The Isle of Wight
THE new anti-coronavirus app is being piloted on the Isle of Wight, a spot I’ve never thought of as being in the vanguard of new technology… Well, you’re wrong! The first longdistance telephone calls in the UK were made there, when Alexander Graham Bell showed his invention to Queen Victoria by contacting London from her holiday home, Osborne House. Italian engineer Guglielmo Marconi set up the world’s first radio station at the Needles – and the Black Arrow and Black Knight space rockets were later tested near the famous chalk stacks. Sir Christopher Cockerell also built the first hovercraft at Cowes, after experimenting with empty cat-food cans.
A packed history, then?
Certainly a lot’s happened in the 125,000 years since it separated from the mainland – a heartbeat in geological terms. It used to be a kingdom in its own right, Wihtwara, and after the Norman Conquest was given to the De Redvers family, who owned it until the line of succession ended in 1293. Victoria’s love of the place made it a hip holiday destination, drawing visitors such as Lord Tennyson, Edward Elgar and Charles Dickens, who wrote much of David Copperfield on the island. Blackgang Chine, the UK’s oldest theme park, opened in 1843. Victoria died at Osborne House in 1901, 69 years before Jimi Hendrix’s penultimate gig at the legendary Isle of Wight Festival. Other famous residents have included Bear Grylls, David Icke and the Kray Twins – the latter albeit reluctantly as they were imprisoned at Parkhurst.
Not bad for such a tiny place.
Indeed. It’s said to be England’s smallest county – at certain times of the day. When the tide comes in, it’s reputedly smaller than Rutland (though the boundary doesn’t really ebb and flow). It also has a bijou eight miles of railway, famously using old London Underground carriages. It has its own slang: mallishag means caterpillar, gally-bagger is scarecrow, caulkheads are lifelong island residents, and overners are those born on the mainland, wittily called North Island. And it’s reportedly the most haunted island in the world.
Anything else to see, apart from ghosts?
It’s big on dinosaur fossils, one of the few places in England you can still see red squirrels (the council exterminates invasive greys) and garlic farms, being our main producer of the vampire-repellent. Oh, I kid you not, it’s also home to the National Poo Museum. Its slogan: ‘Have you been?’ Currently closed.