We bought an island

Evelyn Atkins, semi-retired in her fifties, and her younger sister Babs, a school teacher, lived in Epsom, Surrey. During a holiday in Cornwall, they became entranced with the county and vowed to move there. On a subsequent holiday, they quickly found and took possession of a side-by-side pair of cottages in the Cornish coastal town of Looe. Hardly had the ink dried on their purchase agreement when they discovered, literally around the corner from Looe and screened from view by a headland, the privately-owned St. George's Island. Miraculously, it was soon put up for sale, and the Atkins sisters snapped it up for a mere 20,000 pounds sterling, no small amount in 1964, just fourteen months after the original urge to relocate. Having yet to sell the home in Epsom, the Atkins Empire now encompassed their former residence, the cottages, and the 22.5-acre island replete with main house, barn, boathouse, and assorted out-buildings. This story, in the hands of any one of my favorite essayists on the subject of relocation, say Peter Mayle (A Year in Provence) or Bill Bryson (Notes from a Small Island) or Annie Hawes (Extra Virgin: A Young Woman Discovers the Italian Riviera, Where Every Month Is Enchanted) or Barbara Holland (Bingo Night at the Fire Hall: Rediscovering Life in an American Village), would've, I suspect, achieved 5-star irresistibility. As it is, Ms. Atkins' tale, culminating in the extraordinary efforts, with local help, to transfer the usual household, maintenance, and gardening stuff (plus a gemstone cutting and polishing device, assorted pottery-making supplies, musical instruments, a printing press, a telescope, photo darkroom equipment, and oil painting paraphernalia) to the island in the dead of winter in the teeth of gales and high seas, makes for an absorbing read if this life-changing swerve is something you'd consider doing yourself. Born in 1910 into the English middle-class, Evelyn's writing style reflects a certain British stiff-upper lip that enables the author and her sister to establish a beachhead on St. George's with the same doughty determination as the Allies at Normandy: "Babs and I ... tried to lever the heavy boat ashore with the use of planks which were stacked up by the boathouse. We extended the cable of the winch to its limit and slowly, inch by inch, levered the boat up to within a rope's length of the cable end. It was a difficult operation, for all the time the surf was dragging at the boat and pulling our feet from under us. At last we managed to attach the rope to the cable but twice the rope broke and twice the boat was sucked back into the breakers. Babs hung on for dear life to the stern, and I was the one with the rope I tried frantically to tie a knot to join the broken ends ... Desperation is a good teacher ... The resulting knot will not be found in any naval, boy scout or girl guide manual, but Glory Be! it held." WE BOUGHT AN ISLAND has a small, 8-photo section of black and white snaps. Conside

Although this book is old and out of print it landed in my hands in Queensland. I must say that I really recommend this to anyone who dreams of living on a island, especially as these days it just would'nt be possible to take a loan out to buy such a thing. Unless you are one of the lucky few! So if you come across this book give it a go you may be pleasntly surprised.