Montserrat Notebook

Montserrat, a smoulderingly beautiful volcanic island in the British West Indies, is a 15-minute flight from Antigua. Apart from me, the only passenger on the propeller plane is a birdwatcher from England, who hopes to catch a glimpse of the ‘critically endangered’ Montserrat oriole. After the volcano eruptions of 1995 to 1997, the island’s old capital of Plymouth was entombed in 40 feet of ash, and people air-freighted in their thousands to Gatwick. There is now a swelling Montserratian community in Stoke Newington, north London.

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As a British dependency (one is not allowed to say ‘colony’), Montserrat receives £10 million a year in British government aid and a further £8 million in grants. Britain’s development secretary at the time of the volcano crisis, Clare Short, infamously complained: ‘It will be golden elephants next!’ Short remains something of a hate figure in Montserrat and has not yet dared to visit.