Dream Island: Record of the Simple Life by R.M. Lockley - first published in 1930
I loved this book. It is written in the style of an old fashioned Boys Own adventure. Having fallen in love with the Welsh island of Skokholm during a short visit with a friend, Ronald Lockley leased the small island from 1927. This book is the account of his first couple of years on the island. During this time he made the derelict farmhouse inhabitable, caught and sold rabbits, established a small holding with a goat, a pony, some sheep and some chickens and did a bit of lobster and crayfish fishing.
In an age when health and safety regulations hadn't been invented, he and his friends sailed to and from the island in all weathers and had several hazardous crossings and narrow escapes. He seems to have been a natural optimist and had no trouble befriending the locals on the mainland and persuading some of them to help him with the building work. A timely shipwrecked schooner which came to rest on Skokholm's coast provided him with building materials with which to repair the farmhouse and enough coal to last him many years. He also salvaged the figurehead, the sails, the ship's bell, the cook's galley and the wheelhouse and re-used them.
R.M. Lockley married his friend Doris during his first summer and they spent their honeymoon sailing round the other islands of Pembrokeshire and landed on Grassholm, Ramsey, North Bishop and South Bishop. Later he rescued a survivor from another shipwreck - the SS Molesey.
The flora and fauna of the island are well observed. The fauna were mainly seabirds including puffins, gulls, razorbills, storm petrels and manx shearwaters. The book also has an index - an extra point for that. 9/10
This was the author's first book but he went on to write 50 other natural history books either on his own or with other people. He established a bird observatory on Skokholm in 1933. He died in 2000 aged 96
Islands covered - Skokholm, Skomer, Ramsey, Grassholm, the Bishops and Clerks.
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