Jeremy Wright
Jeremy Wright was born in 1956 in Cannock, Staffordshire, a “Domesday Book” town in the West Midlands region of England. His parents had met while in the Royal Navy where his father was an electrical engineer. Whether they joined the Navy to “see the world” (as the Fred Astaire song suggests) is unclear, but if they did it was a family trait that was certainly passed down to Jeremy. The family soon (1959) moved to India, where Jeremy’s father had been posted. They sailed on the P&O cruise ship Britannia which gave Jeremy his first experience of the cruise ship industry. After three years in India, he was enrolled in a private school, and then Radley College near Abingdon, Oxfordshire. Along with Winchester, Harrow, and Eton it is one of the four remaining boys-only, boarding-only, independent senior schools in the United Kingdom. Jeremy left Radley when he was 18 years old in 1974.Radley professes to develop each individual scholar’s talents, and perhaps the most obvious of Jeremy’s aptitudes that flourished and defined his early future was his wanderlust. After spending some time trying to ‘find himself’ in London, Jeremy’s father gave him 100 pounds sterling (when that was worth around 1,000 of today’s pounds), and a backpack, and he set off for France. He spent some time in Paris but soon moved on south, reaching Cannes on the French Riviera where, as a long-blond-haired youth Jeremy signed aboard the charter boat Lady Castlemaine as a “galley slave”. He later transferred to the schooner Grace on which he sailed for the West Indies, reaching Antigua in 1976. One of his Antiguan adventures was quite a famous story in English Harbour for a time. The skipper of the yacht in which Jeremy sailed from the Mediterranean to the Caribbean refused to pay him. As a result Jeremy jumped ship. He was lured back on board, imprisoned on the boat and then deported back to the UK. But another boat owner who Jeremy had befriended funded his return to Antigua and he then travelled on this boat to New York to try his luck in the USA.
For a time he did odd jobs in the U.S. such as leaf raking and renting refrigerators to college students, but he was soon on the road again. He hitchhiked across the country ending up in San Diego where he hoped to work again in boats. Unsuccessful in getting a job on a boat in San Diego, he tried Los Angeles and then San Francisco where he spent some time and also arranged to sail on a boat to Tahiti later that year. In the meantime he went to Mexico and raced the MEXORC (Mexican Ocean Racing Circuit) which his boat won. He returned up the west coast to San Francisco and sailed to Tahiti (1977-78), a French “overseas country” (as it is now known) in Polynesia in the southern Pacific. Working for a somewhat eccentric boat owner he spent four months in Tahiti, as well as spending some time in Wallis and Futuna (another French Polynesian territory), the Torres Strait region, the Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea and a number of other south Pacific locations. Eventually he made his way on Triana to Sri Lanka (once known as Ceylon) where Jeremy flew back to the UK.
By now his “individual talent” was firmly based in the ‘surface water sports’ industry, and Jeremy ‘settled down’ (it’s a relative term) and enrolled in 1979 as a sailmaker with Hood Sailmakers. He learned the trade for three years and lived on his father’s boat. The company’s loft was then located in Lymington, a well-known sailing port in the New Forest area of Hampshire. In 1981, Jeremy’s wanderlust surfaced again, and he took a job at Hood’s loft in Tortola, and moved into the Waterfront Apartments, next to “The Pub” by Fort Burt Marina in Roadtown -- found for him by his new boss, Bill Bullimore.
After a short stay at Hood Sails (Tortola) Jeremy moved in 1984 to his present home at Trellis Bay. Hood Sales in Tortola became Doyle’s Sails after he left. In Trellis Bay he worked with David Ross, a Canadian windsurfer (another of Jeremy’s watersport loves), on the site of the present-day Cyber Café. Perhaps remarkably Jeremy was settling down. Again. After briefly managing another site in Nanny Cay he chose to stay at Trellis Bay. The operation was being rebuilt, was a better location for watersports, and in Jeremy’s view was a better place overall. He began to develop his restaurant, café and watersports centre (“Boardsailing BVI”). Looking at his career it can be seen that Jeremy was always searching for remote locations in the world. Even on the now rapidly changing Virgin Islands he has managed to stay out of the local mainstream by living and working on Beef Island which is he says is “like being in another country” from Tortola.
Unfortunately, it is likely that Trellis Bay, “a very special place” to Jeremy and many others, could be transformed by the present BVI government’s avowed intent to extend the airport runway (at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars – estimates vary) across Trellis Bay. The purpose is to attract larger planes to the Virgin Islands, along with many more tourists. Unsurprisingly Jeremy does not favour this ‘development’, which threatens the local environment and is sure to change his life and livelihood. This is not the place to debate the issue, but the controversy can be followed on ‘the web’ and on Facebook at a specially constructed page at https://www.facebook.com/SaveTrellisBay
In many ways the proposed airport expansion typifies the changes and challenges that Jeremy has experienced since arriving in the Virgin Islands three decades ago. Although he loves the water sports industry, he has seen a massive increase in the number of boats and tourists with little change in the infrastructure to service the various enterprises involved. In fact only this week (late-October 2013), have plans been announced that will try to begin to solve the problems of sewage disposal by boats in Virgin Islands’ waters.
In addition to the increase in the water-tourism industry Jeremy has seen a vast increase in the number of vehicles on the islands, many more roads to partially contain these vehicles, and many more and larger buildings that have sprung up – often as parts of the Financial Services industry, which was hardly in existence when he arrived in Roadtown. When he first came to the Virgin Islands there was there were no computers and of course no internet to surf. Other systems of communication were similarly more limited. Roadtown has since burgeoned but Jeremy sees many of the changes as lost opportunities rather than as progress. Coupled with these changes have come many more tourists, increased crime, and a significant set of changes that have altered the local culture. This includes a breakdown of the family structures of the past, and a loss of traditional identity as too much land has been sold off to outsiders - Jeremy rents his land from an overseas – based owner, as do most other people in Trellis Bay.
But Jeremy has not just been a passive observer of change. He has been involved in “growing’ watersports, increasing watersports awareness, and servicing many of the tourists in his Trellis Bay businesses. He is very active in organising the famous Full Moon Parties that bring hundreds of people, locals and tourists, to Trellis Bay. He has also served on the K.A.T.S Board of Directors. Jeremy has a valuable skill set which is necessary in the contemporary Virgin Islands. This has been recognized by other Virgin Island companies (such as Little Dix) which tap his expertise in the role of consultant.If he were “coming now”: and were to “do it over again” it wouldn’t, he feels, be a lot different. He would have liked to have had more money to start with, but at the same time sees ‘struggle’ as an important part of the process. He would still get involved in the water sports industry which has not yet become popular with local people. He even sees a 'glass half full' in the present recession, as it is “important as a way of getting the industry settled”.
Although some culture change in the Virgin Islands can be viewed in a negative light, Jeremy believes that the changes that have taken place are leading to a better understanding of how the BVI exists as a country in the contemporary globalizing world. The new generations of Tortolians wants to know how to do things in the new world. But there remains a problem of a lack of vision as people haven’t enough experience of the ‘outside world’ and the Virgin Islands still need protection for the long term future.
In his future Jeremy continues to try to “make this place happen”, but he retains ‘backups’. He always tries to plan “five options” in case the first choice doesn’t work out. Jeremy continues to apply for a yearly residence permit although he has been here long enough for more settled status. But true to his wanderlust origins, Jeremy feels like he belongs everywhere, not only in Trellis Bay.
Second draft of October 24th, of interview of October 11th 2013.
