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A 6'4" frame topped with pale bleached hair - which he says is far more stylish than it should be - photographer John Liot is a born and bred Jersey 'bean' with worldwide ambitions. After taking portraits of Oscar and BAFTA winners in 2015, and publishing his first book in 2016, he became an accredited ‘Dog Photographer of the Year’ in 2017.
John is now on a journey to becoming a certified psychotherapist to help people who suffer from mental health issues, as he did. In-between taking photos, developing his pet photography business Project_Pawtrait, writing his second book and planning for an adventurous 2018, John took a minute to tell us what he would change about Jersey.
Housing is expensive in Jersey, shock horror, right? It’s difficult enough for us young’un’s to prospectively look at getting on the property ladder, but we have that advantage of youth and there are so many ways for us to become financially successful in the future. For the older generation? Not so much. People who have lived and worked in Jersey their entire lives, paid their tax and earned a pension, still have to scrimp month by month to afford the rent on their homes.
Pictured: Lower rents for pensioners would help relieve the older generation's money troubles, says John.
It’s one thing to scare first time buyers with our ridiculous housing prices, but they have the luxury of leaving if they want something else. For our retirees, they want to relax and enjoy their golden years. I’ve listened to those living with this problem, it’s not something insular, our elder population have money issues that simply aren’t fair.
The stigmatization of mental health is still a hefty problem in our culture, but it’s getting better. What will stop so many people from actually seeking help via talking therapies in Jersey is the price tag attached. With some therapists here charging £60 per hour, of course people are going to turn away from that.
Pictured: John, who was clinically depressed in 2014, says lower prices on psychotherapist sessions would enable more people to get the help they need to deal with mental health issues.
Depression and anxiety are very manageable problems to solve when you have access to the right people and resources – in the UK therapy with a private psychotherapist can be at least as low as £25 per session. A private professional can charge however much they want for their time, I understand that, but in this industry I think Jersey’s therapists overprice themselves and I’ve heard first hand accounts of people saying they saw the benefit of therapy but weren’t willing to spend so much money on it.
3) Let's shine a bigger light on local talent!
To me, Jersey has always felt like a small pond filled with big fish. It just seems that this island has an ability to create and nourish world-class talent in multiple fields despite our isolated nature. From athletes to actors, artists and accountants – Jersey has incredible talent here, but you so rarely hear about the people behind the talent. Sure, if someone wins a competition they’ll get a little note in the paper or maybe 15 minutes on the radio, but that’s it. ‘Well done, Jersey won a thing – now back to your day’.
Pictured: Stuart Penn training for his competition at GracieBarra.
To me, the story about who these people are is as important as the award they’ve won. Take for example Stuart Penn, an adaptive athlete born with only one fully formed limb who recently went to Abu-Dhabi to win gold in the first ever Para Jiu-Jitsu competition – an incredible feat, but it’s everything that came before that contest that makes Stuart a fascinating man. You probably don’t know about him though, so you don’t know that he was an extra in the film Gladiator, or that he once nearly fell out the back of an evacuating helicopter during a military exercise.
Yes, congratulate our incredible local talent on their recent accomplishments every single time, but we would all be better off for learning more about the people behind those achievements that we might be motivated by the incredible people who live amongst us.
At 26 I’ve never felt more insecure about my long-term future, genuinely questioning whether it would be irresponsible for me to have a family of my own when that child would be born into a generation where the ecological effects of the last several hundred years are really going to come to light. In fitting with that morbid pondering, thoughts of what can be done to prevent or alleviate such a future come to mind - that Jersey has one of the largest tides in the world and doesn’t use that for hydroelectric power generation just seems absurd.
Pictured: John would like to see Jersey harness some of the energy available right on its shores with tide farms.
I would love to see Jersey doing more to promote green living, especially considering how unnecessarily congested our roads are. St Helier may be a hub of the financial industry but that doesn’t mean it can’t take strides to becoming a world-leader in renewable energy also.
In the last year I’ve learnt much more about the education system in Jersey than I had ever expected, sadly, most of it isn’t anything to be proud of. There are huge problems with our education sector that anyone within it will wax lyrical to you about, but those outside it remain glibly unaware. If the general public understood about the problems and challenges teachers here face I guarantee you’d see an immediate increase in public funding for schools.
Pictured: "The reality of working as a teacher in Jersey is heart-breaking," but no one knows about is says John.
What I’ve learnt about the reality of working as a teacher in Jersey is heart-breaking, you simply don’t realise what our teachers go through during a standard week – bloody hell, they deserve all of our support and a helping hand whenever they need it because their professional victories directly relate to Jersey’s future. Jersey needs to know the truth about itself because a lot of the problems that exist here could be conquered if we didn’t sweep them under the rug and instead bravely faced them head on.
Our community should be able to celebrate its collective successes but also work together to help our shortcomings – but that starts with knowledge on those problems, the sunniest place in the UK should know about what is kept in the dark.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and not those of Bailiwick Express.
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