At Sea
Days at sea are for reflection. We all have fond memories of our recent visit to the remote island of Tristan da Cunha. Many have described to me how struck they were by the island's peacefulness. My main impression, perversely perhaps, was a contrary one of being struck by the lively sounds of a working community. For The Settlement, as the islanders call it, was no silent village. When I pausedto inspect some cottages (how like the "black houses" on the Isle of Lewis they were: could there be a connection?) my heart raced from a symphony of village life from yesteryear. Children's voices playing in the fields, a young man driving his cows along the street, boats being scraped and painted, women talking over the garden wall as they pegged out the washing, older men digging their kitchen gardens. Therewas laughter over drinks in the Café as children meandered their way home from school. Outside the village was the healthiest-looking dairy herd I have set eyes on for a long while, lean Welsh Blacks and Herefords, whose only supplement to the lush pasture that grows year-round is hay and potatoes - no foot and mouth or BSE here. And high up the slopes the constant bleating of the sheep, a mixture ofCheviots and Scottish Black Faces.
One of the joys of traveling aboard the M.S. Endeavour is the opportunity it affords us to make unlikely connections. For I have since been thinking about St Kilda, the remote island in the north Atlantic that we visit on our expeditions around the British Isles. Its settlement is about the same size as that on Tristan da Cunha but no one lives in the ruined cottages anymore. This village really is peaceful! The last of the St Kildans were evacuated from the island in 1930. That ancient community was killed off by a number of factors. The arrival of missionaries, who enforced so severe a sabbatarianism that work practices were disrupted, was exacerbated by the arrival of frequent tripper boats from Glasgow that led to a dependency on the trading of tourist souvenirs for to the detriment of traditional self-sufficiency..
Should we worry for the future of Tristan da Cunha?
Not for the above reasons, I suspect. They have two long established and flourishing churches, one Anglican (Episcopalian) and the other Roman Catholic, and the Tristaners seem altogether too commonsensical to fall prey to cults. And sheer remoteness means that if an expedition ship like ours calls by a couple of times a year it is a welcome diversion. We were able to help by donating books for the community center and by taking some of the island men to inspect the hurricane damage on neighboring Nightingale Island. But when I opened my eyes from my reverie of sound I caught sight of the satellite dishes that have arrived on the island in just the past few years. How are they going to keep them down on the farm now that they're watching TV, I wondered?Watch this space. And if you want to see and hear the living village community of Tristan da Cunha, don't put off the journey for too long.
Days at sea are for reflection. We all have fond memories of our recent visit to the remote island of Tristan da Cunha. Many have described to me how struck they were by the island's peacefulness. My main impression, perversely perhaps, was a contrary one of being struck by the lively sounds of a working community. For The Settlement, as the islanders call it, was no silent village. When I pausedto inspect some cottages (how like the "black houses" on the Isle of Lewis they were: could there be a connection?) my heart raced from a symphony of village life from yesteryear. Children's voices playing in the fields, a young man driving his cows along the street, boats being scraped and painted, women talking over the garden wall as they pegged out the washing, older men digging their kitchen gardens. Therewas laughter over drinks in the Café as children meandered their way home from school. Outside the village was the healthiest-looking dairy herd I have set eyes on for a long while, lean Welsh Blacks and Herefords, whose only supplement to the lush pasture that grows year-round is hay and potatoes - no foot and mouth or BSE here. And high up the slopes the constant bleating of the sheep, a mixture ofCheviots and Scottish Black Faces.
One of the joys of traveling aboard the M.S. Endeavour is the opportunity it affords us to make unlikely connections. For I have since been thinking about St Kilda, the remote island in the north Atlantic that we visit on our expeditions around the British Isles. Its settlement is about the same size as that on Tristan da Cunha but no one lives in the ruined cottages anymore. This village really is peaceful! The last of the St Kildans were evacuated from the island in 1930. That ancient community was killed off by a number of factors. The arrival of missionaries, who enforced so severe a sabbatarianism that work practices were disrupted, was exacerbated by the arrival of frequent tripper boats from Glasgow that led to a dependency on the trading of tourist souvenirs for to the detriment of traditional self-sufficiency..
Should we worry for the future of Tristan da Cunha?
Not for the above reasons, I suspect. They have two long established and flourishing churches, one Anglican (Episcopalian) and the other Roman Catholic, and the Tristaners seem altogether too commonsensical to fall prey to cults. And sheer remoteness means that if an expedition ship like ours calls by a couple of times a year it is a welcome diversion. We were able to help by donating books for the community center and by taking some of the island men to inspect the hurricane damage on neighboring Nightingale Island. But when I opened my eyes from my reverie of sound I caught sight of the satellite dishes that have arrived on the island in just the past few years. How are they going to keep them down on the farm now that they're watching TV, I wondered?Watch this space. And if you want to see and hear the living village community of Tristan da Cunha, don't put off the journey for too long.
