OPERATION ST. HELENA: THE TABLE HAS LANDED...

napoleon.org 24^th May 2013

“Operation St. Helena” was marked this week by a newsworthy event. After a long journey by boat and road, thirty pieces of furniture from Longwood House have arrived at Château de Bois-Préau, where they will be taken care of by a team of specialists as part of the restoration process. Amongst the historic pieces are a billiard table, Napoleon’s globes, a dining table and console tables. We can’t show you anything but the boxes that these treasures are kept in; like the in the Little Prince, you’ll have to imagine what they contain until 28 May, when unpacking will start. The restoration, to be followed by an exhibition running in 2016, probably at the Musée de l’Armée, was made possible thanks to the generosity of nearly 2,000 donors to Operation St. Helena, initiated by the Domaines nationaux de St Hélène, the Fondation Napoléon, the French Foreign Ministry and the Souvenir Napoléonien. It’s still possible to make a contribution online. Sixty pieces of furniture related to Napoleon’s exile remain on St. Helena. They however are to be restored in situ on the island. The government of St. Helena is making a substantial donation of £80,000 for this. As a result a French restoration specialist can go to the island to train young apprentices there. We should congratulate Michel Dancoisne-Martineau, curator of the Domaines and the honorary French consul, who has been the lynchpin of all of the work, negotiations, transfers, journeys and a hundred other things beside.

Thierry Lentz, Director of the Fondation Napoléon

ANOTHER PHOTO OF ST. HELENA FROM SPACE

Cmdr Chris Hadfield, one of the astronauts on the International Space Station, snapped this shot of St. Helena and posted it on Twitter.

(Thanks to St. Helena Online for alerting us to the image.)

Our comment:

Given the importance to St. Helena of fishing we think maybe this image should become part of the national flag.

WORKING LIVES: MY MASTER PLAN FOR HOUSING ON THE ISLAND OF ST. HELENA

The Guardian 19^th March 2013

St. Helena is like an atom, packing an awful lot more in it that you’d think. You can drive from France to Scotland via St Paul’s Cathedral in about half an hour. For £20 you can go deep sea fishing and keep as many 100kg (15st 2lb) tuna as you can land. I’ve seen dolphins leaping in the sea off the coast, humpback whales berthing off Jamestown and whalesharks swimming alongside boats.

St. Helena, part of the British overseas territory and off the south west coast of Africa, is home to the world’s rarest tree and the oldest Anglican church south of the equator. More confusingly, the most popular music genre here is country and western. Membership of the remotest golf club in the world costs £24 a year including all green fees, and I can watch most Southampton FC games via a South African TV link.

The island faces a lot of social challenges. New social homes are needed for both households on the waiting list and those being rehoused to make way for hotels. Capital investment in public services has not been matched by the funding to maintain them, so the hospital, schools, roads, utilities, prison and fire service are all competing with housing for reduced funding.

Local people are sceptical; they want fewer strategies and more results. So where to start?

I decided to begin with an Audit Commission-style review, which is a discipline I’d recommend to anyone starting a senior management job in housing. With social rents reflecting current incomes at around £18 a week, there has been little money for repairs and tenancy management. Resident consultation is still in its infancy.

Homes which were once fit for purpose now fall well below modern standards. One in 10 public sector homes lacks an inside toilet and none have a piped hot water supply. Most roofs are made of asbestos and are starting to fail. I’ve met stoic elderly tenants who have few complaints about homes where the bathroom and kitchen is on the other side of the courtyard and where outside toilets are around the corner.

We now have a list of 20 improvements for the housing management service. We have also set a new national minimum housing standard, started the first ever tenant consultation exercise, secured urgent funding to stop me having nightmares about fire safety, and found help for finance staff responsible for tackling rent arrears.

The most popular way to introduce yourself is not necessarily to increase rents by £1, but we need to generate income without hammering those on the margins of employment. It’s not just about rents; it’s about welfare benefits too.

We’ve commissioned master plans and land surveys for the three largest development sites. I have launched an international design competition for homes that are healthier and greener than traditional properties. There have been enquiries from all around the world, and it’s been worth for the publicity for the island alone.

The first new home for the island’s donkeys - a pretty solid structure with a concrete base and recycled steel columns and will have spectacular views from the fields above Lemon Valley. Basil Reed, the airport builders, built it as a goodwill gesture to the island.

We still have a long way to go to deliver real results through housing. The housing service remains fragmented and the island has no true housing market. Performance and project management is in its infancy, building costs are high and international investors won’t show their hand until the airport opens.

I’ve only been here four months so far but there’s a lot to do.

Andy Crowe is housing executive for the government of St. Helena. A more in depth account of his experiences can be found at solenthousing.co.uk while details of the design competition and the first St. Helena housing newsletter can be viewed the Government of St. Helena website.

MANTIS TO DEVELOP NEW HOTEL ON SAINT HELENA, ISLAND IN SOUTH ATLANTIC

Luxury Travel Magazine 22^nd February 2013

Mantis, a collection of privately owned boutique hotels and eco escapes around the world, announces its latest project will be the development of a five star hotel on the island of Saint Helena, a British overseas territory located in the South Atlantic Ocean.

As one of the most remote places in the world, more than 1,200 miles from the nearest major landmass and with its rich flora and fauna, the island certainly fits with Mantis’ mantra of “unearthing the exceptional”.

A team of six from Mantis, including founder and chairman Adrian Gardiner, visited the island in January of this year and identified Ladder Hill Fort as the location for the five star hotel, which will have 45 bedrooms, including 10 self-catering units, a restaurant, spa and fitness facilities.

Mantis aims to commence construction towards the end 2013 and opening the hotel in 2015. The island, which is currently accessed by the last commercially operating U.K. Royal Mail Ship, will be opening its own airport in January 2016.

A major priority for the project will be the restoration of the fort, ensuring it is sensitive to its history, the environment and the local community, something which Mantis has experience with from the 2011 refurbishment of 16^th century country house hotel, Ellenborough Park, Cheltenham.

In addition to its development knowledge, Mantis will also be bringing its hospitality, education and conservation experience to the island. A special focus will be put on supporting the local community and the natural environment. The 47 square miles island has a population of 4,257.

Gardiner said “Saint Helena is unique - the waters that surround it, the forest, the potential for the hospitality industry - and I am hugely excited for our brand to be involved in this major tourism development for the island. The Mantis philosophy is unearthing the exceptional and Saint Helena is no doubt one of the exceptional. We plan to add value wherever we can to make the tourism industry on this island a success, drawing on our own experience, from supporting the island’s marketing plans to training its community and championing conservation work, an issue very close to my heart.”

More information about Mantis can be found at www.mantiscollection.com

STUNNING CLOUD SWIRLS SPOTTED BY SATELLITE

Our Amazing Planet (livescience.com) 27^th November 2012

Alone in the South Atlantic Ocean sits the small volcanic island of Saint Helena. The towering peak of the island disrupts clouds as they pass overhead, creating swirling patterns called von Karman vortices that can be seen by satellites overhead.

The swirling clouds, moving to the northwest over Saint Helena, were snapped by NASA’s Terra satellite on Nov. 15, 2012, according to NASA’s Earth Observatory.

Von Karman vortices are created when a mass of fluid, such as water or air, encounters an obstacle, and creates swirls going in alternating directions. These so-called “Von Karman streets” can be seen in satellite photographs of clouds around the world.

Saint Helena is dominated by Mount Actaeon, which reaches up to 2,680 feet (818 meters), according to the CIA World Fact Book. It’s part of the British overseas territory that includes the islands of Ascension and Tristan da Cunha.

Nobody lived here when it was first discovered by the Portuguese in 1502. British soldiers were stationed on the island during the 17th century, according to the World Fact Book. It became well-known for being the place of Napoleon Bonaparte’s exile from 1815 until his death in 1821, but its importance as a port went down after the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869.

N.A.S.A.

The N.A.S.A. website also carried this image, with the following text:

Cloud Vortices Off Saint Helena Island

NASA’s Terra satellite passed over the South Atlantic Ocean on Nov. 15, 2012, allowing the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer instrument flying aboard to capture this true-colour image of St. Helena Island and the band of wind-blown cloud vortices trailing towards the island’s leeward side.

St. Helena Island is a tiny island lying approximately 1,860 kilometres (1,156 miles) west of Africa. Volcanic in origin, it has rugged topography with steep, sharp peaks and deep ravines. Wind, which can blow unimpeded for hundreds of miles across the ocean, strikes the face of the mountains, and is forced around the unyielding terrain. As it blows around the island, the air spins on the leeward side, much like a flowing river forms eddies on the downriver side of a piling. The spinning wind forms intricate - and mathematically predictable - patterns. When clouds are in the sky, these beautiful patterns become visible from above.

Credit: NASA/GSFC/Jeff Schmaltz/MODIS Land Rapid Response Team

See the full cloud vortices image… (400Kb)

FAMILY START NEW LIFE ON REMOTE ISLAND

By Ian Smith, The Berwick Advertiser 25^th November 2012

ANYONE who considers north Northumberland to be remote and isolated should perhaps think again when they hear that a Berwick family have emigrated to St. Helena.

Ellenor and John with children William Alec and Isabelle all packed and ready for a huge adventure. The Gilchrist family are leaving Tweedmouth for Saint Helena in the South Atlantic Ocean for the next two years.

John and Eleanor Gilchrist and their three children, Isabel, six, William, four and Alec, two, are spending the next two years on the tiny island in the South Atlantic Ocean.

They are well aware that they will face numerous challenges adapting to such a unique environment but they are embracing the change in lifestyle it will bring.

“I’ll not missing paying £3,500 for a season rail ticket or the commute home at night,” joked John, who works for Audit Scotland in Edinburgh.

He has been allowed a career break to take on an auditing role with the St. Helena government to help bring its records in line with the international standard.

“We love living in Berwick and are happily settled here but this job came up which really suited what I do and will give me lots of useful experience - and at the end of the day I know I can go back to my old job in two years,” said John.

“In a way it’s the perfect time to do it,” added Eleanor. “When we come back Alec will be just about to start school and Isabel will still have a year of first school left. Hopefully we’ll be able to get them all into Tweedmouth West because it’s a really good school.”

“We’ve been told the education system on St. Helena isn’t the best, so that was our biggest concern about going there, but by doing it when they’re still young they should be able to catch up quickly when we come back.”

“With Isabel being at school already she is worried about missing her friends, but we’ve told her she’ll make lots of new friends and the old ones will still be there when we come back. She’s also be taught the English national curriculum which is good.”

Perhaps the biggest headache of all will be getting there in the first place - by an exhausting combination of rail, road, air and boat.

“We’ve already shipped a lot of our stuff out there but we’ve still got 10 suitcases - and three children - to get on a train to Oxford and across to the RAF base at Brize Norton,” said Eleanor, speaking the day before their departure.

They were then due to get a military flight to Ascension Island where they had to wait three days to catch the once every three weeks Royal Mail ship to St. Helena for a 800-mile journey that takes a further two days. “That’s the most daunting bit of the whole thing,” admitted Eleanor. “We’d known for a few months that we’d be going to St. Helena but we didn’t know when and then, all of a sudden, we were given a mid-November date.”

“In a way there’s been so much to do that there’s been no time to worry about it.”

St. Helena is a British overseas territory, measuring just 10x5 miles with a population of 4,255. It is one of the most isolated islands in the world, more than 1,200 miles away from the west coast of Africa. Its most famous resident was undoubtedly Napoleon Bonaparte who was exiled there by the British, followed by more than 5,000 Boer prisoners.

“John actually had the chance of a job on Ascension Island before this one came up but we felt it wasn’t for us as it’s mainly a military base servicing the island,” revealed Eleanor.

“On the other hand, St. Helena has its own culture and community. Because we’d already considered Ascension Island, I think when St. Helena came up is seemed far more appealing.”

They have been provided with a house in Longwood in the island’s tropical interior, with John travelling to the port capital of Jamestown for work.

“We’ve bought a second hand car so we can get around,” said John. “It’s not that far for me to get to work but it’ll still take a while as the speed limit is 30mph because of the twisty roads!”

“We’re expecting a much slower pace of life which is one of the things I’m looking forward to,” added Eleanor. “It’ll be nice to have John home after work at a more reasonable time so we can have dinner together as a family.”

They have been advised that some things are not easy to get while others are more expensive on St. Helena.

“It’s incredibly remote and everything that comes on to the island arrives on the Royal Mail ship which travels via Cape Town and Ascension Island so there will be items that are hard to come by,” said Eleanor.

“Children’s clothing is one of the things we’ve been told about so we’ve stocked up on the next size up for them,” she said.

“Food-wise it should be quite good. They have corner shop type stores rather than supermarkets so we’ve been told it will be a ?little bit more expensive than we’re used to. And we won’t be able to get things like strawberries unless they’re grown on the island.”

“We’ve taken pretty much everything we could want during the time we’re there, including things like Christmas presents.”

The weather they will arrive to will also be welcomed, especially as the UK enters winter.

“With it being in the southern hemisphere they’re just entering spring so it’s a good time to go,” said Eleanor. “They don’t really have extremes of temperature there; I’ve been told it’s a bit like a warm version of the UK but without the winter!”

Both John and Eleanor seem to be remarkably composed about the adventure that awaits their young family.

John said: “I’m totally up for whatever happens. I want to see what life on St. Helena is like and am looking forward to the change of pace; just going with the flow really.”

Eleanor added: “There’s something not quite real about it at the moment. Maybe once we get those 10 suitcases off the train at Oxford we’ll be able to put our minds more to what we’re going to face there!”

The pair admit they are going to miss Berwick where they have lived for the past four years.

“We’ve made some lovely friends,” said Eleanor. “I belong to the Take Note choir which I really enjoy and I’ll miss my weekly get-togethers with a group of mums but it’s only temporary.”

“We have a great adventure ahead of us and it’s our intention to throw ourselves into it. It’s going to be a brilliant experience.”

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ST. HELENA FACTBOX

• Its nearest neighbour is Ascension Island 810 miles away.
• Population 4,255
• The port of Jamestown is the capital
• Napoleon Bonaparte was exiled here by the British, as were more than 5,000 Boer prisoners
• Britain’s second oldest overseas territory (after Bermuda)
• Discovered by the Portuguese in 1502
• For centuries, it was an important stopover for ships sailing to Europe from Asia and South Africa
• The climate is tropical, marine and mild, rarely dropping below 17C in Jamestown
• The island is set to gets its first airport in 2015 thanks to a £200m investment by the UK government
• 
  

WORKING LIVES: MANAGING HOUSING ON THE ISLAND OF ST. HELENA

The Guardian 1^st November 2012

Jamestown, capital of the remote Atlantic island of St. Helena. Photograph: Derry Brabbs/Alamy

“Amazing”, “wonderful”, “wow”, “great result”, “incredible”. It’s hard to imagine any housing job attracting such superlatives, but that’s how my normally sober friends from the now defunct Audit Commission reacted to my new posting as housing executive for the south Atlantic island of St. Helena. And apart from astronaut or rock star, I can’t imagine any job deserving it.

Mind you, not all comments were so effusive: “sounds really interesting if that’s what you want” was typical of well-meaning friends who don’t share my enthusiasm for housing and travel. Others enjoyed the irony of me having turned down a housing policy manager post in London because I didn’t want to commute, only to end up in one of the remotest places on the planet - five days by boat from Cape Town or three days from Ascension Island, if you can get there.

Discovered by the Portuguese and settled by the East India Company and freed slaves, St. Helena is a volcanic island with a population of 4,255 and located more than 1,200 miles (1,931km) from south west coast of Africa. The island’s economy has been on a downward trajectory since the growth of air travel. The loss of trade has been matched only by the exodus of young people seeking work and a living wage.

This is now set to change: a huge airport investment, a five-star hotel and the unique attractions of the island look set to reverse the trend. St. Helena is a microcosm of Costa Rica, with its 400 native species, incredible geography and with its capital city’s high street made up of listed Georgian buildings. It’s being shortlisted for world heritage status - just so long as there are homes for the hundreds of people who will now be attracted to stay and return to the island. This is where I come in.

As housing executive I have responsibility for improving the existing housing stock, developing new homes and even new communities. The most exciting part of the job is that there is a blank sheet of paper when it comes to housing legislation and housing management. St. Helena has had very little of either.

This is not, thank goodness, about imposing UK practices on the island. It’s pretty clear to everyone that the UK model has failed: we’ve failed to develop the number of homes we need, the planning system continues to move at the pace of a supertanker and localism places even more weight in favour of the haves over the have nots. The result is that house prices are way beyond the means of all but a few first-time buyers, homelessness is rising fast and the housing benefit bill is going through the roof.

There really could be an alternative. It’s all about land use since that affects land prices and, in turn, housing costs. Shielding housing prices from the ravages of inflation is the way to make housing affordable for local people in perpetuity.

At the same time, international investment and luxury homes are essential for future development. We have an opportunity to get the right balance between social rents, incomes and the benefits system.

Unfortunately the UK agenda appears to be to force up social rents so high that nobody earning a half decent income will want to rent, to privatise the housing associations now that they are earning huge surpluses and to continue to reduce benefits to such a level that anyone who can’t get a job feels the pain. What I’d also rather avoid are the convoluted and costly financial models being developed to make a broken system work.

St. Helena is a special case, with the challenges of climate, terrain, supplies and local people naturally wary of an unknown face. Then there is the unique natural environment, with 400 indigenous species including the wirebird and the world’s oldest known living creature, Jonathan the giant tortoise.

No wonder Charles Darwin liked it so much. The volcano last erupted several million years ago, which may or may not be a good thing. I am hoping that neither it nor the local people will have cause to erupt at my arrival.

Andy Crowe is housing executive for the government of St. Helena. You can follow Andy’s progress on his South Atlantic blog.