Cleone - In St Helena

It's a matter of life or death; Give us our Airport, Gordon. 

 

The Governor, Mr Gurr, was away when we arrived, back in London trying to convince the Foreign Office that the decision to Postpone the Decision (UK Government-speak for Cancel Until Further Notice) on the long-awaited Airport was not a good one, and needs to be reversed.  A former Chief Secretary of the Falkland Islands Administration, apparently he comes from a business background.  He should be better able than most diplomats to argue that the Airport is essential to revitalise St Helena, and that the capital cost of the Airport and the accompanying infrastructure fully outweighs the cost of a new Support Vessel to replace the ageing MV St Helena and the £15M a year currently needed in subsidies to keep the island running.  He's in a difficult position though.  For the visiting yachtsman and occasional tourist arriving via South Africa or Ascension Island, St Helena is a delightful civilised paradise full of charming people imbued with the historical importance of the place and locked in a 1950s time warp.  It would undoubtedly be changed for ever if daily aircraft brought in droves of tourists seeking relaxed holidays in an alternative location.  For some this would be a dreadful shame.  But the other side of the argument is compelling; they need this airport or this little, off-the-beaten-track Island will shrivel up and die. 

 

The Olympic-sized swimming pool below Jamestown's Castle Walls and just inland from the seafront, was virtually empty throughout a fine week-end at the height of summer.  Churchgoing is refreshingly popular, and the Bishop, whose parish also includes Ascension Island and Tristan da Cuna, is a well-known and well-liked figure.  Sung Eucharist at the Anglican (albeit accompanied by bells and smells) Cathedral Church was thoroughly modern, and conducted by an inspiring down-to-earth Birmingham priest.   There were three children; nobody else in the congregation was younger than forty.  Walking through Jamestown there are numerous shops selling everything you could wish for; none of the shops were crowded.  There is very little local produce.  A few years ago the island was virtually self-sufficient in foodstuffs. EU Regulations mitigate against the small commercial producer, and mean that all meat and milk, most fruit and even eggs are now imported.  The population is haemorrhaging.  Five thousand a few years ago, there are now 1500 people fewer living here.  Not surprisingly there is nothing by way of entertainment for young people because there are virtually none.  There is a small canning factory, which is the only significant non-domestic user of power from the nearby power station; only three of the power station's eight modern generating sets are ever needed on-line.  Policemen are everywhere in the crime-free capital and outlying settlements; they go around in modern cars in high-visibility jackets and carry the full array of handcuffs, truncheons, mace sprays and radar guns looking for would-be criminals (there are none) and to trap the unwary motorist trying (very successfully) to speed along the very steep, single-track roads.  Everyone knows the Police, they are their own kith and kin, and they are friendly and charming to all.  The Immigration Office is fully staffed, and there are plenty of Customs men to deal with the MV St Helena when she arrives every six weeks, the occasional visiting yacht and the one Cruise Ship (the Aurora) that calls every year.  The Canning Factory, which cannot employ more than twenty people, and the small fleet of little fishing boats are the only industry.  The Government is by far the largest employer on the island. 

 

There is little in St Helena for the conventional tourist, of which, for now, there aren't any anyway.  There are tours of Napoleon's various "prisons", which are actually rather elegant country retreats, sightseeing around the hilly but remarkably lush countryside and a small museum in the old power station in Jamestown.  There are several good bars and restaurants, and customers are very well looked after and made very welcome, and they are also greeted with friendly courtesy wherever they go.  Scuba Diving can be arranged, but there are no beaches to lie on, no clubs, only a few hotels and nothing else touristy.  But the climate is wonderful; cool Atlantic breezes bring rain as well as warm sunshine.  Scratch the surface, and there's plenty of scope for development.  The steep countryside gives spectacular ocean views and great walking.  Among the country side and on the cliff-tops can be found untouched historical sights.  Forts dating back to the East India Company days (St Helena was a prosperous Coaling Station) and before still contain World War II guns, whilst those of bygone ages can be found heaped up in neglected 100 year-old scrap heaps.  And the wild-life is plentiful; there are not many capitals where you can here so much bird-song.

 

During our tour in a dilapidated home-made 1920s hybrid charabanc, our driver was careful to point out all the sheltered housing and old people's homes.  Maybe he was planning for his future.  As a visiting yachtsman, I would love to come back in ten year's time and find this 1950s gem still as it is now.  But like me, the average age of the population will be ten years older.  Our driver will be in his delightful sheltered bungalow and the charabanc will be up on blocks decaying even faster (nobody throws anything away).  Most of the shops, bars and restaurants would be closed, and the Olympic swimming pool would look like the one in the long-disused Royal Garrison Artillery barracks in the old fort on the hill above Jamestown, with its "we are here too" 1944 Royal Engineers Badge prominent above one old building (the Garrison Engineers mess?). 

 

I hope Mr Gurr's mission is not doomed.  On the Treasury's balance sheet, even a deficit of £15M a year can be easily hidden, whereas an up-front capital cost of what must be well over £100M for a new Airport and so on is very exposed, and it's anyone's guess whether the outcome will be a viable economy for St Helena.  The Treasury Mandarins will wriggle; it won't make good reading, Gordy might be cross.  But the Government needs to get this right.  If they don't get this Airport, St Helena is not just in dire straits, it will slide rapidly into terminal decline.

 

James, Graham, Jenni, Shayne and Mandy