St Helena Airport Revisited

Plane landing alongside a problematic rock

It is almost eight years since I last blogged about the airport. Since then it has been operational, but a few fairly major problems remain, COVID has intervened, and the expected or more accurately, hoped for benefits have not materialised.

Most Saints I speak to - I am currently visiting the island for the fourth time - are very critical of the decision to build the airport and nostalgic about the RMS St Helena, which used to be the only link to the island from the outside world. The cost of water, electricity, food and basic essentials has rocketed. Real wages have decreased. The population decrease has continued and the remaining population is rapidly ageing. For those who can afford it the big positive change has been a reliable internet, much cheaper than on our last visit three years ago, and streaming has put the two shops selling DVD's out of business, but it is still about twice the cost in the UK where wages are much higher.

Arriving passengers making their way into the terminal building

A recent UK Government Audit report has spelled out in grisly detail the failure of the airport to do what it was intended to do, i.e. make St Helena self sustaining so that it no longer required large subsidy from the UK.

Firstly commercial viability of the airport is limited by the island’s remoteness, the short runway length and local wind conditions. Extending the runway or removing a hill that exacerbates wind conditions are not considered cost effective

As a result of wind and visibility issues 11% of flights between 2017 and 2024 were delayed or cancelled. In the past two years this has increased to around 25%

The UK Government subsidy for the airport is now around £4 million a year.

The Airport: External View

The main aim of the airport was to increase tourist numbers. These were expected to reach 29,000 after 25 years.In 2023, 2,112 tourists arrived, around a quarter of the approximately 8,000 projected for 2023 in the airport business case.

FCDO now acknowledges that the numbers given in the business case were over-optimistic.

Financial aid provided by FCDO has increased from £16.2 million in 2010-11 to £33.0 million in 2023-24, an increase of 104% in cash terms, or 46% in real terms. Not bad for a UK Government implementing a policy of austerity.

In conclusion the airport has facilitated improved access to healthcare for residents, and an improvement in the quality of life for many, but the hoped for wider economic benefits - increased employment prospects, higher working incomes, more private investment, increased Government revenue to finance public services, a reversal in the decline of the population - haven't materialised.

The report also mentions the dreadful waste of money on the bulk fuel project which was covered here a few years back. £78 million has been spent, the original budget was £31 million, it is now 9 years overdue, and it will need further expenditure to get it up and running in the next three years. Happily all the redundant vehicles shown in my original post are no longer present in Ruperts Valley. Hopefully they have been sensibly disposed of.

In September there will after five years of the new system of Ministerial Government be a General Election. It will be interesting to see who stands and who gets elected and forms the new Government. Big challenges remain.

Napoleon Symphony: "Can Burgess write on Napoleon? Of Corsican." (1)

Burgess's Novel published in 1974, based on the script he wrote for Kubrick

Last year's Ridley Scott film on Napoleon inevitably triggered memories of Kubrick's ill-fated epic, abandoned half a century earlier. The film's reported comedic traits and preoccupation with Napoleon's sex life was a feature of Anthony Burgess's script which following Kubric's rejection metamorphosed into Burgess's much under-rated, comic but unfunny novel.

The inside of the dust cover of Napoleon Symphony describes Napoleon as

inspired general, starry eyed lover, laughable cuckold, evangelising republican, great emperor, bloody tyrant, wretched invalid exile, mythic hero.

Anthony Burgess 1917-1993

Several years ago I came across a file in the Anthony Burgess Centre in Manchester containing a large number of reviews of the novel, including one from Playboy which described it as "his best novel yet", a view endorsed by Robert K. Morris in the Nation (2).

The novel was written in the early years of UK membership of what was then known as the "Common Market", and one reviewer who took this theme was Ronald Blythe, self taught Suffolk writer, author of Akenfield and collaborator with Benjamin Britten and E.M. Forster. Blythe saw the book as profoundly anti-Napoleon and anti Common Market, which views he endorsed:

What Wellington (and de Gaulle) prevented, Heath arranged.

In those days of course the main opposition to UK membership of the European Union came from the Left, which is why the then Labour Prime Minister, Harold Wilson, called a referendum to try to keep the party together, and Blythe was a life-long Labour voter.

One American reviewer wrote on the same theme:

was a "humbled" Britain's entry into Europe's Common Market a belated fulfillment of Napoleon's long-ago war aims? Such a possibility is the final irony in Anthony Burgess's latest extravaganza. (3)

Time Magazine picked up Burgess's pessimism about England and vision of the Anglosphere, including the United States, all united under a constitutional monerchy.

It may sound positively Napoleonic, but it has vision, the vision of a bold artist who has yet to meet his Waterloo.

The novelist Kay Dick clearly did not care for Burgess, whom she rather snobbishly described as "that proverbial bright grammar school sixth former .. yet never quite beyond that sixth form humour." He was "the best barker in the English literary scene", and "a wizard with words, knows them all, uses them as often as he can" and "like his hero, Napoleon, he does not care for women to think." (4)

A number of other reviewers picked up on Burgess's treatment of Napoleon's sexuality and his relations with women. For one American writer the book was "a randy tomcat's view of the Corsican Ogre" and another saw Burgess's Napoleon as "entirely baffled by women" (5) One reviewer saw

a bad lover, as quick in sex as he is in battle..(6)

and another concluded:

Burgess has given us a Napoleon we've never known before. Invincible, crusading, charming, humble, to be sure. Also gross, profane, plagued with heartburn, flatulence, bad breath.. premature ejaculation and, obviously, self-doubt. (7)

Many reviewers made much of Burgess's Joycean love of language and music, his rather self-indulgent cleverness, and his encyclopedic knowledge and cerebrality. As for the portrait of Napoleon, a number of reviewers saw that beyond the earthy, priapic conqueror Burgess was portraying a more complex figure, the rational, Enlightenment ruler who was ultimately defeated by the English who failed to see the light, and by Slavic and German mysticism and nascent German nationalism.

Even his last ingenious construct, the great garden on Saint Helena, is uprooted by a nature drawn like the Greek fate to opposing his grandiose schemes. (8)

Victoria Glendinning's summary of Burgess's Napoleon seems very apt

.. a violent amalgam of intellect and physicality, a 'machine on top of an animal.' The machine part of him juggles with states, statesmen, school textbooks, regiments, rulers, sisters-in-law and the map of Europe. Under the brain machine his body throbs and aches. He lusts lyrically after his whorish Josephine, who dislikes his bad breath and his perfunctory performances.(9)"

Finally a reminder that the book itself was ostensibly based on Beethoven's Eroica Symphony. Its four movements were set in Egypt and Italy, Paris, Moscow and St Helena. For some reviewers it was more noise than symphony, although at least one felt that Burgess like Napoleon and Beethoven had proved that he too was a man of vision, and the Financial Times review concluded that the novel would be relished by admirers of all three! (10)

For a recent review see The Great Napoleonic Novel: "It's a sin to want to die for a nation."
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1. Ed Powers writing in Cleveland Press July 26th 1974.
2. The Nation , Aug 3rd 1974.
3. Roderick Nordell Christian Science Monitor May 29th 1974
4.The Scotsman 12 October 1974.
5. Charles A. Brady, Buffalo Evening News June 29th 1974; Martin Washburn, Village Voice July 4th 1974.
6. Newsweek May 27th 1974.
7. Rod Cockshutt, News and Observer North Carolina, June 16th 1974.
8. Mark Mirsky Washington Post May 26th 1974
9. New Statesman 27th September, 1974.
10. John D. Gates. No other identification. Isobel Murray Financial Times 26th September 1974

Michael Broers on the Ridley Scott film

Having read so many bad reviews I decided not to bother with Ridley Scott's film, but I may be more interested in the four hour directors cut not yet released.

The film apparently focused very much on war and sex, or more particularly on Napoleon's relationship with Josephine. Phoenix is older than Napoleon was at the end of his career, and Josephine, in the film played by Vanessa Kirby, is portrayed as younger than Napoleon when in fact the reverse was the case.

Michael Briers who ironically was involved in the preparation for the film, indicates in a perceptive article that there was so much more to Napoleon than is revealed by the film.

Michael Broers Napoleon: The Decline and Fall of an Empire: 1811-1821 (Pegasus 2022)

Broers is for me the best of the historians of the Napoleonic period, and this interview about his latest book, Napoleon: The Decline and Fall of an Empire: 1811-1821 is also very much worth listening to. Broers offers an interesting perspective on Napoleon's relationship with Josephine, indicating that her aristocratic background was important to a young man who grew up in the ancien regime feeling socially very insecure.

Broers concludes that Waterloo was more important for the reputation and career of Wellington than it was for Napoleon. The 100 Days was a gamble with the odds stacked heavily against him. Even had he won that battle, the strength of the armies allied against him made his ultimate defeat almost inevitable. On Elba he very much feared that the only one of his enemies that would treat him fairly was Alexander with whom her personally got on well. So with very real fears that he might well end up on St Helena or worse, the decision to return to France was the last throw of the dice.

Elsewhere on my blog I have written about Waterloo and its importance for British nationalist mythology and also on the factors that seem to have made Napoleon decide to leave Elba.

Kensal Green Cemetery, St Helena and Napoleon

Kensal Green Cemetery, founded in 1833, is the oldest and apparently the most prestigious private cemetery in Britain. The Friends of Kensal Green Cemetery have just released an article by Henry Vivian-Neal about its Napoleonic and St Helena connections.

Tomb of Lt. Col. Gideon Gorrequer, 1780 – 1841

Here are to be found the remains of some of those who served under Hudson Lowe in guarding Napoleon on St Helena. Most well known is Colonel Gideon Gorrequer, whose diary revealed a deeply unsympathetic view of Sir Hudson and his wife. Less well known are General Wynyard, Lowe's military secretary, Alexander Baxter M.D., the doctor whose services Napoleon declined, and Lt Colonel John Ward who served with the 66th Regiment of Foot, made some sketches of Napoleon and assisted with the death mask.

Ward was also present at the exhumation in 1840, as was another inhabitant of the cemetery the Comte de Jarnac, a member of the expedition that returned Napoleon's body to France, who later became French ambassador to the UK.

The man who escorted Napoleon to St Helena in 1815, Rear Admiral Sir George Cockburn, is also buried in the cemetery, as is the Lt Governor, General Skelton, who was on the island when Cockburn and Napoleon arrived. As the author notes, Longwood House was Skelton's summer residence, he and his wife were among the few senior British officials who got on well with Napoleon and frequently visited him.

Perhaps most interesting of all to followers of this blog is Lucia Abell, better known as Betsy Balcombe, whose story has been told and probably embroidered many times.

The most famous person mentioned, albeit with rather tenuous St Helena connections is the writer William Thackeray. Thackeray claimed as a child to have been taken to view Napoleon on St Helena. Although it is not mentioned by the author, Thackeray also attended Napoleon's second funeral about which he wrote a rather irreverent article.

Tomb of Prince Augustus Frederick, Duke of Sussex 1773-1843

The Cemetery also has a few royal graves. The first to be buried was the Duke of Sussex, who strongly associated himself with Whig criticisms of the Government's treatment of Napoleon, and later gave Queen Victoria a book about Napoleon to give her a more favourable view of his achievements.

This is an very well researched piece of work. It is only 30 pages long but includes a very informative history of the cemetery, the background to Napoleon's imprisonment, portraits of the subjects discussed, a map identifying the location of each of their graves in the cemetery and an incredibly detailed index. There are a few very minor errors in it, for example Grand Marshall Bertand only lived at Hutts Gate in the early part of the captivity. He and his family soon moved in to a cottage specially built for them at Longwood, which still stands to this day. Like others the author says that the decision to send Napoleon to St Helena was taken while the Bellerophon waited in English waters, but by the time the Bellerophon arrived in Torbay the decision to send Napoleon to St Helena and to appoint Hudson Lowe as Governor had been made although not publicly announced.

The friends of the cemetery are in September 2023 organising a guided, costumed walk, "Napoleonic Stories at Kensal Green Cemetery."

The Bulk Fuel Installation & "The Saint"

"The Saint" 12 January 2022

I rarely post about modern St Helena, but a recent edition of a new publication, The Saint reminded me of a story I came across when I visited a year ago.

To put it simply, some £80 million of British taxpayers money was spent on a bulk fuel installation in Upper Ruperts and a new gantry in Ruperts Bay, neither of which will probably ever be used.

The new fuel tanks

The airport was a DFID project, and the planning and management was ultimately in Whitehall hands, although "the Saint" seeks to put at least some of the blame on local officials.

The new fuel gantry
Also Ruperts is/was littered with vehicles used in the airport project now slowly rusting away.

Abandoned vehicles in Upper Ruperts

The airport contractors have apparently gone bankrupt, and nobody seems quite sure who the vehicles belong to. This state of affairs should not I think be laid at the door of the St Helena Government, and certainly not the current one which has only been in office for just over a year.

More vehicles

Close up of the fuel tanks

The Fuel Gantry now overshadowing Ruperts Bay