Talking Location With author Susan Roebuck – Madeira

3rd November 2018

#TalkingLocationWith… author Susan Roebuck, creator of “Joseph Barnaby“, a Madeiran Romance.

Taken at the spot where Winston Churchill used to paint. overlooking Câmara de Lobos (where “Joseph Barnaby” is set, called Ponta Estreita in the book)

First of all, a little introduction to Madeira. It’s a Portuguese archipelago – that’s right, an archipelago – made up of four islands: Porto Santo, Madeira, the Deserta Islands, and the Ilhas Selvagems (Wild Islands).

Madeira is the largest but Porto Santo was discovered first in early 15^thcentury (thank you Henry the Navigator). It’s a 90 minute plane journey from Lisbon. Ten minutes before the end of your journey, when the plane’s descending, those on the left side will get a glimpse of the small island with it’s one kilometre stretch of beautiful golden sandy beach. The plane (wind conditions permitting) then lands with a thump on the fairly short runway. There’s not much flat space for an airport on mountainous Madeira.

What a difference to the island of Porto Santo such a short distance away! Madeira is volcanic, its beaches black and pebbly and mostly inaccessible, and very mountainous. It’s a beautiful, temperate island hosting a plethora of fascinating plants and wildlife and home to one of the world’s last laurisilva forests.

Why did I set Joseph Barnaby there? My husband was born on the island and we visit it often. Joseph (the main character) has reached the end of his tether and cannot face the world any more. He needs to get away to the far end of the world. And what better place? One of the pebbly beaches that is only accessible by boat. It’s called a fajã which isa flat area of land at the bottom of a steep escarpment or cliff. Often formed on the islands of Madeira and the Azores from volcanic lava flow before it was stopped by the ocean. Joseph’s fajã is just wide and long enough to be farmed.

This is the view that Sofia, niece of the farmer on the fajã sees when she looks down on it from far above:

“…the farm stretched to the rocky grey-pebbled beach where the white veil of surf broke on the grey and black shoreline of the Fajã. Her uncle’s Quinta dos Françesessat at sea-level where he farmed two acres of vineyards, an acre of banana trees and another two of fruit trees and bushes, not including the vegetable patches, goats, chickens and a donkey. The red-roofed farmhouse had been built on a small hillock, the highest point of the Fajã,at the far western end surrounded by a verdant array of overhanging passion-fruit creepers and a vegetable garden. Next to the farmhouse was the washhouse, then the farm-worker’s cottage. Behind them were the fruit orchards, and the wine-cellar barn. Next in line was the toolshed, flanked by another fruit orchard. And there, at the far western end, sheltered from the sea by a black stone wall, were her beehives.”

And here is Joseph Barnaby sitting quietly on a rock on his first day:

“Joe threw his banana skin into the waves as they lapped the beach. For such an isolated place, it was full of noise: waves breaking on the shore, leaves rustling in the wind, cicadas creaking their back legs off, birds twittering and calling to one another in the fruit trees before bedding down, and wailing gulls that only seemed to come out in the evening and at night, and which, he’d been told when he’d asked in the bar in Ponta Estreita, nested high up in the cliffs. They sounded like a baby crying.”

What better place to hide away from the world?

What better place indeed! Thank you to Susan who clearly loves bringing location to life in her writing! You can follow her on Twitter and find out more via her website. You can buy her book through the TripFiction database from your favoured bookseller

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