This is one of my recent buys, 2nd hand from the UK. It came with that typically musty 2nd hand book smell.
I ended my last post by wondering what life on the island would be like for the sisters. This book gives the answer, and it can be summed up in three words: Very Hard Work.
Evelyn writes: We have often wondered how, on that radio programme Desert Island Discs, the castaways had the strength left to put on or listen to their eight records, let alone the time to browse through Shakespeare, the Bible and the tome of their choice. For us, in those early days, surviving was a full-time occupation - and often still is.
She starts by telling us she constantly gets questions on what it is like to live on an island. The book is an attempt to answer these questions. It is impossible to cover everything that has happened to them, so she has written a series of tales, each dealing with a different aspect of island life.
When she first moved to the island (in February 1965), Evelyn was on her own, helped from time to time by friends and volunteers. Her sister Babs, teaching in a school in Looe came over during weekends and holidays, sea and weather permitting.
The consensus of local opinion was we would last three months if we were not drowned before then.
Evelyn and her helpers face many challenges: taking care of the water supply, fixing the AGA and the generator, establishing a vegetable garden, harvesting the daffodils that grow on the island etc. They learn as they go along and adapt.
When you live close to nature you have to get your priorities right, and fussiness over food and drink gives way to thankfulness that you have any at all.
They buy a goat, a number of cats, and become bee-keepers. They do up the two cottages to let to tourists and to house volunteers. They grow lots of fruit and vegetables, and harvesting starts in July, going well into November and even December. Seaweed is used as manure.
In winter, storms cause the island (which has no harbour) to be isolated for long periods. On one memorable occasion Babs was unable to land between Christmas and Easter and I just had fleeting glimpses of her as the all-important mail was tossed to me over the raging surf.
In summer things change, and they discover that while owning an island may be many people’s dream, owning an island only a mile from shore comes with a lage fly in the ointment: visitors.
In the summer visitors come to Looe in their masses and the bay teems with craft. The previous owner has warned them about this: To keep your privacy you wil have to bring out a shotgun.
This Evelyn is not prepared to do. She tries to put off visitors by charging an entrance fee, but people happily pay. What I cannot understand is that she goes so far as to prepare food and drink for them, thus having to work all day and every day in summer.
Volunteers from the Conservation Corps and students come for working holidays. At first they cook for the volunteers too, which only adds to Evelyn’s workload.
They often wonder „why they are doing this"? They are having to use their own income to keep the island open to visitors and to feed the helpers. However it seems such a worthwhile project and appreciated by so many. So they carry on.
Often we are tempted to close the island and revert to help of friends and the offers of voluntary organizations for the conservation and cultivation of the island which is our primary aim. We often dream of a more leisurely life . . .
Their are moments when we do not think our efforts are worth the strain on our energy and finances, then along wil come someone whose encouragement wil put us on course again.
Such sentiments sustain us and enable us to carry on, and so we shall - as long as the money lasts.
This is a bittersweet tale. It is clear that Evelyn and Babs love the island, but owning it has come at a price.
Visitors say they would do anything to exchange their lives for ours. But would they? We understand their envy but doubt if they understand the responsibilities involved.
Christmas holidays were very precious to us for it was, and still is, the only time we take a „ holiday”. We have the usual chores to do, the generator and the water pump must be attended to, but we do relax mentally. It is then that we also can appreciate the sheer joy of our island paradise. We feel, on those rare summer days in the depth of winter that sparkle like a jewel in the darkness, that we are on another planet; that we are privileged for a short spell to be part of a timeless universe, where there is nog beginning, no end, only an magical limitless „now”.
This photo made me smile: Calvé Pindakaas is a very popular brand of peanut butter here in The Netherlands. I wonder how that bucket ended up there?
More on Looe Island in my next post.
They do sound something of a pushover don't they? I would have preferred the relative privacy, especially in the summer months, and definitely wouldn't have been cooking for all and sundry who turned up. I do vaguely remember this book so perhaps I too read it in days of yore . . .
ReplyDeleteWhat an interesting new blog.
ReplyDeleteI've read many of the books you mention - some a long time ago when they were newly published.
Katherine Stewart author of A croft in the hills also wrote some others as did John Seymour.
My books are all in boxes in storage waiting for the purchase of my new home
Welcome! I will be writing about Katherine Stewart and John Seymour too.
ReplyDelete