Times of the Islands Summer 2016

I first came to Grand Turk 22 years ago to visit my
mum, Sue, who had recently moved there from the UK to
be with her then-boyfriend Xavier Tonneau, known locally
as Mr. X. They ran the Turks Head Hotel and I stayed a
few months to help out around the place. Grand Turk
and Salt Cay struck me as fantastic places to take pictures,
especially for my particular style of photography.
Of course back then, everything was on film(!) so I had
to wait until I got home to process the film in a rented
darkroom in Islington, London.
Over the next ten years or so I would visit the Islands
often, sometimes for a few weeks, sometimes months,
helping with various projects Mum and X were up to. X,
an artist, musician, and chef, was something of a celebrity
in the Islands and people would turn up from all over
the world to have a drink with him and buy one of his
famous maps (which are still sold in TCI.)
My last long stint on Grand Turk was immediately
after Hurricane Ike hit in 2008. Sadly, Mum and X had
both died years prior and I and my two brothers and
sister had inherited the building on the corner of James
Street and Pond Street. The hurricane totally flattened the
building along with many others. We decided we would
re-build, so the four of us spent a month putting the basic
structure back together. I stayed on with my sister Hazel
(who is still there) to finish and get the building up and
running as shops and apartments.
These photographs come from that period of about
two years, early post-Hurricane Ike. I spent many happy
hours wandering the back streets of Grand Turk and
(occasionally) Salt Cay photographing people and things.
When photographing people it’s best to become familiar
and unobtrusive—to be seen with a camera all the time is
the best way to achieve this.
When I returned to the UK, I met Katie who is now my
wife and we bought a house in Hay On Wye in the Black
Mountains on the Welsh side of the border with England.
We renovated the house and run a B&B; Katie teaches
yoga and I work as a carpenter and still take pictures.
Felix Thomson
36 www.timespub.tc