Lundy Island: Reading Adventure & Quiz

It was Lundy that began it. Lundy, the tubby island, the blue whale of the Bristol Channel.

As a schoolboy I had seen it out on the distant water: fat, wonderful, mysterious. I had seen it both from the head of Devon and the foot of Wales. Always it looked blue and I wondered at what point on the voyage out there the blue turned to green. Or perhaps, I thought, it did not change; that when you arrived it really was an island of deep blue. What a thing that would have been! In those days they used to say, on both the top and bottom sides of the Channel, that if you could see Lundy it was going to rain, and if you couldn't see it then it was already raining.

It was years before I went to my childhood island. Before I made that little voyage I was to stand on islands in the China Sea, in the Indies, in the Caribbean and many other places. They were hot and tropical with idle beaches and palms. But before I went to Lundy I had never been on a real island.

The day I first went there it was with summer at its highest. For a week, every morning, I had been going with my children down to the beach at Croyde in North Devon and there she was out there in the ocean sunshine, blue and big as ever. I gazed at her as I had done when I was a boy. Then, on the second Monday I could stand it no longer. I abandoned the family, jumped into my car and drove like mad to Ilfracombe where I was the last one that morning to buy a ticket for a day trip to Lundy Island. After I'd asked for my change the lady pulled down the shutter of the little wooden box office with the finality of a guillotine. With my ticket in my hand I went up the gangplank of the pleasure steamer and they pulled it in right after me. You can't leave it any later than that.

Leslie Thomas describes Lundy Island as "the tubby island, the blue whale of the Bristol Channel" — a metaphor comparing the island to a fat whale, which tells us it looked round and blue on the horizon.
As a schoolboy, he was fascinated by the island's mysterious blue colour and wondered whether it really was blue up close.
The joke about the weather — if you can see Lundy it's going to rain, if you can't it's already raining — is humour about how much it rains in that part of England and Wales.
He calls Lundy a "real island" even though he had visited tropical islands. This tells us Lundy held a special, almost magical place in his imagination since childhood.
In paragraph 4, his excitement builds rapidly: he "could stand it no longer", "abandoned the family", "drove like mad" and was the last person to get a ticket. The pace of the writing mirrors his urgency.

Tubby — Short and fat; round in shape.
Tropical — Relating to the hot regions near the equator, with lush plants and warm seas.
Abandoned — Left behind suddenly; in this case, he left his family on the beach.
Guillotine — A heavy blade used in France to cut off heads; here it describes how the ticket office shutter slammed down with dramatic finality.
Gangplank — A movable bridge or plank used to walk on and off a ship.

1. What made Leslie Thomas so keen to visit Lundy Island?

2. Why does the author call Lundy a 'real island' even though he had visited tropical islands?

3. How does the author create a sense of excitement in paragraph 4?

Here I was, on this brilliant morning in my thirty-second year, voyaging to Lundy with three hundred trippers who broiled under the Bristol Channel sun, licked ice cream and drank pop. Children ran about the deck and mothers screamed. Men put handkerchiefs over their heads. The ship's loudspeaker was playing maritime music and right opposite me two young lovers were going near the bounds of decency, even midsummer decency, on a life-raft capable (it said) of saving fourteen souls.

I cared nothing, I heard nothing, I saw nothing. Nothing, that is, but that blue hump on the top of the sea getting closer, and if anything bluer. I watched it with as much intensity as if I had been alone on the pleasure boat, or for that matter clinging to a lump of cork and on my last castaway gasp. Say it did stay blue! That would be a laugh, not to mention a shock. But no, it couldn't be or the word would have got around.

Nevertheless my careful recollection of that morning was that it didn't turn colour until we were less than a mile away, and then it became rock-grey topped with green.

It was a marvelous day, hot all the time, with birds flying about and such a limitless sky for them too. At the top of the first cliff path I looked down at my boat, far more elegant from above, placed royally on a sea of August blue with the small tenders making seams in the water as they went back and forth with more passengers.

The author uses contrast brilliantly: the noisy, chaotic scene on the boat (screaming mothers, men with handkerchiefs, lovers on a life-raft) is set against his own total focus on the island. He notices none of the chaos around him.
"I cared nothing, I heard nothing, I saw nothing" — this tricolon (three-part repetition) emphasises how completely absorbed he was in watching Lundy.
The word "broiled" means roasted or cooked by heat — a vivid, slightly comic way to describe sunbathers.
"Maritime music" means music related to the sea — shanties or nautical tunes played over the loudspeaker.
He describes the boat as "placed royally" on the sea, as though it were a king or queen on a throne. This is an example of a regal metaphor showing how beautiful the scene looked from above.
The "tenders making seams in the water" is a lovely visual metaphor — the small boats' wakes looked like stitches sewn across blue fabric.

Broiled — Roasted or cooked by intense heat; here it humorously describes people baking in the sun.
Maritime — Connected with the sea, especially relating to sailing or shipping.
Castaway — A person who has been shipwrecked and stranded, usually on a desert island.
Recollection — A memory; the act of remembering something from the past.
Royally — In a grand, magnificent way, as if fit for a king or queen.
Tenders — Small boats used to carry passengers between the shore and a larger ship.

4. What does the phrase 'I cared nothing, I heard nothing, I saw nothing' tell us about the author?

5. What colour did Lundy Island turn out to be when the author got close?

6. What does the metaphor 'tenders making seams in the water' suggest?

Somehow I lost everyone else. All three hundred of them, or whatever the number was. Some of them, I heard later, never moved from the beach because older or wearier mums and dads couldn't manage the cliff path. Certainly not many went beyond the village and the post office. You couldn't blame them because it was very hot.

But I went on, across the bounding grass, over the quarter wall, the halfway wall, and the three-quarter wall, to the old middle lighthouse and the newer one at the northern nose of the island. I had the whole place to myself. I could see South Wales and imagine myself back there, looking over here all those years ago. Well, it wasn't blue. That was settled anyway. Any Welsh or Devonian child who thinks Lundy is blue should make a note of this.

I saw seals for the first time in my life, far below on the sea-washed rocks, and I had the screams of the seabirds in my ears for a long time; in fact they are still there now. Then I poked about among the coves and caves of the pirates and smugglers who used this as a terminus in the far days. I had a bottle of beer and some sandwiches sitting on a giddy cliff top. I got so sunburned that my face peeled for days.

When I went back to the south anchorage the children were crying because they had to leave their sandcastles. Dads were clouting their ears, mothers were collecting bits into baskets and then trying to clamber into the little boats without showing their knickers. The lighthouse men waved, no doubt with relief, and we sailed grandly for Ilfracombe again with me standing at the stern watching the island return to blue in the evening.

The author is different from the other trippers: while most stayed near the beach or village, he explored the entire island alone, walking past the quarter wall, halfway wall, and three-quarter wall to the northern tip.
He finally answers his childhood question: "Well, it wasn't blue. That was settled anyway." The dry, matter-of-fact tone is humorous — after years of wondering, the answer is almost anticlimactic.
The phrase "the screams of the seabirds... are still there now" shows the experience left a lasting impression. He is writing years later but can still hear those sounds in his memory.
"Terminus" means an end-point or final stop — pirates and smugglers used Lundy as a base or stopping point for their operations.
The last paragraph is full of gentle humour: crying children, dads clouting ears, mothers trying to be modest climbing into boats. The lighthouse men wave "with relief" at the trippers leaving.
The story comes full circle: the island "return[s] to blue in the evening" as he sails away, just as it always looked blue from the shore. The mystery is restored by distance.

Terminus — A final stopping point or destination, especially the end of a transport route.
Giddy — Dizzyingly high; making you feel unsteady when you look down.
Grandly — In a splendid, impressive, or dignified manner.
Anchorage — A place where boats can anchor safely, usually a sheltered part of the coast.
Clouting — Hitting or smacking, usually not very hard (informal British English).
Stern — The back end of a ship or boat.

7. How is the author different from the other day trippers on the island?

8. What different feelings do people have in the last paragraph, and why?

9. Why is it significant that the island 'return[s] to blue in the evening' at the end of the passage?

Reading: Lundy Island

Vocabulary & Phrases Quiz

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