Winston and Aristotle on the island of Tenerife

Looking back on things, or remembering epic or even minute historical events and the reasons they came about is never a waste of time. Indeed past moments are always worth reflecting upon as they can often explain the present.

To the Canary Islander, whose known history dates just over six hundred years, any event, however small in a world context, is naturally framed as vitally important. Rightly proud they should be indeed, for these islands have played a huge part, due to their stategic geographical situation, in world affairs, not least in the discovery and conquest of America. 

As Columbus discovered, the Canaries were strategically positioned for conquest and trade

But this incidental account touches casually on one of those minute historical events which, because of the characters they involved, attracted my attention. It is a very personal description of Sir Winston Churchill's brief visit to the island of Tenerife in 1959 and I can't help thinking that the old man must have amused himself, and perhaps his companion Mr Onassis, remembering that only 18 years earlier, in September 1941, he had contemplated invading the Canary Islands. This possible invasion plan, codenamed Operation Pilgrim and which was drawn up with the Americans, might have taken place had General Franco done a deal with Mr Hitler and accepted Germany's assistance to take Gibraltar. Luckily, it was a suspicious Franco who met Hitler at Hendaye in the Pyrenees, and his considerable demands and his reluctance to enter the war on the Axis side, led to seven hours of fruitless negotiations.

The smile did not hide General Franco's mistrust of Hitler

In 1956 Randolph Churchill introduced his father to Aristotle Onassis, the Greek tycoon. Churchill, who was relaxing on the Côte d’Azure at the time, described his encounter with Onassis to his wife Clementine in a letter. I like him. He is very pleasant and domineering and told us a lot about whales. He kissed my hand!

Aristotle Onassis, whom Churchill described as pleasant and domineering

Onassis so impressed the old statesman that he told his secretary he would like to meet the Greek again. That is how their relationship, which many people frowned upon, developed. Churchill gave Onassis important international prestige although it is believed Onassis never actually used the Englishman’s contacts for business interests. In return, Onassis offered Sir Winston a great deal of Mediterranean luxury and comfort. Churchill is known to have said, I have simple tastes. I am satisfied with the best.

Actually the two men had a number of interest in common. One was oil. Churchill, when he was First Lord of the Admiralty, had pushed to have every Royal Navy ship running on oil rather than coal. Onassis owed most of his enormous fortune to the maritime transport of oil. 

The Christina

As a result of their friendship Onassis invited Churchill to accompany him on his yacht, the Christina, on eight cruises in the Mediterranean and the Atlantic between 1958 and 1963. Celia, Sir Winston’s granddaughter, observed that he had aged considerably and was wonderfully happy on the yacht and those pleasurable holidays appeared to give him renewed life. Onassis, apart from being one of Churchill's great admirers, was an intelligent and civilized man who did all he could to make life as enjoyable and easy as he could for the old, valiant leader. Churchill’s doctor, Lord Moran, described how Aristotle Onassis never stopped caring for his friend. In one moment he would be giving Churchill a whisky. In another, when Churchill felt chilly on deck, Onassis would cover him with a blanket.

Onassis, his wife Athina and Churchill, playing cards on deck during their Canary Island cruise

In 1959, when the Christina made her first voyage to the Canary Islands, Churchill was 84. He was still a member of the House of Commons and in good health. Sir Winston had been spending a few week’s holiday at the Mamounia Hotel in Marrakech with his wife Clementine and daughter Diana. Morocco was one of his favourite places to which to escape and sketch.

Inside the Mamounia, a splendid, palacial Hotel in the heart of Marrakech

The Christina was at Casablanca and on the 17^th February Aristotle and his wife Athina, daughter of shipping tycoon, Stavros G. Livanos, got into the ship’s seaplane and flew to Marrakech where Churchill was giving a farewell dinner. On the following day Churchill and his party made their way to Safi, on the Atlantic coast, where Onassis took them aboard for a cruise to the Canary Islands. This was not part of an invasion plan but a peaceful visit and they were joined by Sir Anthony Montague Brown, from the Foreign Office, Sergeant Edmund Murray of Scotland Yard, and Arthur Sheppard, Churchill’s personal nurse.

The port of Santa Cruz, quite a few years ago

Three days later, on a glorious morning and with a crowd gathering to catch a glimpse of Churchill, the Christina docked in Santa Cruz. Churchill spent the morning aboard and lunched early with Mr Bill Lucas, Director of Miller and Co., shipping agents in Tenerife and Las Palmas. His wife Clementine, Athina and Mary Lucas went exploring. 

It was not the first time Lucas and Churchill had been together aboard a ship. During WW2 William Lucas was an MI6 agent in the Carribean. In 1944 both he and Churchill returned to Britain from New York aboard the Queen Mary, which was transporting support troops destined for the already launched Normandy invasions. Winston Churchill had been to the Quebec Conference and to his meeting with Roosevelt.

Clementine and Athina were so enthusiastic about the beauty of the Orotava Valley and the charms of Puerto de la Cruz that Churchill and Onassis decided to have an excursion themselves. In fact Churchill's visit to Tenerife really began after his lunch with Lucas and simply involved a drive to Puerto and back along the winding roads of the 1950s.

Onassis had a convertible version of the Fiat 500 with wicker seats on his yacht and it was lowered onto the harbour in Santa Cruz. It was a tiny car, with tiny wheels, low on the ground and had a rear engine which sounded rather like a lawn mower. To everyone's surprise Sir Winston Churchill was eased into the little car and Aristotle, the powerful millionaire, drove them off out the harbour at a dizzy speed in the direction of Puerto de la Cruz.

When there were still banana plantations in Puerto de la Cruz

They made various stops on the way but from the Taoro Hotel, close to All Saints Anglican Church, the two men were able to admire the beauty of the Orotava Valley, undeveloped as it was then with acres of banana plantations. I wonder if Churchill was aware that when his plans to invade the Canaries during the war were drawn up, Thomas Reid, the British Vice-Consul in Puerto de la Cruz  was issued with a giant Union Jack and was given orders to drape it over the roof of All Saints Church, where British and other allied residents would be safely gathered in the event of an airborn raid. Sadly it is thought the flag, along with documents of immense historical value, were destroyed when the British Vice-Consulate in Puerto closed down in the early 1970s.

All Saints Church, built by the British community and completed in 1892

Rio Reid, who inherited the position of Honorary Vice-Consul in Puerto de la Cruz from his father Thomas, was unwell that day in 1959. So the Mayor, Isidoro Luz Carpenter, sent a message to his brother Noel Reid, who was in the middle of his usual game of bowls at the British Games Club, to inform him that Mr Churchill had decided to pay a visit to Puerto. Noel Reid collected Isidoro Luz and took him to meet the great statesman and Churchill was received by the Mayor at the Lido San Telmo, together with an enthusiastic and applauding crowd of British residents, tourists and local people, all of whom were squeezing each other to get as close as possible to Mr Churchill. This was indeed a minute historical event of enormous importance to this Atlantic community. In his diary Noel Reid recalled, Churchill was smiling all around and making the V sign. It was very pleasing. Isidoro Luz was as thrilled as I was.

Sir Winston Churchill, leaving the Lido San Telmo, with Isidoro Luz wearing dark glasses, just behind

They didn't take little Fiat 500 back to the Christina. Churchill had rightly complained that he had found the drive over, especially through La Laguna in a convertible car, frightfully cold! Instead he and Onassis were chaufeured back in a large, black saloon in time for an early dinner aboard the Christina. It might well have been the magnificent, black American Pontiac which belonged to the Mayor of Puerto de la Cruz.

However brief, this was an intense and memorable visit which Sir Winston Churchill made to Puerto de la Cruz and to Tenerife and before the Onassis yacht departed for Las Palmas in the early hours of the morning, the Churchills were presented with orchids, Canary drawn linen work, a box of fat cigars, oranges, and two dozen bottles of local Malmsey wine.

    

(Certain images have been reproduced from internet with no personal financial gain intended.)

By John Reid Young

Author of The Skipping Verger and Other Tales, a collection of short stories.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Skipping-Verger-Other-Tales/dp/8461596323

Tenerife Forum Community

The Blind Traveller in Tenerife

     When he arrived on the island of Tenerife in 1826, The Blind Traveller was forty four years old and already one of Britain’s most widely travelled personalities. But he was no ordinary voyager for James Holman, the fourth son of an English chemist from Exeter, was completely blind. He also suffered from debilitating pain and limited mobility. Nevertheless he was an adventurer in mind and spirit and like so many of his contemporaries with that typical stiff upper lip education, he forbade anything from weakening his resolve.

James Holman, The Blind Traveller, as a young man

     James Holman had entered the Royal Navy in 1798 just a year after Horatio Nelson suffered his only defeat at the hands of the Spanish garrison in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, and was appointed lieutenant in 1807. But in 1810, whilst off the Americas on HMS Guerriere, a ship captured from the French, he was struck down by a strange disease which at first affected his joints and quite soon afterwards his sight. He became totally blind at the age of 25.

The American USS Constitution sinking HMS Guerriere - Painting by Michel Fernice Corne

     Having become ill during the course of his duty James Holman was appointed to the Naval Knights of Windsor and therefore provided with a lifetime grant of care in Windsor Castle. In exchange for this help which was available to British military personnel his only obligation was to go to church twice a day. Such inactivity made him restless and depressed and he asked for leave on the grounds of ill health, first to study medicine and literature at Edinburgh University and then to travel through Europe for two years in 1819. This was to become the first of The Blind Traveller’s incredible solo excursions abroad, during which he used a method of human echolocation, the ability to detect objects and shapes in their environment by sensing echoes from them, to describe what he perceived. Possibly an interesting example of fate if one considers he had volunteered for the Royal Navy in order to see the world.

     He had to be a man of notable energy and perseverance and was curious about absolutely everything. To begin with he travelled mostly alone, daring to go a bit further every time, and depended to a large extent upon his own astuteness as well as the kindness of ordinary folk. His journeys took him from France to Syria and Turkey and from Italy and Switzerland through to Russia and Siberia, where he was actually arrested on suspicion of being a spy! He even travelled in Africa and as far as Australia.

     When his ship anchored in the bay off Santa Cruz James Holman expected to be met by Mr Gilbert Bruce, the British Consul General. However Mr Bruce was away in England and so it was the new Consul, Mr Francis Coleman Macgregor, who went to the port to welcome him. In fact this worked out rather well. Not only had they met before but Mr. Macgregor who had recently been appointed Consul to the Canary Islands, was just as eager to learn about Tenerife and its inhabitants.

Ships at anchor in the bay off Santa Cruz

     Although Holman journeyed mainly on his own, he would never turn down the companionship of a fellow traveller. What he could not feel or sense, his companion would describe. The population in Santa Cruz was only about 6,000 people in 1826 and he wrote about the streets being rather empty and lifeless. In the heat of mid-day that would not have been unusual. The road to La Laguna he found in a deplorable state, rocky, dusty and dirty. 

The dusty road from Santa Cruz to La Laguna

     It was in La Orotava that he really encountered the colourful charm of the tinerfeño, feeling a vibrant commercial buzz mingled with the people’s open and warm nature.  Like so many visitors, James Holman was evidently touched by the islander's uninhibited generosity and how curious that even a blind man could appreciate the Canary Island women as being extremely beautiful, with black eyes that made them even more attractive.

The colours The Blind Traveller could only imagine - Ella Du Cane's Santo Domingo Convent and Church - La Orotava

     In recent years one of the principal complaints made by older visitors and local people alike has been that the island of Tenerife has been overcome by reckless construction and an overpopulation of about one million inhabitants. So it is interesting to know that even as long ago as the early 19^th century a blind man sensed there were too many people on the island and remarked upon the need for islanders to emigrate. His observation was made when the population in Tenerife was only 80,000. He also remarked at how remote the islanders were despite being so close to the continent. One can´t imagine what James Holman, who came to Tenerife when travel was certainly more adventurous but possibly gentler, would feel if he visited the island today with its busy airports ferrying in five million tourists every year!

Like Holman, traditional fishermen today refuse to be defeated

     Holman noted that most islanders in 1826 lived from agriculture and fishing and referred to a land of palms, fig trees, vineyards, sugar cane, lemons and oranges. He must have felt a considerable echo from the majestic examples of Canary Pine, the pinus canariensis, because he wrote most enthusiastically about it. He also found the wines quite exquisite.

     Some of his observations might seem a touch eccentric, but one has to understand that any minute detail can be of enormous significance to a blind person.  Holman mentioned the fact that there were a lot of camels used for transport and that everyone seemed to smoke, complaining nevertheless that it was difficult to find any cigars! He remarked upon ice-sellers, men who made a living offering ice which they brought down from Mount Teide, sometimes offering it to travellers stirred in refreshing, squeezed lemon juice.

     His reference to traditional fiestas is particularly revealing. In his book Travels in Madeira, Sierra Leone, Teneriffe, St. Jago, Cape Coast, Fernando Po, and Prince´s Island, he pays special tribute to the custom of the Piñata, possibly because it alluded to the instinct and perception of blinded people. Today it is a favourite at birthday parties when blindfolded children take turns to beat a decorated bag, the piñata, which hangs full of surprises and gifts from a tree. 

Children taking turns to beat the piñata - a custom believed to have been introduced from China in the times of Marco Polo

     What James Holman described were blindfolded young men doing much the same to a bag containing gifts. The men would then race to gather the contents which spilled out of the broken bag and offer the gift they were able to retrieve to their chosen lady or novia. How he must have wished to have beaten a piñata and received the gift in the form of a miracle. An interesting subject for the student of psychology…….a blind man observing blindfolded men at play.

(Certain images have been reproduced from internet with no personal financial gain intended.)

By John Reid Young

Author of The Skipping Verger and Other Tales, a collection of short stories.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Skipping-Verger-Other-Tales/dp/8461596323

Harold Lee, an Englishman in Tenerife

Like many other travel authors of his time Harold Lee placed the Portuguese Madeira archipelago and the Canary Islands into one area of study. Both groups of Atlantic islands form part of Macaronesia, the Islands of the Fortunate or μακάρων νῆσοι makárōn nêsoi, as ancient Greek geographers referred to them. But there was another, more practical explanation for this. Steamers from the British Isles carrying passengers to the colonies often called in on both. His book, Madeira and the Canary Islands, a Handbook for Tourists which was published in Liverpool in 1888, is a constant comparison between the two and he portrays them, especially the island of Tenerife, with charm and candour.   

Madeira and the Canary Islands, published in Liverpool in 1888

The image of Mount Teide, of course, captured his imagination from the moment it became visible from about ninety miles away and, as so many adventurers and sailors long before him, he paid reverential attention to the great volcano. With a wicked sense of humour that on occasions betrayed a very Victorian and superior attitude towards the rest of the world he wrote of passengers on board the ship en route from Madeira to Tenerife virtually keeping themselves awake in order to be the first to spot the peak. Nevertheless Lee, whilst perhaps not so elaborate as some writers when he described Mount Teide, was both lyrical and accurate when he suggested, 

You must not look at the horizon itself, but in the sky above. Then, as you gaze, you will suddenly behold it, not looking like land at all, but to all appearance a nebulous cone, faint sepia in tint, floating above a deep bank of haze or cloud.

Mount Teide, as seen from afar, floating above the clouds

Most visitors in the late 19^th century aimed to stay in the Orotava valley which indeed charmed him and where oleander, euphorbia, poinsettia and hybiscus flaunt their radiant colours before every passer-by and where orange trees were borne down to the earth by the sheer weight of their golden fruit. But Lee preferred the gentle rhythm of life in the capital, Santa Cruz, possibly because he liked to study people and their ways of life, especially those which so differed from his own. 

Santa Cruz, a place of extraordinary beauty, according to Harold Lee 

He paid tribute to Camacho's, Clarke's and The International hotels. These, as one can imagine, were splendid and delightful examples of a different age. Camacho himself is a Portuguese who speaks English and understands English ways. How very, very superior indeed! The Camacho was advertised as an English Hotel, the oldest, best and most centrally situated, having forty large well-ventilated bedrooms, with sitting room, billiards and smoking rooms. Furthermore, there was even a bathroom on each floor and sanitary arrangements were examined by a Doctor Paget Thurstan.....an English resident!

Camacho's English Hotel

Harold Lee was a keen observer of local custom. He referred to the eating of gofio with almost every meal. It was the staple diet of the original Guanche inhabitants, based on ground and toasted grain, typically wheat and varieties of maize and very similar to that used by Berber tribes of North Africa. He noted a preference for salt fish too and sketched a peasant woman selling roasted chestnuts on a street corner in the autumn.

A peasant woman roasting chestnuts

On occasions he sounded somewhat cynical in his honesty, as he would do, for instance when suggesting the visitor to the Canary Islands must not expect to find energy a feature of their inhabitants. He did qualify this by reporting that the peasantry, whom he described as exceedingly poor but content, did labour very hard to make the land produce. Lee remarked at the amount of children who smoked, and at the easy life the law keepers had, with hardly a disturbance ever occurring. Indeed, he suggested that any misbehaviour upsetting the tranquillity of this paradise was most likely to come from foreigners. A resident Englishman once admitted that in three years the only drunk he had seen was “precisely an Englishman”. 

Nevertheless, although he assured brutality is here unheard of or very rare, Lee was told about the clerk of a wealthy merchant having been murdered for money in Port Orotava. He was of course referring to a cause célèbre, to the death in 1878 of Mr James Morris, a gentleman who looked after the accounts of a firm belonging to Mr Peter Spence Reid, a well-known Scottish merchant.

Peter Spence Reid

Like one or two other comfortably off English travellers of his time, Harold Lee did show signs of irritability on occasions. One has visions of him being molested by marauding flies, especially after reading that his dislike for the habit of begging was so profound as to suggest that the practice might actually have been authorised, usually on Saturdays.

On a gentler, more charming note perhaps, referring to courting couples he wrote that they were not permitted to whisper in each other´s ear at a dance. In fact wishful lovers were only permitted to court after the man had proven his creditable conduct and when his economic value had been approved by the girl´s family. Of course she would never be alone with her novio, always being escorted by her mother, aunt or sister.

Will his music pave the way to her heart?

But like so many visitors to the Canary Islands, Mr Lee felt quite blessed by this Atlantic paradise. There is a hint from time to time that he might even have wished he weren't so inhibited by his superiority. He admits, in a fleeting reference to Canary Island women, their flashing eyes and expressive features are quite in keeping with Spanish loveliness.

(Certain images have been reproduced from internet with no personal financial gain intended.)

By John Reid Young

Author of The Skipping Verger and Other Tales, a collection of short stories

http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Skipping-Verger-Other-Tales/dp/8461596323

          

Captain Cook and his Tenerife Lemons

There's a magnificent, restored property which very few people notice these days. Like so many other wonderful old mansions in Spain's Canary Island of Tenerife, it is surrounded now by a mass of modern, cement urbanisations. The house hides on the slopes, between the cities of Santa Cruz and San Cristobal de la Laguna and today survives thanks to its owners hosting magnificent receptions and New Year’s Eve parties for Canary Island revellers. It is sometimes known as Finca Mackay, after a Scottish merchant who settled on the Atlantic island over two hundred and fifty years ago. He owned the magnificent 16^th century mansion. It once had a panoramic view over the bay and port of Santa Cruz and Captain James Cook, Britain’s most famous navigator, maritime explorer and cartographer, took full advantage as an honoured guest.

Mackay's country mansion as it is today

Records show that on 1^st August, 1776 lookouts on the San Cristóbal fortress confirmed that sails were approaching on the horizon. It wasn’t long before two British ships sailed silently and peacefully into the bay of Santa Cruz, anchoring within rowing distance of the shore. In command was Cook, on his third and last voyage of discovery. I find it interesting to think that it was in this same arena, almost exactly twenty one years later, that Vice-Admiral Horatio Nelson lost his arm and suffered his only defeat when he decided to attack Santa Cruz.   

   

Nelson attacking Santa Cruz in July 1797

It isn't clear why Cook, the great English explorer, chose to accept Mackay’s hospitality. One might imagine he felt the need to drift inland for one last chance to savour the offerings of a fellow gentleman, before confronting his third great voyage of discovery. Some historians suggest Mackay was already a friend of Cook’s. Others believe there were in fact two logical reasons. One is because the house was blessed with a perfect view of the bay where Cook's ships, HMS Resolution and HMS Discovery, commanded by Charles Clerke, lay anchored. The other is that Mackay’s house, which local pronunciation gradually modified to Macario’s house, was surrounded by lemon groves.

HMS Resolution and HMS Discovery

Both explanations coincide with the idea that Captain James Cook, a quiet and thoughtful gentleman, known for his common sense and meticulous planning, also possessed extraordinary humanity, especially in trying to improve conditions for his seamen. Indeed it is difficult to imagine the hardships faced by seamen of the Royal and Merchant navies of the 18^th and 19^th centuries. Filth aboard ships and resultant infections were responsible for more deaths than battles or shipwrecks. Cook, more than any other, insisted upon cleanliness and a healthy environment upon his ships. He was often more interested in preventing sickness than in sighting a new shore. Unfortunately, long voyages like those he was commissioned to embark upon, often meant a lack of fresh food and constant threat of the dreaded skurvy. 

Captain James Cook

That is why, when he anchored in the bay at Santa Cruz in August, 1776, Cook despatched men to purchase as many fresh greens as possible, especially from landowners in the town of Tacoronte and beyond. These would be preserved by sandwiching them between layers of salt. James Cook accompanied some of his men up the slopes to just below the town of San Cristobal de La Laguna, the island’s original administrative and religious capital after the Spanish final conquest in 1496. That was where he gratefully accepted Mr MacKay’s invitation. I suspect the great navigator was not so much interested in the private comforts of a grand house, but rather in what the Scotsman could provide for the wellbeing of his seamen. His men returned to the port with cartloads of lemons from Mackay’s estate.

Early medical studies proved that the consumption of ascorbic acid or Vitamin C, found in lemons and oranges, led to the prevention of scurvy. James Lind, an Edinburgh surgeon, conducted numerous experiments in 1747 using six sailors who were sick with scurvy. He treated them individually with cider, sulphuric acid, vinegar, purging with sea water and with a paste containing garlic, dried mustard seed, dried radish root, balsam of Peru and gum myrrh. Only two of the six patients survived. Luckily for them Lind had also given them lemons and oranges. Although the Edinburgh surgeon never scientifically explained why citrus juices were so effective, his four hundred page work, Treatise on Scurvy, published in 1753, led to the Admiralty recommending that ships stock not only wort of malt, the preferred antiscorbutic agent and more popular with the crew, but also lemons and oranges.

James Lind administering lemon juice to a sick mariner

It was already a custom for British seamen to be allowed regular gulps of fermented liquor, and ale was the standard ration as early as the 14^th century. By the late 18^th century beer was considered a staple beverage and essential to soothe the hardships of sea life, as well as a medicine, like wort and malt, to help prevent scurvy. Captain Cook administered an infusion of malt in his attempts to prevent scurvy, although his own experiments to determine whether wort was in fact a cure were inconclusive. So, persevering in his regime of cleanliness, fresh air and an antiscorbutic diet, he encouraged naturalists, who accompanied him on his voyages, to identify any edible plant which might help fight scurvy. He also eagerly adopted other remedies, like carrot marmalade and concentrated lemon juice. Thus his main objective for stopping by in Tenerife was to obtain Mr Mackay’s lemons.

Forcing his seamen to take concentrated lemon juice as well as sauerkraut on a daily basis was not popular, as one can imagine. It was only after he ordered his officers to set an example and take the same medicine that the murmurings amongst the crew ceased. 

Whether his preference for Tenerife lemons resulted in maintaining a healthy crew or not, what is certain is that Captain Cook won the battle against scurvy aboard his ships. Not one single member of Cook’s crews perished as a result of scurvy. The Royal Society awarded him the Copley Gold Medal in recognition for his efforts to improve the health of British seamen. 

(Certain images have been reproduced from internet with no personal financial gain intended.)

By John Reid Young

Author of 

The Skipping Verger and Other Tales,

A Shark in the Bath and Other Stories and

The Journalist (a novel)

An Englishman and his hut on Mount Teide

His name was George John Scarlett Graham-Toler and in time he became one of a number of travellers from the British Isles who left their mark in Tenerife in the best kind of way. Not only was he an old school gentleman, which is always appreciated.  He was also a philanthropist and always gave something back to the local people in return for their well-known kindness and generosity.

Tenerife in the 19th century - as painted by Marianne North- courtesy Kew Gardens

Like so many of his contemporaries, George Graham-Toler first came to Tenerife, to the beautiful Valley of La Orotava in fact, for health reasons. He had developed a lung complaint and sought his cure in the Macaronesian, temperate climate of the Canary Islands. Almost certainly he had been attracted by the many images and articles expressing the delights of Tenerife which were being published by other illustrious travellers, like Olivia Stone in her Tenerife and its Six Satellites.

Olivia Stone's book, as Graham-Toler might have seen it

He was descended from the Irish aristocracy although he was born into a cultured and comfortably well off protestant London family in 1850. His parents were Otway Fortescue Graham- Toler and Henrietta Elizabeth Scarlett. His grandfather was Hector, Second Earl of Norbury from Nenagh in County Typperary.

George Graham-Toler as a young aristocrat

Tenerife’s Graham-Toler arrived in 1889 at the age of 39. He was a naturalist and an excellent photographer. Like a true adventurer of the times he spent his first few months exploring Tenerife’s mountains and valleys with a hired guide, a couple of mules to carry his clumsy photographic equipment and his arriero or mule handler. 

He spent the nights in a small tent and his first base camp was at the edge of a ravine, by a spring called Madre de Agua, high in the hills above the southern town of Granadilla. His second was at La Cañada de la Grieta, a wide, desert-like volcanic plain hemmed in by solidified, satanic lava flows on one side and on the other by the incredible Roque de la Grieta, one of the steep rock walls that make up the southern outer rim of what today we refer to as Teide National Park. 

Roque de La Grieta, on the outer rim of Teide National Park

It was here that Graham-Toler channelled water from an isolated spring for his animals to drink and then paid for a proper canal to be created in order to provide a source of water for local sulphur collectors, and ice men*.Until then they had to make do with filling their water bottles for the return journey to their lowland towns from the Ice Cave, high up close to the summit of Mount Teide .

The beautiful old town centre of La Orotava today

The mountain air was miraculous for his health and George Graham-Toler fell for the charms of the beautiful town of La Orotava. Rumours invaded the steep cobbled streets, whispering that a cultured and distinguished English aristocrat had taken residence at the Hesperides Hotel for an indefinite period. Curiosity invaded noble households and balconies and very soon he was sent an invitation to visit the house of Antonio Monteverde y del Castillo and his wife, Julia de Lugo y García Benítez de las Cuevas.

Some accounts suggest that Graham-Toler requested the hand in marriage of their 22 year old eldest daughter, Leonor and that his offer was politely declined because she decided to become a nun. Others ignore that mishap and recall that Mr Graham-Toler was the source of the minor scandal of the times by promptly falling in love with their youngest daughter María Monteverde y Lugo. She was just 16 years old. As a member of one of the most distinguished and privileged families in Tenerife and very Catholic indeed, and he being almost 26 years older than the girl, the situation certainly appeared interesting and impossible in spite of his own aristocratic background. Nevertheless he persevered. After receiving Almighty advice, he took religious instruction and became a very devout Catholic indeed. They were married in 1892.

Photograph taken by Graham-Toler upon approaching Tenerife

Rumours and scandals overcome, George Graham-Toler was an accomplished photographer and his work was often published in British periodicals, helping to attract many more visitors to Tenerife. There is also evidence, even in those long ago days and before the rabid onslaught of uncontrolled property development in the latter half of the 20^th century, that he was concerned about the destruction of the countryside and of indigenous island species of flora. In a letter dated 14^th December, 1889 Graham-Toler gave Sir William Thiselton-Dyer, leading British botanist and third director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, measurements of a magnificent example of a Pinus canariensis, the Canary Islands’ indigenous species of pine which he found above Realejo Alto. He shows concern for the destruction of the pine forests in Tenerife, Gran Canaria and La Palma and asked Sir William to appeal to his opposite number in Spain to have the cutting down of the trees stopped. Together with the letter he enclosed seeds from the local pine.

Pinus Canariensis, in Tenerife's pine forests

But he is perhaps most famous in Tenerife for overseeing the construction of the climbers’ refuge three quarters of the way up the steep slopes of Mount Teide. This is known as El Refugio de Alta Montaña Altavista del Teide and it became the high mountain lodging for researchers and scientists.

George Graham-Toler's Altavista Refuge

Earlier geologists and astronomers like George Glas, or Robert Edward Alison in 1829, had left evidence of their camps on the slopes of Mount Teide, and it was Scottish Astronomer Royal, Charles Piazzi Smyth, who built the first proper walled shelter to keep his telescopes and fragile instruments protected from the often dusty, high-altitude winds in the summer of 1856. But George Graham-Toler climbed Mount Teide on numerous occasions and in 1891, after experiencing harsh conditions on the mountain, the philanthropist in him set about improving Piazzi-Smythe’s precarious construction for the sake of future adventurers.

He hired a builder to lay concrete foundations, pave the floors and put on a roof. In fact George Graham-Toler turned it into a proper habitable structure. It had two dormitories, one for the ladies and one for gentlemen as well as a kitchen fitted with an iron stove. The guides shared the attached stables with the animals. There was also a small outbuilding situated about 30 feet from the main building. It was the bathroom. It is interesting to note that the builder was Señor Nicolás Alvarez, the same man contracted a year later to erect All Saints, the Anglican Church in Puerto de la Cruz.

On 30 May 1926, three years prior to his death, Graham-Toler offered the Altavista shelter to the Orotava Town Council, which accepted the donation during a plenary session on 4 July 1927. It had become a welcome haven on the sometimes hazardous peak for geologists, astrologers and intrepid travellers from all over the world, who would knock on his door and ask for the key to the refugio. One is not mistaken to suggest that, thanks to George Graham-Toler, today’s adventure tourists can take shelter when climbing Mount Teide.

The Altavista Climber's lodge  today

Like so many other early British guests who spent a greater part of their lives in the Valley of La Orotava, George Graham-Toler was well like and admired. He died in 1929 at the age of 79 and is buried in La Orotava. He and María had no children. Many years later a street was named in his honour in the modern La Duquesa urbanisation, fittingly quite close to old Monteverde family house.

*In days gone by men made a living collecting deposits of sulphur around Mount Teide's fumaroles close to the peak, which were then ground and used for agricultural purposes. Others, the neveros or ice men, cut blocks of ice from Teide's ice cave or deposited fresh snow in specially dug wells which would then turn to ice. They would collect and transport the ice wrapped up tightly in sacks or vegetation and sell it to wealthy households, inns, and hotels for keeping food fresh.


(Certain images have been reproduced from internet with no personal financial gain intended.)

By John Reid Young

Author of The Skipping Verger and Other Tales

http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Skipping-Verger-Other-Tales/dp/8461596323

A Fellow called Bellamy of Tenerife

Farrow Siddall Bellamy became one of the most distinguished and yet least remembered of those pioneering Victorian visitors who left their mark on the island of Tenerife. He was born in 1865 at Belton, in the Isle of Axholm part of Lincolnshire and first came to live in the Canary Islands at the age of twenty. He was employed in Las Palmas by the Liverpool firm of Elder Dempster and Company, whose shipping line advertised regular services from Liverpool, London and Hull to West African ports, calling at Madeira, Grand Canary and Tenerife. He spent thirteen years in Grand Canary and was married to Alice Harrison before moving across to Tenerife in 1898 to manage the company’s affairs on the sister island.

Elder Dempster managed the British and African Steam Navigation Company

In fact, Mister Bellamy spent the rest of his days in Tenerife where he died in 1947. While at the helm of Elder Dempster he managed the shipping agency, the supply of coal to calling steamships and the running of one of the finest old hotels in Santa Cruz, the Hotel Pino de Oro. The hotel had been opened by his employer at Elder Dempster, Sir Alfred Lewis Jones, who had taken over the ownership of the shipping company in the 1890s.

The Pino de Oro, as advertised in Brown's Madeira, Canary Islands and Azores, 1932

Many years later, in 1932, the Pino de Oro prided itself in being the only English hotel on the island. It was set in fine gardens with a mix of English and Mediterranean styles and, being at three hundred feet above sea level, commanded excellent views over the harbour. The hotel was advertised as lit throughout by electricity and with a drainage system that had been arranged on the improved sanitary principle by an English sanitary engineer. Of great importance was the hotel’s proximity to the Anglican St. George’s Church to which Farrow Siddall Bellamy donated its beautiful pulpit.

St. George's Church in Santa Cruz

Bellamy was a very cultured gentleman, able to speak Spanish, French, Italian and German. He also learnt to play the organ. He even bought himself one originally destined for the Gaudi Cathedral in Barcelona and had it installed in his Santa Cruz mansion, Salamanca.  It was a splendid house with magnificent gardens and gave its name to a busy district in the capital of Tenerife known today as the Barrio de Salamanca. Bellamy is also believed to have taken a keen interest in history, even writing fine books about early Spain, the Greeks, the Romans and other European cultures.

As we can see, Farrow Siddall Bellamy was no ordinary English businessman abroad but, for some reason worth researching in the future, his achievements were recognised much more by his Spanish hosts and other nationalities than by his own countrymen. Spain awarded Bellamy with the Order of Isabella the Catholic, a civil order acknowledging the services of any person, be they Spanish or foreign. Sweden presented him with their Order of the Pole Star, possibly for his services as honorary consul, and the Belgians presented him with the Order of Leopold 1^st.

Bellamy's Order of Isabella the Catholic medal would have been similar to this

Alice Bellamy gave him a daughter, Sylvia Cristina and three sons, all of whom were educated at Lancing College in the beautiful West Sussex countryside and volunteered for the British Army to serve in the 1914 war. The youngest, Cecil, returned to Tenerife where he died in 1983. 

To finish with a couple of anecdotes, when Alice died in December, 1946 Mr Bellamy married an English lady called Rhoda. She had at one time been a servant at their house, Salamanca and contacted Farrow Bellamy offering to help him with the writing of his books. After a short time she suggested they should be married as "people were beginning to talk". He accepted. Rhoda looked after him until he died and then returned to England. On a lighter note, Bellamy is believed to have been one of the first or indeed the first person to have owned a motorcar in Tenerife. On 14^th February 1902 his legal adviser presented the Civil Governor with a document expressing, as formally as was required in such important circumstances, “Having recently acquired in Paris an automobile from the firm of Panhard and Levassor for his own particular use I hereby request your corresponding permission for Mr. Bellamy to circulate freely along the streets and roads in accordance with the laws governing automobile vehicles. He is the one who will be driving it”.  

A 1902 Panhard Levassor

The car is thought to have terrified the local population, especially when he first drove into the hills. He took the same vehicle across the whole of Spain to research for one of his books entitled The Cathedrals and Churches of Spain. Sadly however, the magnificent automobile, believed to have been the first of two cars to have carried the same number plate of TE1, caught fire in the Las Mercedes hills when Bellamy tried to pour in more gasoline with the engine running!

My sincere thanks to Amanda Johnson for making comments which have enabled me to correct one or two factual errors in this article.

(Some images have been reproduced from internet with no personal financial gain intended.)

By John Reid Young

Author of The Skipping Verger and Other Tales

http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Skipping-Verger-Other-Tales/dp/8461596323