Jimmy Pills, a Scottish Doctor in Tenerife

     British residents who were lucky enough to have lived in what was still an enchanting Orotava Valley on the Atlantic island of Tenerife in the early 20^th century knew him affectionately as Jimmy Pills. He was one of only a handful of doctors attending to a local population of just a few thousand. It was a time when the one or two little hospitals in the valley were in the hands of local ladies’ committees and run by nuns. The sisters, in their white and black habits, acted as nurses and were believed to be quite efficient. However, by tradition, they were not permitted to touch a male invalid.

 The enchanting Orotava Valley, as painted by Ella Du cane

     Doctor Ingram was born in Edinburgh in 1860. His father was the Reverend Gordon Ingram, Minister of Urquhart and he was one of eleven brothers and sisters. When he arrived in Tenerife after a spell in Africa in about 1903 he initially worked with Doctor Tomás Zerolo, a well-known local practitioner based in La Orotava. Eventually he took over a surgery from a fellow Scot, Doctor Frederick Lisham, in Puerto de la Cruz. Jimmy Pills became a very popular figure in the town and was well liked by both British and Canary Islanders. He rented San Antonio, the huge mansion just beside the British Games Club where he lived with his wife, Leticia McAndish.

  The San Antonio mansion, as seen from the bowls green at the British Games Club

     It might have been a personal decision taken by a grumpy councillor at the time but when he first applied to open his own surgery in Puerto, Doctor Ingram was not granted permission to do so for one of those simple, bureaucratic reasons minor politicians so enjoy to find. He couldn’t provide acceptable proof in Spanish that he was a qualified doctor, even though his medical knowledge had already been put to the test with considerable merit under Doctor Zerolo in La Orotava. In other words, he might have been highly trained in Edinburgh but without a Spanish title obtained at a Spanish University there was nothing to do. Like most British residents who decide to settle in the Canary Islands, Jimmy Pills was by no means a linguist and never quite got to grips with the Spanish language, and his accent was often made fun of. Nevertheless James Ingram refused to give up. After studying at Madrid University he got his Spanish title and with it permission to treat local patients.

     In those days privileged folk in the Canaries seem to have suffered quite a lot from rheumatism, gout and diseases of the kidney. Jimmy Pills was always one for healthy, natural remedies and would advocate patients, especially those with gout and kidney complaints, to indulge themselves with a constant supply of green vegetables, tomatoes and fresh fruit, all of which were in abundance locally.

 Abundant local produce at the market

     Nevertheless, he was anxious to advise newly arrived visitors that they should wash fruit and vegetables thoroughly before eating them, to refrain from taking exercise in the heat of the summer and to be extremely wary of the local wine. Canary wines today are first class, of course, the whites and rosés being highly acclaimed for their quality and variety, but unwary foreigners do still suffer bouts of what, in the early 1900s, was known as climatic diarrhoea. This was commonly blamed upon some kind of unsympathetic matter in the stomach and the cure would generally be commenced by a very Anglo-Saxon strong dose of castor oil. Much more pleasant was a retreat, by mule, up into the dry atmosphere on Mount Teide, which apparently did wonders for lung complaints. However, Jimmy Pills was a great believer in sea bathing all the year round, which he strongly recommended to keep bugs at bay. This was something local islanders tended to avoid doing and many, even a century later, still believe one should only step onto the beach from May until October…when the magnificent black sand beaches are almost too hot to walk upon.

English ladies on the Martianez Beach in Puerto de la Cruz in the early 20th century

     James Ingram was a likeable gentleman and he became one of the great characters in the valley. He was driven around the dusty roads in a little Ford by his local chauffeur called Tamajón, and most of the wealthy families were treated by him at one stage or another. The Scottish doctor was also generous with the poor. There was no health service, of course, and he is known to have never asked for a penny from anyone who didn’t have the means to pay. 

     Jimmy Pills took on a young apprentice, Doctor Isidoro Luz Carpenter, and an English nurse called Miss Stevens. The apprentice went on to become one of the finest doctors in the valley and he must have learnt a thing or two from his Scottish mentor because queues of working class patients would be seen waiting for free medical treatment outside the surgery in the middle of banana plantations on his estate, El Llano del Pavo.

A Memorial sculpture of Isidoro Luz on the Matianez seafront in Puerto

     Doctor Luz also became one of the most outstanding mayors ever to govern Puerto de la Cruz and it is perhaps through him that the good Doctor Ingram is still remembered today. As Mayor many years after the doctor’s death in 1933, he was able to honour James Ingram by naming one of Puerto’s central streets after him. In fact Jimmy Pills had already been decorated by the Town Council towards the end of the First World War for his work dealing with a flu epidemic.

                                                                       Doorway to the Protestant Cemetery in Puerto de la Cruz

     James Kyd Duncan Ingram died in 1933 and was laid to rest in el cementerio inglés, the English Protestant Cemetery in Puerto de la Cruz.

By John Reid Young

Author of The Skipping Verger and Other Tales

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

Mr. Brown's little book

     There is little doubt that the Canary Islands owe much of their thriving tourism industry to British travellers, scientists, artists and photographers of the 19^th century. Their interesting articles, beautiful watercolours, pioneering photography and illustrated booklets published back in the United Kingdom became the islands’ original promotional instruments.

Front cover of Madeira and the Canary Islands

     But it was Alfred Samler Brown and his traveller’s guidebook Brown’s Madeira, Canary Islands and Azores which possibly did most to begin the flow of enthusiastic and well-prepared holidaymakers. These grey-blue little books very soon became an essential companion for anyone travelling to the islands from the 1890s until the outbreak of the Second World War.

     Although he travelled far and wide, Samler Brown was particularly admired and respected by the local population in the Canaries. He was frequently mentioned in the local press. El Diario de Tenerife recognised not only his work but the gratitude felt by the local authorities for his spreading the good word about the islands. Such was this appreciation that King Alfonso XIII decorated him for exporting knowledge about the islands.

King Alfonso XIII was only 20 years old when he visited Puerto de la Cruz in1906

     Alfred Samler Brown’s guidebooks were much more than just a simple handbook for travellers. He spent long periods on the islands and was extremely methodical and precise, going into fine detail about culture, traditions and history. He was also entirely reliable with information about distances, prices, population, accommodation and even meteorological statistics. In Brown’s Madeira, Canary Islands and Azores travellers could find all sorts of interesting and valuable information and the book received excellent reviews in publications like The Field.

     In 1932 The British Medical Journal, which had already quoted so many British doctors and scientists acclaiming the Canary Islands as a health resort, his little book was described as one of the most scientific and accurate guidebooks ever written, full of facts and free from embroidery. For example, he recorded that between 1890 and 1897 rain fell in Puerto de la Cruz for an average of 6.8 days during February and 59.6 days during the whole year. He might sympathise with all those winter visitors to Tenerife who have found the beginning of 2014 so unusually wet and English.

     As far as the Canary Islands were concerned Alfred Samler Brown was evidently most fond of Tenerife and distinguished the island above Grand Canary, calling it, by virtue of its height, the meteorological centre of this part of the world.  However, understanding the eternal rivalry that existed between the political inhabitants of the two islands, both believing they were naturally superior to the other, the author pointed out that his observations were purely scientific.

     Santa Cruz from the sea - note the snow-covered mountains in the background

Image courtesy of Fotografía Alemana

     Samler Brown was one of a very few British travellers to have actually been pleasant about the capital, Santa Cruz, which he described as a picturesque and pleasant town, filled with beautiful balconies, fresh patios and curious corners. In fact he lived with his wife Helen on quite a large property which he bought close to the fishing village of San Andrés. 

Calle La Marina, Santa Cruz in 1913

     Nevertheless, like most early travellers who arrived on the island of Tenerife long before the southern beach resorts were opened to mass tourism, he highly recommended a stay in Port Orotava, today known as Puerto de la Cruz. His guidebook described the town as probably the best-known health resort in the world. Samler Brown never hid the fact that he had originally come to the islands to improve his own ill health and always said he owed his recovery to his first sojourn in the Orotava Valley. Puerto, he said, was a rather pretty place, especially around the mole, where colourful fishing boats and groups of old houses and balconies offer some capital opportunities to the artist. Indeed many old local houses boast paintings of scenes in Puerto de la Cruz signed by British travellers and artists such as Ella Du Cane in the early part of the 20^th century.

A street in Puerto Orotava - Ella Du Cane

     In those long ago days the speed at which one went about one’s business did not have the ghastly stress-productive importance it has today. The day was spent in a rather leisurely manner. Consequently people were very easy going and had plenty of time to be polite and generous. Permission would always be granted to anyone wishing to paint a scene from the privacy of someone’s balcony.

     Samler Brown was a pioneer in terms of travel books, being one of the first to introduce advertisements into his guidebook. A number of pages were taken up by steamship companies such as the Blue Funel Line which sailed from Glasgow and London to South Africa and Australia, the Yeoward Line which offered cruises to the Canaries on their fruit and banana boats to and from Liverpool or the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company providing health and pleasure cruises via Morocco and the Canaries as far as New York, Uruguay or Argentina.

Cruises to Morocco, the Canaries and Madeira took a leisurely 23 days

     His guidebooks were also filled with advertisements from other nationalities and they were sold not only in Britain but in Paris, New York, Berlin, Nice and even Cape Town. Local companies in Tenerife, like Thomas M. Reid and Company in Port Orotava advertised themselves as bankers and general merchants, while hotels like the Victoria in La Orotava or the Monopol in the port took whole pages advertising their particular qualities. 

Reid's failed to keep with the times and succumbed after 100 years of enterprise and service

     The Monopol, for example, called itself a first class family hotel and the only one in the valley with hot and cold water laid on to bedrooms. Luckily it still flourishes today as a reminder of how charming the old Puerto de la Cruz was and still is.

Puerto today, still picturesque and charming

     By the time he died in 1935 his guidebook had reached its 14^th edition. It was that essential companion for the intrepid traveller of the era but it had also found a corner on the shelves of most private libraries in the Canary Islands. Alfed Samler Brown became a distinguished and welcome citizen whose gentle humour found its way into the hearts of all who had the pleasure of knowing him. Perhaps he would still smile at the thought that on 21^st February, 1905 he became the first person to ask the Civil Governor of Tenerife for permission to drive his own automobile. It was the first of many of Coventry’s Humbers to be imported to Tenerife and carried the number plate TF3.

By John Reid Young

Author of The Skipping Verger and Other Tales

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

Mount Teide.....just an afternoon's stroll in the Canary Islands.

     The Orotava Valley, on the island of Tenerife, awakened to a sunny day late in February 1963. It was a relief after such heavy rains and Mount Teide sparkled invitingly high above, showing off its finest costume. Business carried on as usual in the gentle and picturesque town of Puerto de la Cruz.

Puerto de la Cruz in the early 1960s

     However, there appeared to be a commotion that Tuesday morning at the Honorary British Vice-Consul’s office. A rather distressed, middle-aged English lady and a good looking young gentleman appeared to be having a heated discussion. They were led across the Spanish courtyard and up the magnificent wooden staircase to the first floor of what was known as La Casa Reid. That was where Noel Reid shared offices with his brother Rio.

     When Mr. Reid returned home late for lunch he explained to his wife that he had had a busy morning dealing with the case of a fellow Scotsman who appeared to have got lost on Mount Teide.

     The lady and her husband, Dr. Graham McPhee arrived at the Las Vegas Hotel in Puerto on Friday, 22^nd February for a fortnight’s holiday. She recalled that as their aeroplane descended over Tenerife her husband spotted Mount Teide covered in a heavy blanket of snow and exclaimed, “I must climb that mountain!” She protested. He had promised to take her away to a warmer climate in order to recover from illness and she was so tired of mountains. “It’s just an afternoon’s stroll”, he replied. After all, George Graham McPhee was a well-known and accomplished mountaineer and he would be back in time for tea. 

Mount Teide from the air

     Born and educated in Glasgow, he joined the Highland Light Infantry at the age of seventeen. He transferred to the Royal Flying Corps and was a pilot over France before being shot down and made prisoner in 1917. After the war he graduated at Glasgow University before finishing his medical studies in Vienna. But his heart was in challenging mountains and by the time he married Jean Craigie in 1930 this most attractive personality had climbed every peak in the United Kingdom. As his friend, Iain Ogilvie remarked in his obituary, “he possessed an incorrigible sense of fun and was at times outrageous”. In fact his application to join the Alpine Club in 1934 would have failed had it been known that he had climbed the south face of the Aiguille Noir de Peuterée unaccompanied. He made eleven first ascents in the Swiss Alps in 1935 and climbed the same eleven 4,000m peaks, crossed the Zermatt mountains and spent seventeen hours on Le Dent d’Hérens when he was sixty. After returning to the climbers’ hut his colleagues were ready for bed, but he preferred the comfort of a hot bath and continued on his own in the blizzard to their hotel nine miles down the valley. After that feat, in a speech by a fellow mountaineer at a meeting of the Alpine Club, he was referred to as a remarkable old gentleman. He replied, rather angered by the description, "I am neither remarkable nor old!".

Le Dent d'Hérens in the Swiss Alps

     There was no stopping this remarkable old gentleman.......except, it appears, his afternoon stroll on Tenerife’s peak. News of his death even reached Australia during the visit of Queen Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh and on 4^th March the Sidney Morning Herald reported “the body of Dr. George Graham McPhee, of Heversham, Westmorland, was found on Teide Mountain. Lady Hunt, wife of mountaineer Sir John Hunt, made five lone ascents on the snow-covered mountain to search for her friend before hikers found his body”. In fact the hikers were local Canary Island guides. Lady Joy Hunt, who was accompanying the McPhees on the island holiday, had learnt to climb in the Himalayas with her husband, Sir John, of Everest fame.

Sir Edmund Hillary, Sir John Hunt and Tenzing Norgay

     As far as an old diary can tell, the first thing Dr. McPhee did the day after arriving at the hotel in Puerto de la Cruz was to ask at the reception desk about the possibility of climbing Mount Teide. He was inspected as if he were quite mad. Nobody climbed the volcano at this time of year! It was the closed season. It was far too dangerous. Besides, the three young men who acted as guides for adventurous British visitors were not usually available at least until April.

The Las Vegas Hotel in 1963

     A young Italian tour representative overheard the conversation at the Las Vegas and intervened. He claimed to be an expert guide and said it would be a pleasure to take the sixty five year old Briton up the mountain. Another young English couple also joined the conversation at the reception desk and it was agreed the Italian would take them all up in to the mountains early the following morning in his own car. In their report to the British and Spanish authorities the Italian and the young English couple said they drove as far as the old Guardia Civil outpost which used to be close to the foot of the magnificent volcano. It was a beautiful Sunday morning, the snow sparkling in the warm sunshine, and they set off in spite of the guardias warning that it would be unwise to climb Teide because the sun and the wind had turned the snow into ice. Indeed, the English couple soon realised the climb was too much for them and suggested they all return to base. McPhee is said to have replied “If I make up my mind to do something I don’t give up when I meet difficulties”. The Italian guide also began to feel that he might have made a terrible mistake and tried to persuade the Briton to turn back. But the mountaineer was determined and the Italian was honourable enough to keep his word. So, while the other two returned to the car McPhee and his guide went on. 
     
     When I was a twelve year old boy, before the cable car was installed to ferry visitors up the slopes of Mount Teide, I was invited to climb the volcano by a group of medical students from the University of La Laguna. They treated me like some kind of lucky mascot and I was given a piggyback ride on the last stretch when sulphurous fumes made me sick. It was midsummer, there was no snow and we set off in the early evening to avoid the worst of the day’s heat and to capture the spectacular sight of Teide's shadow at sunrise. 

At dawn, on Teide's summit, looking at its own shadow as the sun rises.

     It was not a difficult climb for a fit person following the mule track to the Altavista refuge station three quarters of the way up, but the climb still took four hours. The original refuge, just a simple, volcanic stone wall to keep his instruments out of the wind, was erected by British astronomer Charles Piazzi Smyth. He spent sixty five days on Mount Teide in 1856.

    Another Englishman, George Graham-Toler, contracted the same builder who built the Anglican All Saints Church in Puerto de la Cruz to erect Altavista, providing proper habitable quarters in the 1890s. His idea was to offer climbers a place to rest and get used to the height, but he also charged a small sum to intrepid British visitors who wished to shelter for the night on the volcano with their mules.

Graham-Toler's Altavista

     Dr. McPhee’s Italian guide described how they had gone to the refuge, not to rest but to leave their backpacks before tackling the summit. He insisted they had reached the top, where they took photographs inside the crater and of the spectacular view below them before starting their descent down the icy surface. McPhee began to complain of cramp in his legs and told the Italian to go down to Altavista ahead of him in order to retrieve their belongings. “I will follow you down and meet you at the bottom”, he told the young guide. When the Italian returned to the mule track he could not see the old climber coming down behind him and assumed he must have already gone down ahead. But when he reached the car he only found the young English couple waiting. They went to ask the Guardia Civil. No, the man they had warned against climbing the peak had not been. The group drove to the recently opened National Parador hotel further down in the island’s sunken Cañadas landcape where they waited until after dark. Eventually Jean McPhee asked to be taken back to Puerto de la Cruz. She was concerned, but quite accustomed to her husband altering course at the last minute if he met an interesting challenge high up on a mountain. It must have been a very sleepless night for the young Italian, however and he returned to climb the volcano again early the following morning in freezing conditions. He called and shouted all the way up and down, but there was no sign of McPhee.

Dr. George Graham McPhee, a very determined character.

(in a photograph from The Scottish Mountaineering Club)

     It was only on the Tuesday morning that Mrs. McPhee decided to seek help at the Reids’ office and an immediate rescue operation was ordered. A spotter plane carried out continuous passes over the snow-covered slopes. The Guardia Civil searched the mountain day and night. They were joined by three local mountain guides and Lady Hunt who spent the next four and a half days combing Mount Teide. Even seventy one year old Noel Reid joined in. But it was futile and nobody will ever know if McPhee might have survived had his disappearance been reported immediately. He was an accomplished mountaineer, but not equipped on this occasion, wearing only plimsolls, for survival on the frozen slopes of a volcano at the height of 12,000 feet.

 

La Casa Reid in the 1960s

     The body was discovered a long way from the mule track he should have been following. It is thought he lost his footing while taking a photograph and slid for some considerable distance down the icy slopes. George Graham McPhee was buried in what was locally known as la cherche, or today as el cementerio inglés, the English cemetery in Puerto de la Cruz.

     The Guardia Civil confiscated the unfortunate Italian guide’s camera during their investigations. It seemed rather a cruel thing to do but to begin with Jean McPhee seemed reluctant to believe his account. Nevertheless, when his film and that in McPhee’s own camera were developed the photographs confirmed that both men had reached the summit. The Italian had been telling the truth. Perhaps they should have planted the Union Jack and il Tricolore on the rim of the crater.

The rim of Teide's crater

     The expected news was broken to Mrs. McPhee at the Reid’s house, in the company of Mr. Fox, the British Consul in Santa Cruz and Reverend Evans-Gregory, the chaplain at All Saints Church in Puerto. Jean McPhee returned to England almost immediately. In the old diary, Noel Reid’s wife, Annette, who had spent time trying to comfort and encourage her almost every day, noted “Mrs. McPhee gave me the impression of being strong, brave and patient.”

     Later in the year Noel Reid received a package from Lady Hunt. It contained three woollen pullovers and three mountaineering ice picks. He was to hand them over to the three local mountain guides who had helped search for Dr. McPhee. Lady Hunt had been very impressed by the dedication, not only of the Guardia Civil police officers but also of the three local mountain guides. They had climbed the freezing Mount Teide for four days without any anoraks or warm clothing and wore only the local lona footwear, made from sacking material and rubber soles.

     McPhee, the expert British mountaineer, was not the first and he will not be the last victim to belittle Mount Teide, the dormant pride of Tenerife and the Canary Islands. 

By John Reid Young

Author of The Skipping Verger and Other Tales

http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Skipping-Verger-Other-Tales/dp/8461596323
http://www.waterstones.com/waterstonesweb/products/john+reid+young/annie+chapman/the+skipping+verger+and+other+tales/9522395/

A doctor in a Canary Island kitchen

     It has often been said that the Canary Islands have become one of Europe’s most popular holiday destinations thanks largely to illustrious British scientists, writers and artists of the 19^th century. One of these was Ernest Abraham Hart. He paid a visit to the island of Tenerife in 1886, when it was still generously blessed only by natural beauty and had not yet been ravaged by man’s self-interest.

Ernest Abraham Hart in a painting by Solomon Joseph Solomon 

 

     The son of a Jewish dentist, Hart was born in Knightsbridge in 1836. He was educated at the City of London School and later became a student at St George’s Hospital. In 1856 he became a member of the Royal College of Surgeons, specialising in diseases of the eye. He was appointed ophthalmic surgeon at St Mary's hospital at the age of only twenty eight, and held numerous other positions. He is attributed many advances in ophthalmology and was also the first British surgeon to be associated with treating aneurisms of the popliteal artery.

     He betrayed a great passion for journalism. At the age of only twenty two Hart had already been published in The Lancet and soon became highly acclaimed for his medical articles. Many years later, as Dean of St. Mary’s Medical School, he was named Editor of the British Medical Journal.

The Royal College of Surgeons

    By the time he came to the Canaries at the age of fifty, he was one of the best known ophthalmologists in Britain and was a member of the Royal College of Surgeons. He was accompanied by Alice, his second wife. Her philanthropist nature complemented his own interests and she travelled with Hart on his many overseas expeditions, which he used to gather information for his articles on foreign medicine.

     Also travelling with Hart to Tenerife was his friend Sir Thomas Spencer Wells, one of London’s most eminent doctors and surgeon to Queen Victoria.  When their schooner, the Coast anchored in the bay at Santa Cruz in 1886, their intention was to inspect what they referred to as the Orotava Grand Hotel and Sanatorium, the original Martianez Hotel in fact, where patients could be cared for as if they were on holiday and not actually hospitalised.  
 

The original Martianez Hotel in Puerto de la Cruz

     However, both Ernest Hart and Sir Thomas were likeable gentlemen and soon won the affection, not only of British residents in Tenerife, but also of local people. They were welcomed with open arms by some of the island’s best known doctors, renowned for their progress in every field, and Sir Thomas was even persuaded to perform a surgical operation in the Orotava Valley.

Sir Thomas Spencer Wells

 

     As reported in the local press of the times, "Sir Spencer Wells, the Queen of England’s surgeon, has performed an oophorectomy on young Antonia Dorta, of the well-known and appreciated island family". This had been arranged by Doctor Jorge Pérez, who had spent many years in London and whom Ernest Hart would later highly recommend as a very well prepared doctor with excellent English.

     News had been filtering through to British medical circles for some years that Tenerife possessed one of the finest curative climates in the world and Hart intended to write an article about the island’s sanitary arrangements for The British Medical Journal. However, he gathered so much information that he was able to write a number of papers which were edited together into the book, A Winter Trip to the Fortunate Islands, a reflection of his journalistic rather than scientific mind.

Publicity bagage label for the Camacho Hotel

     Hart took note of everything. In Santa Cruz he recommended the old Camacho Hotel, which was mentioned favourably in all travel booklets of the time. In La Laguna, which he called St. Christopher of the Lake, he remarked upon the number of convents and the large villas used as summer residences by the island’s aristocrats. Hart thought Agua García one of the most beautiful spots in Tenerife, with its dense forests and gently sloping agricultural fields, but it was clearly the Orotava Valley they were heading for. In fact, like so many others before him, Hart fell for the place and on their arrival wrote, "the bird song, the splashing of the fountains, the huge variety of colourful flowers, the blue sea, the mountains, the warmth of the day long sun and the exquisite freshness of the air all tell us that we have arrived safe and happy to our destination. We will be spending our promising winter holiday in one of the best gardens in the world, Port Orotava, the pearl of the Fortunate Islands".

The Orotava Valley

 

     Although Hart’s principal aim was to study local medical practice, he was also very observant of local traditions and customs. Indeed he was most complementary about local cuisine, noting especially an eternal favourite, conejo en salmorejo, goat’s cheese and fried goat. He also pointed out that one could find a steak as good as anywhere in England.
 

Conejo en salmorejo - rabbit in spicy salmorejo sauce

 

     He also carried out a detailed statistical survey of local weather conditions in La Orotava and observed "From a medical point of view, Tenerife is an ideal place for that large number of people suffering from lung problems". He evidently found Tenerife kind on his pocket too because he remarked that their stay on the island had been the most pleasant and cheapest holiday ever! Ernest Hart gave Tenerife very good publicity and on the 19th June 1890 the local newspaper Diario de Tenerife referred to an article of his in the British Medical Journal in which he wrote so favourably about the weather conditions in the Valley of La Orotava and about Tenerife’s hotels. One can just imagine Ernest Hart, surrounded by elegantly dressed friends at an Octave, enthusing about the delights of eating rabbit  and wrinkled potatoes on the island of Tenerife. Octaves were dinner parties given by Sir Henry Thompson, Professor of Surgery at University College, London, at his house in Wimpole Street, at which eight courses, accompanied by eight wines were served to eight guests in addition to the host and a guest of honour.

Guest of honour at an Octave dinner party, Ernest Abraham Hart, seated to the right of the mantelpiece

 

     After their winter in Tenerife, Ernest Hart and his wife began travelling further afield. In Calcutta he was considered brave enough to criticise Indian medical standards, especially with regards the treatment of cholera. He was later highly regarded for his studies of both cholera and typhus. He fell in love with Japan and published a book entitled The Ancient Arts and Artists of Japan, helped to a great extent by procuring a large and valuable collection. His interests were so wide and his intellectual skills so varied that he even wrote a number of articles on cookery for the Times under the heading The Doctor in the Kitchen. Sadly, just ten years after enjoying the mild climes of the Canary Islands, the kind doctor required both legs to be amputated after developing complications related to diabetes. It is perhaps a coincidence that he would have found this disease to be very common in the Canary Islands as a result of a traditional preference for a diet rich in those delicious potatoes and sweet puddings. A year later, at the age of just sixty one, Ernest Abraham Hart died at the typically English resort of Brighton.

By John Reid Young

Author of:

The Skipping Verger and other Tales (a collection of short stories)

A Shark in the Bath and other Stories (a collection of short stories)

The Journalist (a novel)

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They called him Don Alfredo

          In fact Don Alfredo was an Englishman born in the coastal town of Lowestoft, in the English county of Suffolk, in 1793.

 

The harbour at Lowestoft

 

          He is one of quite number of adventurers from the British Isles who travelled to the Canary Islands in the seventeenth, eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries and settled there. One can also say that Don Alfredo was one of a handful of British gentlemen to have been adopted as historical figures by the local Spanish population. This, as time only tells, generally happens when one falls in love with the islands and gives something back to them in return for their hospitality. I am talking about Mr. Alfred Diston.

Alfred Diston in a portrait by Elizabeth Murray in 1858

 

          Already fond of adventure and travel it was just after the Duke of Wellington and his allies defeated Napoleon in 1815 that Diston found himself bound for the Canary Islands. He was only twenty two when the merchant ship anchored off the northern coast of Tenerife. Like most vessels arriving to trade in the islands the Captain had to wait his turn to unload the cargo of timber and wheat in the town of Puerto de la Orotava, using rowing boats to ferry goods and passengers into the little harbour or to the black sand coves, depending on the tides.

 

One of the landing coves to the west of the port

          Diston, who began his life in the Canaries working as a clerk for the British firm of Pasley, Little and Company, was a likeable fellow and was accepted warmly by the local population right from the start. Documents recall his amiable nature, and how he would often be seen taking long strolls around all the northern towns of Tenerife with a notebook tucked under his arm. He took an interest in practically everything, especially in the country peasant folk, and evidently fell in love with the old port, now known as Puerto de la Cruz.

 

An early photograph of peasants outside a typical thatched barn

          Alfred Diston was a cultured young gentleman and he also had a great ability for languages. He possessed a charming manner and made friends easily. He would always be willing to help, not only local islanders for whom he felt a deep affection, but also fellow British travellers. During his first years in Puerto de la Cruz the British Consul, Mr. MacGregor, referred to Diston´s invaluable work. In their accounts and diaries, visitors and residents from the British Isles like artist Elizabeth Murray, who arrived with her husband after he had been appointed Consul, or scientists like Charles Piazzi-Smythe refer to Alfred Diston with gratitude and respect.

          Although he first worked for Pasley, Little and Company, his interesting and determined personality soon took him further. He had the honour of being invited to become a member of the prestigious Real Sociedad Económica de Amigos del País, the Royal Economic Society of the Friends of the Land, based in the aristocratic old capital of La Laguna. He was also welcomed with open arms into the bourgeois business circles. For example, with vineyards devastated by disease, a valid attempt was made in the 1840s to establish cotton production in the islands and The Canary Island Cotton Company was funded. Diston was one of the directors, alongside Bernard Forstall, Mr. Lewis Hamilton, Count La Vega Grande, Count Siete Fuentes and Don Jorge Bruce. Unfortunately, although the cotton produced on land owned by the Cologan family of La Paz in Puerto de la Cruz was of an excellent quality, they could not compete with that produced in Egypt and the company did not survive.

          But Alfred Diston is recognised as the English artist who best captured local traditions and dress in his drawings and water colours. Today these are regarded as being of great historical value. They paint a vivid picture of how gentle this place described as paradise by the great German scientist Alexander von Humboldt was before the onslaught of progress.

A gathering in the village of La Esperanza

 

Outside the monastery

 

Women outside the town of Candelaria

 

          Alfred Diston’s observations and beautiful illustrations began to be published in London in 1829 by Smith, Elder and Company in volumes called Costumes of the Canary Islands.  His drawings also appear in the treasured Histoire Naturelle des Iles Canaries by Philip Barker-Webb and Sabin Berthelot.

 

Sabin Berthelot

 

          As a result of his friendship with Sabin Berthelot, botanist and French Consul in Tenerife, Alfred Diston was made an honorary member of Real Academia de Bellas Artes, the regional Royal Art Academy. Many of his illustrations capture the local flora and he was named manager of the Orotava Valley’s famous Botanical Gardens, a position he enjoyed for almost fourteen years.

 

Port Orotava in the 19th century

 

          Of course, there is no doubt that he may not have gained such a position in society had he not fallen in love with and married a young aristocrat, María de la Soledad Cósima Josefa Francisca de Paula de Orea y Luna. She was the daughter of Colonel Orea de Machado y de Guerra.

María de Orea y Luna

 

           Alfred Diston is known to have had a very happy relationship with the Colonel’s daughter, and a peaceful life in the pleasant town of Puerto de la Cruz. One late afternoon in 1861, after his usual stroll down to the water's edge, he began a gentle game of billiards with his beloved María at their home in the central, commercial street of Santo Domingo. All of a sudden he crossed over to one of the windows and sat down in an armchair with his back under the evening's last ray of sunlight. He smiled at his wife as she bent over to play her shot, and then closed his eyes. He died as happily and peacefully as he had lived. 

 

By John Reid Young

Author of The Skipping Verger and Other Tales

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A Wilde Irishman in the Canary Islands

     The first member of his family to settle in Ireland was a Colonel Wilde. He was the son of a Dutch painter whose work can be found today in the Hague Art Gallery. The colonel was awarded lands in Ireland after fighting with the troops of William III. One of his sons, Ralph, married Margaret O’Flyn. She was a descendent of one of Eire’s oldest families which gave its name to the district of Roscommon known as County O’Flyn. Ralph Wilde became Lord Mount Sandford of Casterlea.

     They had a son called Thomas. He became a highly respected practitioner known for his work caring for both rich and, gratuitously, the poor. He married Miss Amelia Fynne. She came from an even more distinguished Irish family although they were thought to be rather an eccentric lot. Thomas and Amelia had three sons and two daughters. The youngest was to become Sir William Robert Wills Wilde.

 Sir William Robert Wills Wilde

     Wills Wilde was born in 1815 and spent most of his youth exploring the hills and in the company of his friend Paddy Walsh who liked to dress unconventionally and played the violin. William was greatly influenced by his games teacher Dick Blacks, and especially by the Reverend Patrick Prendergast. Wilde described him as a very fine, courteous, white-haired old man. He was the last Lord Abbot of Connaught and it was from him that Wilde inherited an interest for languages and Irish traditions. But, like his father he also studied medicine.

     It was on account of his medical profession that he found himself bound for the Canary Island of Tenerife in 1837 when he was just twenty two. He was aboard the Crusader, a 130 ton schooner owned by Mr. Robert W. Meiklam, a consumptive Scottish merchant from Glasgow. Meiklam employed Wilde for the duration of a voyage in the Mediterranean and around the Macaronesian isles of Madeira and the Canary Islands in search of a miraculous cure for his tuberculosis.

                                                                      The Crusader

     Young William had a miserable time due to his irremediable seasickness. However he was able to write a detailed account of his experience in Narrative of a Voyage to Madeira, Teneriffe and Along the Shores of the Mediterranean, published in 1840. His observations were of great interest, not only to future visitors to the Canary Islands but also to doctors and scientists of the time. He and many other scientists and travellers from the British Isles in the 19th century who published articles and books about the Spanish islands can be regarded as literary benefactors of the Canary Islands, first as a health resort and later as a marvellous and interesting holiday destination.

     Soon after the Crusader anchored in the bay at Santa Cruz, Wilde took leave and was rowed ashore whilst his employer and baggage were made ready for a long coach ride to the Orotava Valley. The young doctor was not kind about Santa Cruz in his writings. All he found mildly interesting were Horatio Nelson’s flags, cross and other items relinquished after the admiral's defeat at the hands of the Santa Cruz garrison and General Gutiérrez in 1797. He described the port as one of the driest places he had ever set foot upon. Indeed it was, until future generations filled it with the rich parks and wide, tree-lined avenues Tenerife's capital boasts today.

 An old postcard of The port at Santa Cruz

     On their way to Port Orotava they decided to halt for some days at San Cristobal de La Laguna. The air was cool compared with the dusty heat by the coast. Besides, the bumpy, meandering and endless coach ride up the hill had been just too much for Mr. Meiklam to take so soon after so many days at sea. Wilde described the town of La Laguna, Tenerife's first and principal settlement at the time of the conquest in 1496, as beautiful but rather desolate, with hardly a soul in the streets. 

A sketch of San Cristobal de La Laguna in the 19th century

     It is still a beautiful town today, but it brims with life as home to the island's university and the streets and alleyways are filled with charming restaurants and shops. A valuable heritage of mansions, churches and convents persuaded the UNESCO do declare La Laguna a World Heritage Site in 1999.

The Orotava Valley

     The travellers marvelled when they caught their first glimpse of the Orotava Valley over the rim from the village of Santa Úrsula, especially when the cloud evaporated suddenly to expose the peak in the background. A majestic and endemic Canary pine, Pinus Canariensis, caught Wilde's eye too and he took seeds back to Ireland. Examples of the tree grew wonderfully in the botanical gardens of Trinity College, Dublin. 

     Wilde and his Scottish millionaire stayed in the enchanting little port which is now called Puerto de la Cruz. The young medicinal student described the houses as being well built with volcanic stone, white-washed and topped with roman tiles. He also noted the pleasant fresh sea air and temperature compared with the haze in Santa Cruz and the damp of La Laguna. But, as in La Laguna he found people avoided being in the streets, especially the women, who had a preference to just peep from behind little postigos inquisitively, closing them firmly if one became too impertinent. But Wilde  remarked that when they did come out and always accompanied, the young women were without a doubt the most attractive he had set eyes upon since leaving Ireland. Like so many others, he found the climate in the Orotava Valley ideal for curing health problems, especially those related to the lungs, and Mr. Meiklam's health appeared to improve during their stay.

The church and square in Port Orotava

          With regards his interest in botanical matters Wilde may have been harsh in suggesting that the gardens in La Orotava were not well maintained and that it was a pity they could not have been in English hands. It seems nobody thought of taking him to the magnificent botanical gardens. However his observations were generally accurate.  

Dragon trees (Dracaena draco)

     He was fascinated by the dragon trees but took his experiments too far by placing the sharp needle of an endemic cacti species, the Euphorbia Canariensis, into his tongue. He felt very strange and quite sickly almost at once and took a long time to recover. Perhaps nobody told him that the pre-Hispanic aboriginals used the latex from this particular euphorbia to catch fish, stunning them by squeezing droplets in the rock pools where they nibbled green algae like the Caulerpa Webbiana off the rocks or ambushed careless crustaceans. But evidently, when not attending to Mr. Meiklam, the young doctor spent the hours investigating. He gathering examples of local flora, unusual stones and even cochineal whose dye was once the island's principal export.

Euphorbia Canariensis

     The episode with the euphorbia confirmed that Wilde’s eccentric blend began to manifest itself in Tenerife. Robert Meiklam allowed him time to explore and the Irishman hired Cristobal, a giant of a guide also known as the Gomeran to lead him up Mount Teide. He also took another splendid herculean fellow with him whom he had met on the beach, simply because he had a marvellous sense of humour. For luggage he took a bottle of wine presented to him by the British Consul.

 Mount Teide

     They took just twenty hours to reach the tip of Teide from the port. To this day it is considered one of the fastest ascents ever. Perhaps it had something to do with that wine. Still on the peak, on the way back down, the guide took them to what is known as the ice cave. The entrance to the cave is a deep, vertical hole three quarters of the way up the volcano’s north face. It leads into a vast cavity which, even in the heat of August, but less so today as Earth warms up and the winters provide less snows, hides ponds of icy water and rock hard ice. Before the arrival of the modern refrigerator ice-collectors would be paid to climb the mountain and bring down mule loads of ice from volcanic cavities like this.

The Ice Cave

     After completing more travels to London, Vienna and Berlin where he met Alexander von Humboldt, the great German scientist and explorer who paid such tribute to the Valley of La Orotava, William Wilde returned to Ireland where he founded the St. Mark’s Ophthalmic Hospital in Casterlea. He became Queen Victoria’s eye specialist and almost at the same time married Lady Francesca Elgee, a passionate republican, poet and revolutionary. Perhaps this explosive combination, added to his own eccentric lineage, had something to do with producing the genius of a second son, poet and playwright, Oscar Wilde.         

John Reid Young, author of

"The Skipping Verger and Other Tales"

a selection of short stories set in the Canary Islands.

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