Tristan da Cunha Annual Gathering 2025
This year's Tristan da Cunha Annual Gathering was held on Saturday the 5th April 2025. Our usual Southampton venue was being refurbished so instead we met at the nearby Holiday Inn, Eastleigh. There were no special evening arrangements for attendees who arrived on the Friday, although most met to socialise in the hotel's bar and restaurant.
Morning
As people arrived for the gathering first thing Saturday morning, they were able to browse the stalls, which included Tristan merchandise, the raffle and auction tables, and books and philatelic items from the estate of our late President, Michael Swales, who passed away last December.
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| Above & below: Attendees browse the stalls, including the raffle table overseen by Tessa Smith | |
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Although no resident islanders currently visiting the UK were able to attend on this occasion, we were joined by quite a few islanders who now live overseas. These included for the first time islander Valerie De La Rey (née Lavarello) from South Africa and Avril Repetto-Tinoco.
Some of the Tristanians now resident overseas: Valerie De La Rey, Trish Patterson, Sue Patterson, Frank Rogers, Debbie Elsmore, Avril Repetto-Tinoco, and Gerald Rogers
We were also pleased to welcome quite a few members from overseas - including Italy, the Netherlands, South Africa, Sweden and Switzerland.
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| Left: Marilyn & Martin Crawford from Cape Town; Right: Isolde Müller, Switzerland & Torbjörn Svensson, Sweden | |
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| Italian members Anita Scarpa & Saverio Pompili holding a model longboat next to a Tristan flag | Andrew Knee, Peter Knee, David Wearing and Gerald Buck | |
AGM
The day's scheduled events started with the Association's Annual General Meeting. As usual, this was fairly brief, with officers reporting a healthy state of affairs that has enabled us to fund several projects on the island. The Association's charitable fund was boosted by a generous donation during the year by the British-Belizean businessman Lord Ashcroft. He has a long-standing interest in the British Overseas Territories, and visited Tristan on the MS Ambience in April 2024, but unfortunately was unable to land.
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| Secretary Jim Kerr | Attendees gathering for the Annual General Meeting | Co-Chair John Cooper |
One of the projects funded by the Association was a new weather station for St Mary's School, which is now sending regular weather data to the Weatherlink website. The project was facilitated by member scientists Anna Hicks and Neil Golding, who although unable to attend, enlivened the meeting by sending us a video report that arrived as the meeting was taking place! They briefly updated us on the new weather stations at the school and on The Base, and on their monitoring of Dockel Gulch, the source of rockfalls near the village after heavy rain.
A slide from Anna and Neil's video report showing the new Association-funded weather station on St Mary's School.
Tristan's UK Representative Chris Carnegy gave us an update on current Tristan matters. One of the more interesting prospective developments is that with the new fishing contract it is expected that the number of berths on the company's ships will be increased from 12 to 40, commencing 2027. This should enable more people to visit the island.
The internet on Tristan was significantly upgraded during the year by the introduction of the Starlink service and also improvements to wi-fi. Chris acknowledged the man mainly responsible for this work, Vodafone engineer Simon Butters, was present at the Gathering.
One of Chris's highlights of the year was helping to arrange for Owen Glass to address the Youth Parliament in the House of Commons, London, thus setting a record for the youngest person ever to speak there. We were shown a video of Owen giving his speech, which drew a round of applause from attendees.
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| Viewing the video of Owen Glass speaking in the House of Commons | Chris Carnegy |
Film
After a short break, there was a showing of Part 2 of the fascinating film "Allan Crawford's Tristan da Cunha", shot by Allan on Tristan in the 1940s, with additional footage from the 1961 volcanic eruption.
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| Audience watching Allan Crawford's film | A cheerful frame from the film |
Keynote Talk
Following lunch, our keynote talk, entitled "These Rockbound Mariners" was from writer Nick Schönfeld and photographer Julia Gunther. They recently spent 10 months on Tristan, getting to know people and working on various projects. People may already have seen their article on the Okalolies published by NPR in the US. Nick and Julia showed us two short videos - a stunning drone footage reel and a trailer for their documentary "Volcano Generation", as well as a 15-minute film called entitled "One Fine Day" which followed two Tristan fishermen as they spend a day on the water catching lobster. During their time on Tristan, Nick and Julia developed an interest in the island’s archives and are now contributing to a project focused on their preservation and digitisation. This builds on work done previously by Dawn Repetto, Colette Halter-Pernet and Kelly Green, and is being supported by the Association, which has just set up an Archives sub-group.
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| Nick Schönfeld & Julia Gunther giving their talk | |
A still from Nick's drone footage
Afternoon Raffle and Charity Auction
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| After drawing the raffle, Richard Grundy also ran the charity auction Two of the lots were models of a traditional Tristan longboat and a thatched Tristan hut. |
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One the key aspects of the Gathering is the opportunity to meet old friends and like-minded people, and there was plenty of time to do this during the breaks and at lunch.
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| Old friends Jennifer Gardner and Ann Ashworth | Antje Steinfurth with 'Mr Internet' Simon Butters |
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| For the members of the St Helena, Ascension & Tristan da Cunha Philatelic Society, the Gathering was an opportunity to discuss Tristan's stamps and postal history. | |
Dinner Dance
For those staying for the evening, there was also the dinner dance. We were delighted that Martin Crawford, visiting from Cape Town with his wife Marilyn, agreed to propose the traditional toast to Tristan da Cunha and the islanders.
Martin's father Allan was co-founder of the Tristan da Cunha Association and had a long-standing connection with the island, starting with his role as surveyor with the Norwegian Scientific Expedition in 1937/38. Martin and Marilyn continue Allan's work in helping and providing hospitality to Tristanians when they are in Cape Town for medical and business reasons.
Left: Martin Crawford proposing the toast to the Tristanians
Martin's Toast to Tristan da Cunha
"It's a pleasure and honour to be asked to propose this toast. This is Marilyn and my first visit to the Association's AGM but our daughter Shirley did attend one in 1999. We are especially pleased finally to be able to attend!
All my life I have know about Tristan - of course my middle name is Tristan! A tradition being carried on in the Crawford side of our family by our son(s). One of my earliest memories in the 1950s is of visiting the Cottons in Simon's Town. They were trek fishermen and lived on the hillside above Long Beach as you approach the Simon's Town railway station. Another 1950s memory is of Uncle Arthur Rogers (my Godfather) coming to stay with us in Rosebank. He had come up to Cape Town as chaperone for Anthony Rogers, who was there for an operation. Another memory is of taking islanders to the Cape Town zoo, which was situated on the side of Devil's Peak next to the University of Cape Town. Always for some reason a popular outing when we were entertaining islanders.
I first visited Tristan in 1984 with dad and my daughter Shirley - Shirl's photo later appeared (together with John & Gwynneth's daughter Anna) in a publication captioned 'island school children living on the remotest island in the world'! In truth we have always felt part of the Tristan family, as our family has been involved with Tristan so long - in fact for 88 years - from dad's first visit on the Norwegian Scientific Expedition to this day when Marilyn looks after the island family history - the 'Big Book'.
Marilyn and I have just celebrated our golden wedding anniversary and when we married, we did not know Marilyn also had South Atlantic island roots! It was only in the mid 1990s that she discovered her family from her grandmother (her mother's mother) and earlier had been born and lived on St Helena, as far back as Napoleon's time there. Her great-grandmother had come to Cape Town, as many Saints did in early 1900, to work as a housekeeper. How Marilyn only discovered this connection in the 1990s is too long to relate here, but, for an interesting story, chat to her afterwards! Convoluted and intrigue! Marilyn has known about Tristan since the volcano and newspaper cuttings she had as a child. When we had a mini-bus she often took busloads of islanders shopping, or sightseeing when they were in CT. And now of course she's involved with the family tree.
Dad was involved with Tristan most of his life, visiting eight times, staying up to two years at a stretch, writing books, designing stamps and founding this Association.
Sadly my mother never got to visit Tristan, so she never experienced the friendship and hospitality of the islanders. She used to think it odd that dad at the drop of a hat would take the chance to pop off to Tristan. But Tristan and its friendly people were like a magnet that attracted him back. Anyone who has visited will know the attraction of this unique place - not only its natural beauty, but especially the friendship and caring of the Tristanian people. This caring for marooned sailors or injured or ill seamen and for the general visitor continues to this day.
I am sorry I have rambled on a bit... so to conclude, it gives me great pleasure to propose this toast to the people of Tristan da Cunha - the 'Tristanians' - may us as outsiders always long to return to your intriguing island.
Martin Tristan Crawford (5th April 2025)"
Scenes from the dinner dance
Inevitably, the meal was followed by the Tristan Pillow dance, and then a medley of traditional Tristan tunes played by Peter Millington (on accordion) and Mike Faulds (on fiddle). It is fair to say that the Pillow Dance is a Marmite activity, and a few people beat a hasty retreat just before it started - You know who you are!
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| The Pillow Dance with musicians Peter Millington & Mike Faulds | |
Lastly, we had disco dancing with Barry Carter working the decks, after which everyone retired weary but happy to their beds.
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| Disco dancing | Barry Carter manning the disco decks |
Next Annual Gathering
The 2026 TDCA Annual Gathering will be back at our usual venue, the VOCO Hotel in Southampton (formerly the Holiday Inn) on Saturday 7th March, subject to contract.
We thank the following for the photos for this report: Ann Ashworth, Simon Butters, Valerie De La Rey, Mike Faulds, Neil Golding, Anna Hicks, Maggie Millington, Peter Millington, Saverio Pompili, and Nick Schönfeld.