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Money and Secrets in Jersey

Christine Finn goes back to her childhood home: the place she was born. She can't live there now, because of its rules on residency rights. Jersey is wealthy - but complicated.

Owen Bennett Jones introduces a special essay, exploring family history, personal heritage, and the deepest sense of where we come from. Christine Finn goes back to her childhood home, the island of Jersey - a place best known to the rest of Britain (and the rest of the world) as an enclave of prosperity, full of tax-exile millionaires and their secret bank accounts. It's where she was born; but now she can't live there, because of its extremely strict rules on residency rights. Trying to gather hard evidence of her own past, she delves into some uncomfortable memories and explores some of the fault lines running through this beautiful and desirable island.

Picture: April 1961: A large group of honeymooning couples form a heart shape on one of Jersey's famous beaches, Credit: Keystone Features/Getty Images

Available now

10 minutes

Last on

Mon 25 Aug 2014 19:50GMT

Broadcast

  • Mon 25 Aug 2014 19:50GMT