A View from the Castle

St Helena is a small volcanic outcrop in the South Atlantic Ocean, settled in 1659. Together with two associated and remote colonies, at Ascension Island and Tristan da Cunha, it is a British dependency under a Governor appointed by The Queen. 

The book is a Governor’s personal account of four eventful years in the 1990s when he found himself between a rock and a hard place, seeking simultaneously to fend off a policy of cuts in funding from the British Government and the efforts of his Island Government to oppose the policies of structural and financial adjustment that it had agreed with HMG.

Entwined with this story of political trials and intrigue are the establishment of an International Ocean Yacht Race; St Helena’s application to join the ICC; the successful restoration of British Citizenship to the Islanders; and news of the first Governor to land on Gough Island in the Roaring Forties.

THE AUTHOR was a career diplomat, whose service started in the British Colonial Office in the 1960s. After a first posting as a Member of HM Diplomatic Service to the Indian Subcontinent he developed a fascination for the history of the English East India Company. His subsequent service included several more of the East India Company's former possessions and culminated in 1995 with the appointment as Governor and Commander-in-Chief of St Helena, the island first settled by the East India Company in 1659. He and his wife, Sandi, were already seasoned and adventurous travellers in Asia, Arabia, and the Caribbean; and their travels continued in the South Atlantic. He was the first Governor to visit all the major islands of the Tristan da Cunha Group. A keen sportsman and photographer he led the St Helena Cricket Association, of which he was the elected President, towards affiliate membership of the International Cricket Council; founded an international yacht race; and had photographs used both to illustrate tourism brochures and travel articles and on calendars, telephone cards and on the internet, as well as being used in advertising material for the company associated with the shipping service to St Helena.