Oh, to be a resident of the Isles of Scilly! The archipelago 30 miles off the coast of Cornwall didn’t record its first coronavirus case until the end of September 2020 – a month after I’d been lucky enough to stay there – and has only had “fewer than three” cases since, according to the local council, with no accompanying deaths.
And until the new lockdown measures were announced for England, the most southerly point of the UK was the only spot still in tier 1, meaning locals could go out to restaurants and meet other households, provided it was in groups of no more than six.
It’s hardly surprising really, not when you’ve been there at any rate – the islands have a magical way of diluting tourists, so that you rarely find yourself within view of more than a handful of people. This remains true across the isles – even the tiniest ones – so that during my trip in August. I kept finding myself on long stretches of secluded beach, wondering where the hundred or so others who’d journeyed across with me on the morning boat had gone. In other times, it might have felt a little lonely. During a pandemic, it was reassuringly peaceful.
