NAPOLEON was exiled there,
and it takes longer to reach than Australia. For three months,
initially, Canon Roy Doxsey is going to St Helena, in the South
Atlantic, the world's most remote inhabited island. It is less than
half the size of the Isle of Wight, and has about 4000
inhabitants.
He is leaving this month at
the request of his old friend the Bishop of St Helena and former
Dean of Monmouth, Dr Richard Fenwick, an invitation that came out
of the blue. "Priests never retire," Canon Doxsey said to me; and
he has had a "great ministry". The 72-year-old has recently been
looking after St German's, Roath, in Llandaff
diocese, but now he sees this challenge as "another splash of
colour on the canvas of life".
Getting there will be an
adventure in itself. He will start from the RAF base at Brize
Norton, from where the RAF will ferry him on the nine-hour flight
to Ascension Island, 700 miles away, where he must wait two days
for a ship that will take another two days to get to St Helena.
The one drawback is that he must leave behind his two beloved
Jack Russells, Jasper and Megan, with a friend. He could take them,
he told me, but it would cost about £1000.