REAL-LIFE SWISS FAMILY ROBINSON
While researching her new book author Lydia Syson discovered that an ancestor of her husband was Tom Bell, who lived with his wife and 10 children on a desert island for 36 years. Here she tells DOMINIC UTTON their story
IT IS a tale so extraordinary it could only be fiction. A new novel by Lydia Syson, Mr Peacock’s Possessions, tells the tale of a family’s struggle to live in a remote tropical paradise – and what happens when the dream turns sour.
But the biggest twist in this tale is not only that the novel is based on a true story but that Syson herself is related by marriage to one of the members of that very same family.
“The original story was told to me by my husband’s aunt Madeleine, who’s from New Zealand,” she says. “I’d already used a lot of my own family history in my previous books and I felt bad that I didn’t know very much about his family, so when she came over for a visit I started quizzing her.
“And lo and behold she started telling me about her favourite aunt when she was a child, whose husband William had been born on an island in the middle of nowhere.”
That island is Raoul Island, around 600 miles off the Pacific coast of New Zealand. Today it is owned by the New Zealand Department of Conservation but at the end of the 19th century, then known as Sunday Island, it was home to Thomas and Frederica Bell and their 10 children, who lived as castaways there for fewer than 36 years.
“It’s such an unbelievable tale it grabbed me right away,” says Syson. “It is a real-life Swiss Family Robinson story.
“Except the Bells were not shipwrecked – they chose to settle there. Or rather, Tom Bell did. He hears about this unoccupied, fertile island and decides to go there and try to make a go of it.
“What fascinated me was what kind of man would even think about taking over an island that is 1,000km from anywhere? Even now it is two days’ solid sailing to get there. As part of my research I went with the New Zealand navy and for one of those days we didn’t see anything apart from the sea and some birds.”
TOM BELL was born in Yorkshire and had run away to sea as a teenager. Eventually settling in New Zealand he drifted through a series of adventures and failed enterprises, including a spell living among the Maori people.
However when a fellow adventurer told him about Sunday Island he was immediately smitten. And so in 1878 he set off with wife Frederica and their family, which consisted of six children at the time, the eldest of whom was just 11, to claim it as his own.
“When he heard about this unoccupied, fertile island it was like a promise of Paradise to him,” says Syson. “It seemed to Bell that the land was just up for grabs, he could literally be king of it. There were no natives and nothing to deal with other than isolation.”
As it turned out there was quite a lot to deal with other than isolation. And the problems began from the moment they stepped ashore.
The family was dropped off by a ship called the Norval but, owing CASTAWAYS: Tom Bell and his wife Frederica set out in 1878 to build a home hundreds of miles from anywhere to bad weather, instead of landing on the easier northern beaches they were forced to disembark on the western side under the shadow of towering volcanic cliffs.
In addition Bell had purchased enough tinned food from the skipper to last them three months, with a promise that after that time the ship would return with either more supplies or to take the family back to New Zealand. However, when they opened the tins, they found that the entire store was rotten and inedible.
“There they are,” says Syson, “this mother and father with six children, surrounded by cliffs on one side and the raging sea on the other and absolutely nothing to eat apart from a few sandwiches.”
Worse, the Norval was never to return. In fact it would be eight months before the Bells saw another ship, when an American whaling vessel caught sight of their smoke signals and came to investigate. By that time the family were at near-starvation point, having lived off little more than limpets and goat’s milk. But crucially they were still alive. And Tom, in particular, wasn’t beaten. He refused the whaling ship’s offer of rescue and sent them on their way again.
“It was brutal stuff,” says Syson. “And much of the burden fell on the two older girls Hettie and Bessie. It was they who first scaled the cliffs to hunt goats and they who helped their father drag the wood and materials necessary to build their shelter. And they were incredibly resourceful.
“Tom had picked up a lot of local lore from his time with the Maori and he was very good at knowing what native species of plants he could use. For example there was a Daily Express Saturday May 5 2018 certain type of bullrush that could be dug up and the pollen used to make flour.”
Eventually the family made it over the cliffs and across to the more fertile side of the island where they set up camp proper. Frederica had brought seeds with her and after establishing a garden it looked like the Bells were actually going to pull off the impossible.
They grew a range of vegetables and other plants including tobacco, coffee and sugar cane and Tom and Frederica had a further four children, the youngest of whom, William, later married Syson’s husband’s ancestor. A teacher was even persuaded to join them for a few years so the children could receive something like a formal education.
HOWEVER, throughout this seeming dream of a tropical paradise, Tom Bell was becoming increasingly domineering. So much so that as each of the children reached adulthood they abandoned their father’s dream.
“By 1895 the older children had all left and settled in New Zealand and it was much harder to manage the gardens without their help,” adds Syson. The family had other problems too. In 1887, nine years after the Bells arrived, the New Zealand government annexed Sunday Island, dividing it up into nine separate leases, of which only one was granted to Thomas Bell.
The family were suddenly joined by 40 other settlers and Bell spent the rest of his life petitioning the government to overturn the decision and grant him sole ownership.
Finally in 1914, as war was declared and New Zealand joined the Allied forces, the government ordered the evacuation of Sunday Island. Almost at gunpoint the Bell family left their tropical home for ever.
Tom and Frederica separated soon afterwards and as he continued to fight to be allowed to return, she lived with youngest son William in Auckland until her death in 1932.
And, for their descendants at least, there remains one especially poignant memory of that extraordinary family’s 36-year adventure on their tropical paradise.
“My husband’s aunt told me how when she would stay with her aunt and uncle she was told there was a cupboard in one of the spare rooms that she wasn’t allowed to go into because in there was a tin box containing the ashes of William’s mother,” says Lydia Syson.
“Frederica’s ashes were supposed to be scattered on the island after her death. But none of the children ever went back.”
To pre-order Mr Peacock’s Possessions by Lydia Syson, published on May 17 by Zaffre at £12.99, call the Express Bookshop with your debit/credit card on 01872 562310. Alternatively send a cheque or PO made payable to Express Bookshop to: Peacock Offer, PO Box 200, Falmouth, Cornwall, TR11 4WJ or order online at expressbookshop.co.uk UK delivery is free