When I met Janice Green in Manchester last September she asked me if there was anything I’d like from Tristan da Cunha. She could ask her father Shaun to send it to her and she would forward it to me. I had what might be considered an unusual request: I had always fancied the colourful boxes used to pack Tristan lobster. On my first visit to the island in 2013 I took photos of the lobster being loaded onto the raft for shipment to Cape Town, and then on to restaurants around the world:
I wondered if Shaun could send me an empty box. Janice said no problem; she’d ask her dad right away. With the Canada Post strike and the fact that I had requested an item from faraway Tristan da Cunha, I didn’t expect to receive the box for months. This morning, however, this appeared on my doorstep:
Thank-you Janice and Shaun! I would like to display this on my wall somewhere. I can imagine Tristanians might get a kick out of the idea that someone would want to display an ordinary box on his wall as some kind of artwork, but I find this lid most attractive. Maybe if any Tristanians ever came to my house, they’d feel a bit at home by seeing it.