Hello Blogland

My name is Roisin Pitman and I am a 53 year old retail business owner from Jersey. I was born and educated in the island and left school at sixteen to pursue a career in banking, with Lloyds Bank.

At 20 years of age I decided that banking wasn't for me and set about applying for the States of Jersey Police Force which I joined on 1st October 1982 and successfully completed basic training at Ashford Police Training Centre (Grosvenor Hall) in Kent.

During my time as a police officer I undertook uniformed patrol duties and worked in the criminal investigation department, drove traffic vehicles, was in the heavy motorcycle section and was part of the drugs squad and force intelligence unit. In 1990, without warning I lost my sight overnight when both retinas simultaneously detached. Between 1990 and 1994 I underwent 32 eye procedures in Jersey and at Moorfields Eye Hospital, London, but was discovered to have an hereditary, progressive connective tissue disorder. On 5th July 1993, with one eye now permanently lost, I was medically retired from the Police.

In September 1993 I went into business with my father and sister at our locally established retail business (Trek Plus), selling specialist outdoor clothing and equipment. I have now been running the business as Managing Director since 2002 and jointly own it with my sister Christine.

In what spare time I have had over the years, I have been a mobile disc jockey, a cub scout leader, a footballer and a martial arts instructor. I founded and still run my Aikido club from Fort Regent which is now 29 years old. I have studied aikido for thirty-six years and currently am the highest graded aikido exponent, with a disability, in the world, holding a 6th Dan black belt under Master Yasuhisa Shioda of Tokyo, Japan. I also hold a 4th Dan in Mushin-Do under the late Master Francis Ramasamy of Penang, Malaysia. 

This season (2015-16) I started playing league football for St. Paul's Ladies as one of the goalkeepers in the squad at the club based in my home Parish of St. Saviour.

Last year I registered another business, with a view to offering self protection solutions to the public sector, corporate and private clients. For the last twenty-five years I have lectured and run courses in self defence for Beaulieu Convent, Hautlieu, Highlands College, the Children's Department, Adult Education Services, Highlands staff and numerous Honorary Police Forces. I have recently lectured in Brighton and at Oxford University. I have taught aikido in many countries around Europe and Malaysia and have clubs in Jersey, Guernsey, Warrington, Farnham, the Italian Alps and Brittany. I am also the Director of Disability Martial Arts for the Jersey Sports Association for the Disabled and an Avon Representative.

I have never been particularly political but I am passionate about the island of my birth and I have watched the island lurch from one disaster to another over the last twenty or so years. My late father, Graeme Pitman, tried several times to enter the States of Jersey, standing both as a potential Deputy in our home district of Petite Longueville (St. Saviour No 1) and as a Senator aiming for an islandwide mandate.

During the hustings I regularly heard people say that my father was the one that always spoke sense, however, this didn't materialise when the votes were counted. My late mother once said to me that Dad would have been so frustrated in the House had he been successful.
My father's nickname, among the local media was the "incorruptible civil servant". He was honest, direct, and did not suffer fools. Even though he lost his sight as a teenager, it did not stop him rising through the ranks in the Jersey civil service. He was a Committee Secretary in the States Greffe, Chief Administrative Officer for the Department of Public Building & Works (now Infrastructure) and Chief Officer of Fort Regent until his retirement in 1992. He was a highly respected senior civil servant for forty years on a fraction of the wages that are paid out to some of the civil servants today. Many on six figure salaries are not even Chief Officers, but underlings.

I have exercised my right to vote on every election since I became eligible to vote at the age of eighteen in 1980. The politicians that sat in the States Chamber were unpaid and served for the good of their island and its people. Many were retired business people, who had run or continued to run successful businesses and wanted to give something back to the community. When the 2014 general election occurred (the first one in Jersey) I was hard pressed to use my full allowance of votes for Senator. There were just no inspirational candidates. Some manifestos promised the earth with no hope of deliverance and others promised one thing and then promptly voted the other way. For the first time in living memory the public have almost unanimously lost faith in the House and its inhabitants. We feel let down and lied to with so much spin being employed that the resultant wind could power the whole of our electricity grid without need to pipe it in from France.