Last week Liz and I were dining out with our friends Emma and Paul and Emma happened to mention about her ‘private island’. It turned out to be a computer game called Animal Crossing in which the user can design his or her own island. You can fill it with various animals and engage in activities like fishing, insect catching and fossil hunting. According to Wikipedia the game is known for its ‘open-ended gameplay, humorous dialogue and use of the consoles internal clock to simulate the real passage of time’.
Anyway, that of course got me thinking about islands so without any further ado, here we go.
Tracy Island
Gerry and Sylvia Anderson produced a series of puppet shows in the 1960s and their greatest success was called Thunderbirds. Thunderbirds was about a secret organisation called International Rescue that had a small fleet of highly advanced machines and equipment with which to perform rescue operations. Millionaire ex-astronaut Jeff Tracy was the head man and the organisation was secreted in his island home known as Tracy Island. His five sons were the Thunderbird pilots; John, Scott, Virgil, Gordon and Alan, all named after US astronauts of the 1960s. The genius behind the Thunderbird craft was Hiram Hackenbacker, known as ‘Brains’. Thunderbird’s nemesis was a secret agent known as the Hood because of his talent for disguise and in many episodes the Tracy brothers had to ask their London agent, Lady Penelope, to track him down and sort him out.
The entire organisation was hidden away in Tracy Island. Thunderbird One launched from underneath the swimming pool which slid away to reveal the launch silo. Thunderbird 2 lumbered to its launch point after exiting its hangar hidden behind a fake cliff face and Thunderbird 3, the organisation’s space rocket, launched through the circular round house.
The great thing about Thunderbirds and really, the secret of its success was the highly intelligent scripts which treated its audience of children not as kids but as intelligent young adults. That pretty much enabled myself and other viewers to overlook the realities of say launching a rocket from under a swimming pool or not having a team of technicians to service these amazing vehicles.
In one episode Tracy Island had a visitor and Jeff Tracy had to ask Tin Tin, the daughter of his manservant Kyrano, to take the guest diving and the Thunderbirds were able to set off on a rescue mission while he was underwater. A model version of Tracy Island was hugely popular over the years especially in 1993 when it was voted the toy of the year by the British Association of Toy Retailers.
Isle of Skye
It was back in 2020 when Liz and I decided to take our motorhome on a run out up to Scotland. (See the video by clicking here.)We travelled north along the M6 and stopped at various places along the way. Day 3 found us arriving at Mallaig, a quiet fishing village where we could board the small ferry to the Isle of Skye. Skye was a spectacular place, starkly beautiful and it reminded me so much of Lanzarote with deep valleys and great hills and mountains reaching into the sky. We found an excellent parking spot, again recommended by the Park4Night app which was conveniently just across from a fantastic chip shop. Fish, chips and peas was our evening meal and this particular chip shop served haddock rather than cod. The food was excellent and though it was a little pricey, the portions were huge. The view from the car park across the bay at Broadford was one we could only really appreciate the next morning.
The splendour of Skye (Photo by the author)
The following day we explored Skye bathed in warm autumn sunshine. We made a quick stop to pick up some Isle of Skye black pudding and after some more exploring we left the island over the spectacular bridge to the mainland. The bridge was opened in 1995. There was originally a toll charge but after numerous protests this was removed and now the bridge is free to use.
Lanzarote
For perhaps the last ten years, if you want to get hold of me during January or February, you’ll find me in Lanzarote.
What can I tell you about this place? Looking over on Wikipedia I see the Canary Islands emerged from the sea bed during a volcanic eruption about 15 million years ago. There is apparently some evidence the Phoenicians were the first settlers here although the first known records of the islands come from Pliny the elder, the Roman scholar.
After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, nothing is recorded about the Canary Islands until 999, when the Arabs arrived at the islands. In 1336, a ship arrived from Lisbon under the guidance of Genoese navigator Lancelotto Malocello, who used the alias ‘Lanzarote da Framqua’ which is where the island’s name comes from. Today Lanzarote is part of Spain.
When we first came here about ten years ago, we hired a car and drove round the island. We visited the volcano which was pretty much what you’d expect a volcano to look like, although the drive down a very narrow winding road in a coach towards the centre of it was a little scary. Otherwise, apart from the usual touristy stuff, there wasn’t that much to see and we quickly realised that the Marina Rubicon in Playa Blanca is by far our favourite place. Our rented villa is on the bus route and only five minutes’ walk from both the bus stop and the local shop so renting a car is not a particular concern.
Boats at Marina Rubicon, Lanzarote (Photo by the author)
What else do I do on Lanzarote? Well, I read a lot of books, drink a lot of wine and eat out a great deal in a variety of restaurants. Sometimes we have tapas, sometimes Chinese and the last time we went to Lanzarote we actually ate a great deal of Indian food as the closest restaurant to our rented villa was an Indian restaurant.
St Helena
Napoleon (Jacques-Louis David, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)
St Helena is one of those places I’ve always wanted to visit. It was discovered by the Portuguese in 1502 but these days is a British Overseas Territory. St Helena is located in the South Atlantic Ocean about 1200 miles west of Africa. It comprises 47 square miles, has a very temperate climate and is perhaps most famous for being the place where Napoleon Bonaparte was exiled to in 1815. Napoleon was taken to the island following his defeat at the battle of Waterloo and subsequent abdication. On October 17th that year Napolean took up residence at the Briars Pavilion hosted by the Balcombe family. In December he moved to Longwood House which was originally a farmhouse but converted for Napoleon’s use. Today the house is a museum owned and run by the French government.
The former ruler of France dictated his memoirs at St Helena and spent a lot of time reading. He died in 1820 aged only 51. An autopsy showed that he had died of stomach cancer although I remember reading some time ago that some experts felt Napoleon had been poisoned by arsenic. Others say that the amount of arsenic in his system was normal for the time. In Longwood House, the wallpaper contained arsenic but that was a common feature of luxury homes at the time.
Island Records
Just to finish on a more musical note, the Island record label was created by Chris Blackwell, Graeme Goodall and Leslie Kong in 1959 in Jamacia. In 1962 Chris Blackwell brought the label to the UK and began to sign new artists and by the 1970s Island was a major record label. The first Island single I ever bought was probably by Roxy Music and I’m guessing it was either Pyjamarama or Street Life in the early 1970s. The label was eventually sold to Polygram in 1989 for 180 million pounds.
Completely irrelevant fact #1: One of my friends used to think that Brian Ferry sang ‘like a monkey’. What do you think?
Letters from an Unknown Author! 