We Bought an Island [Paperback]

Evelyn Atkins presents a humorous account of her (and her younger sister Babs') adventurous purchase of a small island off the coast of Cornwall. Hilarious attempts to start various projects and deal with an assortment of various characters are outlined with great affection and stoicism. I first read this 20 years ago after having just visited the Misses Atkins, they were delightful then, and the book remains an excellent introduction to both the positve and negative sides of taking the plunge (literally in their case) and downsizing. It's a refreshing antidote to hectic post-modern lifestyles, but serves as an excellent reminder that though the grass might be greener on the other side, it's the rain that makes it so. If you like Lillian Beckwith, or the Miss Reed books you'll probably like this too.

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: Amongst the Olive Groves of Liguria) 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. Considering Evelyn's admitted love of photography, the reader might've expected, and would've appreciated, more.

I'm knocking off a star for Evelyn's propensity to natter on about people and events that really have nothing to do with establishing themselves on the island. The narrative occasionally reads as if she's transcribing a diary of social events:

"Ethrelda was thrilled with her supply of firewood and we had a very pleasant evening by her fire as she told us tales in her rich Cornish dialect. In the middle of this, a friend of hers called. She wore a red hat, a kind of tammy, and although she took her coat off and settled down she did not take the hat off. After she had gone Ethrelda volunteered the information that she never did take it off and the saying went that she kept all her money under it ... Actually she had some nerve trouble for which later she had to go for hospital treatment. She was a very cultured lady, of good family and she had a beautiful speaking voice."

It's not completely clear from the passage if the nerve trouble affected Ethrelda or the visitor with the red hat. No matter, I think.

Have you noticed how reading one book will lead you to others? Recently, I read Offshore: In Search of an Island of My Own, in which author Ben Fogle visited small islands around Britain's periphery under the premise of some day buying one of his own. In the course of his narrative, he mentions St. George's Island. I was so intrigued by the place that I acquired WE BOUGHT AN ISLAND plus another volume by Evelyn, Tales from Our Cornish Island (Coronet Books), and The Looe Island Story: An Illustrated History of St. George's Island by Mike Dunn. (I mean, haven't I enough unread titles already? Look at the piles!)

Evelyn died in 1997 at age 87. Babs remained on the island until her death in 2004, age 86. The latter left St. George's to the Cornwall Wildlife Trust. It's open to day visitors in the summer and is one more place on my list of places to see in my lifetime.

A rather pedantic account of the process and its problems of buying an island off the Cornish coast with a view to living there. Readable but not gripping. The sequel 'Tales from our Cornish Island' similar. A good account, however, of what's involved and certainly leads one to admire the author for her achievement.