‘You can get away from everything,’ said Harold Wilson of the Isles of Scilly, ‘not only in distance but also in time’. During recess, Wilson would frequently catch the sleeper from Paddington to Penzance before making the notoriously choppy crossing to Britain’s most westerly archipelago. There he would unwind in his cottage on St Mary’s — a place where the red box could not easily follow.
This family of five islands 28 miles off the nose of Land’s End has always enjoyed a somewhat secretive coterie of admirers — Jude Law and Michael Morpurgo to name but two. Deserted beaches with a Caribbean colour palette are surely part of the draw, as are hedgerows festooned with wild garlic, pink bells and exotic aeoniums. The near subtropical climate is a botanist’s paradise: there is nowhere warmer or more fertile on the British Isles.
It’s no wonder, then, that the islanders are fiercely protective of St Mary’s and the so-called ‘off-islands’ that surround it.
Comments
Join the debate for just $5 for 3 months
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for $5.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just $5 for 3 monthsAlready a subscriber? Log in