Tristan de Cunha-1

Scattered across all seven seas are the islands and archipelagos that make up the fourteen UK overseas territories. One of the most remote of all lies 2500 kilometers west of Cape Town in the centre of the South Atlantic. The only way to get there is by boat across some of the roughest waters on the planet.We're now about five miles from Tristan da Cunha. Any minute now hopefully it's going to appear through that mist. So eighteen days of sailing out of Cape Town is about to come to an end. Well after three weeks at sea we finally made it! I had my doubts a few points but here we are. Welcome to the most remote inhabited island in the world. It definitely feels like I'm a long way from anywhere.Tristan is the tip of a volcano thrust up from the ocean floor over a hot spot in the Earth's mantle. It rises to over 2000 meters above sea level. It might look inhospitable, but far from it! There is a village here,Edinburgh of the Seven seas , with all the comforts of life. Just 270 people live here.But what is life really like here in the world's most remote village? The best way to find out is to ask someone who has lived his whole life here, Harold Green. And what's it like living in such a small community? Well it's a nice life really- where you everyone on the island brothers and sisters: we act as brothers and sisters. We are a big family; we share and share alike. If the kill an animal, they always give everybody some piece  beef or mutton or fish – anything - and if anyone gets in trouble (say a roof blow offs a house) they’re there to help. It’s safe: you can let the children go anywhere around the island, I mean anywhere. We don't bolt the door or lock it. When we go to our potato patches we leave our windows open on fine days, we leave our doors open there's no locks at all.We don't bolt the door or lock it when we go to our potato patches ; We leave our windows open on fine days. We leave our door open there's no locks at all. Harold mentioned potato patches : that's about a mile down the road the road, the only road. And, of course, there's a bus.The potato patches are the islands farm. Every family owns several fields to grow potatoes and other vegetables, but as Harold pointed out this is really one big family and everyone helps out when there's work to be done. The islanders also keep cows sheep, ducks and chickens; but numbers of livestock are strictly controlled to prevent over-grazing of the islands; there is limited pasture. It really feels like a beautiful old fishing and farming village: obviously a working villages and really it seems to me that it could just be a piece of England, cut out and thrown down in the middle of the South Atlantic. Except of course for the volcano, and that volcano is still active. It erupted in 1961 and came close to destroying the village. Lava flowed out onto the coastal plain: and climbing above it shows how close it came to Edinburgh before it stopped, just a few tens of meters away. It was a terrifying experience for the Islanders. Do you also remember the volcano erupting. Yes it 5:57 erupted in October. And what was it like during the eruption, when the volcano was erupting just down the road? It felt like – I thought it was  a deep shake, like that...at any rate, and it shakes so much the volcano starts to open.There was nowhere to retreat to on the island: the only solution was to evacuate the islanders to safety. We went to Cape Town for dinner and by the ship Stirling Castle we went up to, we went to England: when I return back to England they took us to coaches: this was the first time we ride in a coach or a car in our lives! You only ride on donkeys onTristan, that’s it! So what was your time like while you're were in England? British people I will say once and I'll say it again: you wouldn't wish for better people to live with, not... I say it; and any foreigner can say the same thing I'm saying. And we stayed eighteen months and we always wanted to come back to Tristan again. And so what made you want to come back to Tristan? Well, Tristan’s so special to me it's , it's so calm, it's peaceful, it's so quiet . Because I don't like the noise, a lot of noise, you know, I just like the quietness. It’s so quiet on Tristan you can hear the grass growing.