Joyce Turpin

Joyce Turpin hails from Brisbane, Australia, but arrived in Tortola with her husband Bill in 1963. She now lives in an apartment in Slaney, with a panoramic view of Roadtown and the southern islands, but has lived in a number of other locations on Tortola (such as Lambert) since sailing into Trellis Bay in the BVI nearly fifty years ago.

Back in Australia Bill Turpin was a civil engineer. During the Second World War he built dams and airfields – the latter to house allied planes fighting in the Pacific Theatre. After the war they bought a boat in Helford, Cornwall (UK), and sailing ”got into our blood”. They sailed the canals of Holland and then went down to Spain (which in 1961 was “cheap, cheap, cheap”). They were in Mallorca (Majorca), one of the Balearic Islands, with other ‘yachts people’ when they read a book called Blue Water Vagabond: Six Years’ Adventure at Sea written by Dennis Puleston in 1939, who had, amongst other things managed a derelict coconut plantation on Tortola in the British Virgin Islands. Living in the Caribbean and helping a country develop caught the imagination of the Turpins, and they sailed from Europe to the British Virgin Islands to try their luck. They came to investigate Tortola “for a couple of weeks” but Joyce has never really left.

Originally living on their boat, Bill and Joyce decided to develop the area of and around Nanny Cay, which they felt had enormous potential as a base for yachting. At that time there were only three small, uninhabited, patches of flat land in that area, totaling about one acre (Big Cay, Little Cay, and Miss Peggy Cay). They first put a road through land owned by the Charles family (with their agreement of course.) Using small equipment at first, and later a larger dredge they “reclaimed “ much of present-day Nanny Cay and put it onto its present-day road to success. They completed their planned development in 1973, but Bill died soon after.

While Bill had been concentrating on Nanny Cay, Joyce had worked in a number of other occupations. She ran a Travel Agency from 1967 and also operated the Treasure Isle Hotel for a couple of years – when it was full of Cable and Wireless personnel who were developing Tortola as a major location in the C and W system. In 1980 Joyce sold Nanny Cay to the Guinness interests. Interestingly, it later went into receivership, and held the record (12 years) as the longest ever receivership in the history of Barclays Bank, before being purchased by its present owners in 2000. In 1990 Joyce left Nanny Cay (when she was 72 y.o!), and moved for a time to the Bahamas (she was eventually away for just over a decade). She was wiped out there by Hurricane Klaus, and moved for several years to Spain (which she loved). Initially she found this a challenge, knowing nobody, and not knowing the language, but she soon made friends and adapted. She is now “glad to be back” in the BVI with many of the same friends she has had for years. But if she had to leave the BVI again she would likely return to Spain.

When Joyce and Bill arrived in 1963 it was a very different BVI. When she managed the Treasure Isle Hotel the shoreline was where Waterfront Drive now is, and Wickham’s Cay had not been developed (this came after the mid 1970s). There were few roads, few phones and few cars, and only 30-40 “expats” -- who were true pioneers. There wasn’t much in the way of shopping and “there was nothing to buy”. She remembers purchasing a lovely new dress from the Bruce’s at “Little Denmark” and going to a party to find that several other ladies were wearing the same one! Main Street was “the” street in town for shopping and other services. Mr. Martin, the butcher used to chop up meat for his customers using a ‘tomahawk’.

A Belonger since 1976, Joyce notes that there have been a lot of good developments since she first came to Tortola. The educational system has improved, and the College is a big plus for the BVI. There are many new businesses, although interestingly, her son Gary and Robin Tattersall (who didn’t arrive until 1965!) started the first bareboat charter company in the BVI. She is not keen on the number and size of the present-day Cruise Ships (“I would get rid of them”), but does recognize that this section of the industry provides an important income stream for the country. She is happy to see the local BV Islanders get ahead, as most of them had nothing when she first arrived.

On the negative side, traffic has increased many-fold and has made the place hard to live in at times. Now everybody is busy and nobody has time to stop for coffee. Ironically Joyce was once on the Tourist Board, trying to get more people to visit the BVI. She is a bit sorry about this, as she preferred the place the way it was. Because of the success of ‘development’ some of the important parts of the BVI are threatened. Interestingly her granddaughter Nina Turpin is heavily involved in “Reef Check”, which organisation is trying to protect the underwater environment around the country. Although Joyce recognises the value of progress, like many of the early expat-arrivals, she preferred the “old days”.
 
 

Draft of September 7th, 2010 of interview of August 21st, 2010

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