'They'd never seen a car or a TV': The people evacuated to the UK from the world's most remote inhabited island in 1961
Getty ImagesAfter a volcano erupted on tiny Tristan da Cunha in the South Atlantic, the 264 displaced islanders told the BBC about their first taste of modern British life.
"Just over a year ago, they'd never seen traffic or a road or a house higher than a cottage," said Tim Brinton in a 1963 BBC programme. He was talking about the residents of Tristan da Cunha, the world's most remote inhabited island. In the middle of the South Atlantic Ocean, roughly halfway between Cape Town in South Africa and Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, the tiny British outpost is more than 1,500 miles from any other populated land, and is only accessible by a seven-day boat journey.
But on 10 October 1961, a sudden volcanic eruption blasted the islanders out of their splendid isolation and into the industrialised modern world. "We heard the rumbles first, then the ground just automatically cracked… Then the smoke and the fire started coming out the ground," one of them told the BBC in a 1998 film. Another, Mary Swain, said that she'd run to her husband and shouted, "Jump up quick, Fred, the Earth is opening!"
The island's volcano had been dormant since Tristan was first settled 150 years earlier. But great cracks appeared in the ground a few hundred metres from the main village, which is named Edinburgh of the Seven Seas. By the time the islanders had escaped in their fishing boats to nearby Nightingale Island, their homes were already threatened by lava. "The whole place is vibrating with earthquakes," announced a BBC reporter, "and the eastern corner is cracking and breaking up."
Tristan's 264 inhabitants were forced to evacuate, picked up by a Dutch liner that happened to arrive the next day. Within hours, the whole community was aboard, leaving everything apart from the few things they could carry with them – "a rifle, an overcoat and a lamp," recalled Swain – and their boats, which they stored in their gardens when they reached England weeks later.
They were housed on a disused military airbase near Southampton, a port city on England's south coast. "So much is strange to them," said Brinton. "They'd never seen shops because on the island, money wasn't used. Boats were their livelihood. For them, there's been no industrial revolution. And for 150 years, they've lived simple agricultural lives out of touch with world progress."
Though Tristan da Cunha was discovered in 1506 by a Portuguese admiral who gave it his name, it was another 300 years before it supported anything but seabirds and seals. The UK annexed the island in 1816 to prevent it being used as a base for attempts to free Napoleon Bonaparte from his imprisonment on the South Atlantic island of St Helena. The following year, a Scotsman, Corporal William Glass, stayed behind when the British garrison was withdrawn. With his family and a few others, he founded the first permanent community.
In History
In History is a series which uses the BBC's unique audio and video archive to explore historical events that still resonate today. Sign up to the accompanying weekly newsletter.
By 1961, the population of the 40 sq miles (100 sq km) of volcanic rock had risen to 264, many of them survivors from ships wrecked on the island, with just seven family names between them. On several occasions, the failure of the potato crop or the wrecking of fishing boats brought the islanders to the point of starvation. But they stayed on, even defying several attempts by the British government to evacuate them.
Adapting to British life
When the volcanic eruption forced the islanders to leave, they faced difficulties settling in England. They had never seen a car, a bicycle, a TV set or an income tax form. And it was a challenging climate. "Here is too much gas and smoke," Tristanian Joey Repetto told the BBC in 1963. On his journey to their initial accommodation, he said, "I steady coughed without stopping."
Adapting to the nine-to-five work pattern also proved tricky for the community of farmers and fishermen. "Here, when you go to work in the morning, you've got one job. You've got to look forward all the whole week of getting up at the same time, going to the same place, doing the same work every day," said Joey's father Gerald, who was used to a more varied life determined by natural rhythms.
Similarly, financial pressures placed new demands on the islanders, as Swain explained. "In England, you need money for your living. But on Tristan, we don't. If we haven't got no money, well, we just go without it. It don't bother us at all… if I've got no money, I still can go out and get my own potatoes. I can still go and get my own fish."
She didn't hold back on expressing her views on British life. "We don't like the weather... There's too much sickness and we don't like the place at all."
More like this:
Despite having a single policeman on the island, who wore a British uniform, Tristan had almost no crime. The community was shocked by an incident in England when one member was attacked and hurt by two youths, who took his most valued possession, a gold watch, and smashed it.
But there were some elements of British life that were appreciated by the Tristanians, particularly the younger ones, who described a love of Italian suits and record players. "Country and western music is our favourite, by Johnny Cash and Ernest Tubb," said one teenager, who also enjoyed the social dances. "Since I come here, I've been doing the twist and the locomotion, all that lot. We've forgotten how to do the waltz. But I like to twist myself."
Despite that, most of the islanders were keen to return home. In 1962, the British government sent a survey party to study conditions on Tristan. While the volcano was still smoking, the geologists judged that it was now dormant.
The return to Tristan
Surprisingly little damage had been done to the village of Edinburgh. The lava had turned at the last moment and flowed into the sea, something that the islanders considered to be an act of God. Some of the thatched roofs were burnt, but the cottages were mostly intact. Yet in their absence, houses had been ransacked and some livestock stolen by passing sailors.
Many animals were still alive, however, with the chickens multiplying in number. Though the dogs had run wild and slaughtered the sheep, the cattle had kept themselves well-fed on the lush island grass, and there were new calves. Lava had covered the beaches, but return was possible.
The British authorities held a secret ballot in the community hall at the islanders' RAF camp. All Tristanians over the age of 21 voted, and the result was an almost unanimous vote to return, 148 to five in favour. After an advance party went back to plant seeds for the following year's potato crop, most of the islanders arrived at Tristan da Cunha in November 1963.
When asked what she was most looking forward to on the island when she returned, Swain told the BBC: "A free life. We can get our own fish and everything of our own back there without money."
Elaine Repetto, who was born on the island but chose to leave in 1984, told the BBC in 1998 why it held such a pull. "We are strongly independent and used to battling with the elements in order to survive… We have to rely upon each other in a way you would find in few other places."
She described the impact of the events in 1961. "Today, the volcano is still a smoking reminder of the events which shaped our view of ourselves and our contact with the outside world."
--
For more stories and never-before-published radio scripts to your inbox, sign up to the In History newsletter, while The Essential List delivers a handpicked selection of features and insights twice a week.
