Necker Island is a 74-acre (300,000 m2) island in the British Virgin Islands just north of Virgin Gorda. The island is owned by Sir Richard Branson, Chairman of the Virgin Group and is part of the Virgin Limited Edition portfolio of luxury properties. The entire island operates like a resort and can accommodate up to 28 guests. The island was named after the 17th-century Dutch squadron commander Johannes de Neckere, although it remained uninhabited until the late 20th century.
In 1965 the celebrated photographer Don McCullin and the journalist Andrew Alexander, spent fourteen days on the island at the behest of The Daily Telegraph newspaper for which they worked. The magazine editor had hoped that they would survive their castaway adventure for at least three weeks, but as McCullin later recounted, “because of our gathering weakness … out of temper, and out of water, we hoisted the red flag and were taken off in the early hours of the fifteenth day”. According to McCullin, there was nothing idyllic about the desert island: “It was inhabited by snakes, scorpions and tarantulas … The mosquitos and other insects were more venomous and persistent than any I had encountered in Vietnam or the Congo.” When the island was being purchased, environmentalists expressed concerns that Necker Island was one of the few places in the world a rare gecko, the Virgin Islands dwarf gecko, lives. When Branson was granted an alien land-holder’s licence to enable him to purchase the island, it was made conditional on his agreement that any legitimate scientific expedition to study the geckos should have full and unfettered access to the island.
[caption id="attachment_241787" align="aligncenter" width="455"] Caspar David Friedrich by Gerhard von Kügelgen[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]Caspar David Friedrich was a German Romantic landscape painter, generally considered the most i...
