Ecrehous had one permanent resident at that time, a man in his 50s called Alphonse Le Gastelois. We ran up the beach to meet him, and gave him some chocolate and coffee. Apart from gifts from passing travellers, his diet consisted of foraged lobsters, seaweed, and seagull eggs.
Alphonse had been arrested in Jersey in 1961, accused of a series of attacks. Without any evidence he was released, but the police leaked his name to the public and he became a scapegoat, and fled to the reef, after his house was burnt down. No wonder Alphonse stayed alone on the reef for another 14 years even after the perpetrator was caught .
I recorded Wintering Now on my late Mum’s old felted Consolette piano from Jersey, which has been the sound of Richardson Road, Curlews, and now Overwinter.
Alphonse returned to Jersey in 1975, received some compensation late in his life, and died in 2012. There are some samples of him speaking at the end of the song. Wintering Now is for Alphonse. AP x
