Obituary: A fierce champion of the Jèrriais language who lives on through her poems and prose - Jersey Evening Post
by Julien Morel · Jersey Evening PostPosted inNews
Obituary: A fierce champion of the Jèrriais language who lives on through her poems and prose
By Marianne Sargent and Sarah Grigson27 June 202624 June 2026
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ASKED why she was inspired to write so many stories about island rural life in Jèrriais, writer and teacher Joan Tapley BEM, who has died aged 93, replied: ‘Father said to me, “We should never let these words go because no-one’s going to use them one day.”’
A fierce champion of the Jèrriais language throughout her life, Mrs Tapley delivered language lessons to successive generations of children and adults in Jersey’s schools and colleges, and continued to teach from her own home until just 12 months before her death.
She was a prolific writer and contributed a huge body of literature to the Jèrriais corpus including poetry, prose and plays illustrating Jersey’s social history and rural heritage, and showcasing the language’s unique vocabulary and idioms.
Her poem ‘Lé Jèrriais’, an acrostic describing the plight of the Jèrriais language through a description of its native speakers, was published in an anthology produced in association with the National Poetry Library entitled Poems from the Edge of Extinction.
Much of her work drew on her early life and stories shared around the kitchen table at the family home in St John. As the only child of Florie and Philip Rondel, she was party to much interesting adult conversation, as well as gossip entrusted to her by her grandmother, all in the Jèrriais language.
‘A lot of my Jèrriais was taught at a young age,’ she said. ‘Mother and Father spoke Jèrriais. I learned my grammar from Father. He would say, “Ah, ch’n’est pas right.”’
Mrs Tapley started at St John’s School in 1937, aged 4, wearing a new coat in the green school colours, made from an old coat of her mother’s which had been cut down and turned inside out.
She often spoke of the difficulties experienced by Jèrriais speaking children when they first started. ‘The kids at school were not allowed to speak Jèrriais. They were punished if they spoke Jèrriais and most of the kids couldn’t speak English anyway.’
A bright and able student, Mrs Tapley was quickly picked out as a scholarship contender. Within four months of starting, she began receiving an extra 30-minutes tutoring at lunchtime and moved up the classes rapidly, reaching the top class by the time she was eight. In 1944 she took the 11+ exam and came second in the island, winning a scholarship to Jersey College for Girls.
Mrs Tapley often credited her intellectual abilities and success at school to her multilingualism, which she maintained despite social attitudes toward Jèrriais.
‘In our form at college there were six girls from Jersey families and I always used to say, “How do you speak to your grandma?” and they would reply, “Oh well, I have to speak to her in French or Jersey-French because she doesn’t speak English”. Yet they wouldn’t say that they spoke Jèrriais at school and I always did.
‘In French lessons, very often the teachers would say, “How do you know that word?” and I would say, “Well it’s because I speak Jersey-French,” and they didn’t know what to say.’
After leaving school, Joan worked in Hill Street at local law firm Mourant, du Feu and Jeune. Four years later she married Brian Tapley and stopped working to bring up their two children. She later returned to employment at La Motte Ford and Roberts Garages as credit controller.
When l’Office du Jèrriais was set up in 1999 to deliver a teaching programme, Mrs Tapley was invited to work as a Jèrriais teacher, teaching the language to adults at Highlands College. She went on to teach two generations of Jèrriais teachers and supported the delivery of the Jèrriais teaching programme, visiting primary schools and reading stories in Jèrriais to children in the Foundation Stage.
As well as publishing a book of nursery rhymes, D’s Arînmées en Jèrriais, Mrs Tapley worked on a translation of Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler’s A Squash and a Squeeze, which was published in 2021 and distributed to all children of reception age across Jersey’s schools.
She sat as both adjoint and adjudicator for the Jèrriais Section of the Jersey Eisteddfod on multiple occasions, and served as chairperson of the Jersey-Norman French Eisteddfod Committee. In 2019 she sponsored the introduction of a trophy for a new competition class, encouraging increased participation of primary school students with a flair for dramatic presentation.
Mrs Tapley was an active member of L’Assembliée d’Jèrriais and served on the Jèrriais Language Academy, a group set up with the aim of standardising the language in support of the development of a curriculum for key stages 3 and 4. In 2022, she was awarded the British Empire Medal for her services to the Jèrriais language.
Mrs Tapley leaves her daughter Liza, son Nick, four grandchildren and ten great-grandchildren.
Anyone interested in reading Joan Tapley’s poems and prose in Jèrriais can find them on Les Pages Jèrriaises at https://members.societe-jersiaise.org/geraint/jerriais.html
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