Captain Calamity

Captain Calamity

In the past year, we have had two podcasts about English people who have gone to Scotland to do slightly crazy things. We had Andy Strangeway, who has spent a night on every island in Scotland. Then we had Steve Feltham, who has spent the last17 years looking for the Loch Ness monster. Today we meet Stuart Hill. He lives on a tiny island in Shetland( a group of islands to the north of Scotland), and he has just declared his island to be an independent state.

This is not the first time that Stuart Hill has been in the news. He has a nickname, “ Captain Calamity”. ( A“ calamity” is another word for a“ disaster”). This is why. He comes from Essex in eastern England. Several years ago he bought himself a small boat. His boat became his main interest. He took a sail from a wind- surfing board and fixed it to his boat. He started to go for sailing trips. Then, in2001, he decided to sail his boat single- handed all the way round Britain. His wife and his children thought he was mad. The distance around Britain is over3,000 kilometers, and there are dangerous rocks and currents, and the waves and the weather are often dangerous too.

Stuart Hill set off. Within minutes, he hit another boat, and his sail collapsed into the water. He found that he had forgotten some important equipment, and a friend had to swim out to his boat with it. Over the next few weeks, he had more problems with his boat, and he had to be rescued five times by lifeboats and twice by helicopter. Finally, in August2001, his boat turned over in a storm near the Shetland islands. He was rescued again, but he had lost everything– he had no boat, and no money and nothing but the clothes he stood up in. So he stayed in Shetland, and got a job there, working in a fish- processing factory.

This week, Stuart Hill was in the news again. He now lives on a tiny Shetland island called Forewick Holm, where he is the only inhabitant( apart from lots of sheep and sea- birds). He is65 years old, which means that he is able to get a state old- age pension. Most pensioners want a quiet life, but not Stuart. He has declared that Forwick is now an independent state, and that it is no longer part of Britain or of the European Union. There will be no taxes in Forwick, he says, and his state will soon issue its own currency.

Why is he doing this? He wants to draw attention to an argument that Shetland is legally not part of Scotland( and therefore not part of Britain). Many centuries ago, Shetland was ruled by the king of Norway. But in1469, the king of Norway needed some money in a hurry, so he gave Shetland to the king of Scotland in return for a loan. So, says Stuart Hill, Shetland is not part of Scotland. It should be an independent state, able in particular to control oil production from the oil fields around its coast and to collect revenues from the oil companies. Some Shetlanders probably agree with him, though I doubt if they want Captain Calamity as their ruler.

Stuart Hill has spent much of the week being interviewed by the newspapers. “ It’s all jolly good fun,” he says. “ Every pensioner should do something like this.”