Julia Ottery

Another lovely lady was a special guest on my bookshow late last year, Julia Ottery. Julia came to the islands in the late 1960's with her husband, Steve and her two sons. She wrote a light hearted book about their life on the islands and some of the funny characters they met or had as neighbours. Like the Parker family who had the farm next door who feature regularly in the book. Within days of the Otterys arriving - quote:
'Ted Parker had been sent to them with a message from his wife "I've been sent because the little Bee wan't so good so she couldn't come herself but she'd like you to come up to see the New Year in and meet the family being as we're neighbours". We were to find that, blasphemy excepted, his vocabulary was limited and conversation minimal. This was one of his longer speeches and that only because his wife had given him the message to be repeated word for word'. In the summer the Otterys' were asked to be godparents at 'Bees' christening and could the christening party be at Julias' place as their house wasn't big enough - a bag of bread rolls was sent around from The Parkers' as their donation to the food. (quote): 'The sudden decision for godliness was mildly puzzling as their marital status was decidedly suspect to begin with
and we had also found the reference to their elder daughter as 'our sin' rather odd'.

Julia, before coming to the islands, used to write to her mother every week to keep her up-to-date with the family. When Julia came to the Islands this tradition continued but she found there was so much happening in their new life that she had to write things down to remember them. She dated each entry & kept the notes in a cupboard.
When her father, a keen gardener, became terminally ill and could no longer get over to visit them on the Islands Julia offered to paint pictures of the wild flowers she saw around her and send them to him. She was approached by a local amateur botanist to publish a book on her wild flower paintings. This she did and is called 'Isles of Scilly Wild Flower Guide'
After her father died her mother said "what about a book dedicated to me?" Julia dug out the notes she had made of their life on Scilly and published them.

When she was on the show I asked her if the characters in the book were for real.
She told me: They were real characters but the names were changed and families were juggled around otherwise people would have been too recognisable.
Julia has written a sequel to 'Pickaxes is Personal' called 'Five Bob Catch Your Own' but this is still in manuscript form. I have read the script and found it more amusing than the first. Julia has a lovely warm humour and it comes over in her writing.

Her book would make a lovely radio series (hint to Radio Scilly) together with her unpublished second memoirs.