If the popularity of building and survival games like ARK or Minecraft tells us anything, it's that sometimes people want to be left to themselves. Let's take a look at the stories of...
- The leopard man of Skye
- The rich hermit of Redcoats
- Brendon Grimshaw, the hermit with an island
- The Collyer brothers of New York
- Sealand, a micro-nation
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| The weather on Skye can be harsh... (FrankyFromGermany) |
The Leopard Man of Skye
One common view regarding recluses is that they tend to be eccentric - and the "Leopard Man of Skye" certainly fits that image.Tom Leppard (real surname "Woodbridge") would have been a unique character even without his isolated lifestyle. He served in the special forces for 28 years and was awarded a Guinness Book of Records entry for his extensive tattoos. His skin was inked with a dark leopard-spot and saffron yellow design, a look that he sometimes complimented with prosthetic fangs.
Leppard took up residence in the ruins of a cottage on the Isle of Skye in Scotland. This meagre dwelling had packed earth floors, drystone walls with no windows, a reclaimed polystyrene bed and a makeshift roof too low for an adult to stand beneath.
The Leopard Man would make a weekly kayak trip for supplies, subsisting on tourist money and whatever he could collect. After 20 years of enduring the bitter Scottish coastal weather and with age creeping up on him, Leppard returned to civilization to live out the rest of his days amongst friends.
The Rich Hermit of Redcoats
To say the Victorian land-owner James Lucas was an eccentric would be an understatement. After the death of his mother, he became paranoid about his remaining relatives... possibly due to having inherited a large amount of money and shares. He also inherited Elmwood House of Redcoats Green in Hertfordshire, which he barricaded himself inside for 25 years.Lucas lived a strange blend of wealth and poverty. He dressed in an old blanket, had wild hair and an unkempt appearance but lived in a mansion. He viewed the world from the iron bars of his kitchen window and kept a gun at his side... but was happy to talk to passers-by and visitors who had come to see "Mad Lucas" and was supposedly a skilled conversationalist. Indeed, an attempt to get him forcibly committed to an asylum failed since he was clearly both intelligent and articulate.
The hermit of Redcoats received deliveries of milk, bread and gin alongside his mail, and it was a postman who raised the alarm when Lucas couldn't be roused one morning. Police had to break down a thoroughly locked door with a pickaxe, noting that every other possible entrance had been barricaded with timber. Unfortunately Lucas had suffered a stroke and died a few days later, having been transferred to a nearby farmhouse for care.
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| Giant tortoises share the island of Moyenne with a sole human resident... (inselhopper) |
Brendon Grimshaw, the Hermit with an Island
On a holiday in the Seychelles Islands, Brendon Grimshaw was approached by a local lad who asked if he wanted to buy an island. Naturally, Grimshaw said yes.
Moyenne was an overgrown lump of land in the Indian Ocean (apparently falling coconuts couldn't even reach the ground) with a price tag of £1000050, but Grimshaw slowly transformed it into a tropical paradise. Planting 16000 trees and installing 3 miles of pathways made it much more attractive to wildlife as well - around 2000 birds and over 100 giant tortoises now share the island with with the only permanent human resident.
The island gets by with the help of the odd wealthy tourist wanting to experience a scenario right out of a pirate story. Not only does the island feature a bar, it includes ruins, pirate graves and a rumored $45 million in buried pirate treasure.
The Collyer Brothers of New York
Homer and Langley Collyer were the reclusive residents of a house in Harlem, New York. Both were rather odd characters - Homer was a blind admiralty lawyer while Langley was an engineer and pianist with a penchant for paranoia that would prove fatal. They withdrew from the world, eschewing telephones in 1917 while abandoning gas and electricity in 1928.
In addition to the anachronistic lifestyle, Langley was a hoarder - he would drag a carton through the streets at night, looking for junk to add to his collection. The house was so full of junk that the interior became a maze of tightly packed tunnels, each featuring a number of booby traps in case of intruders. This apparent desire for seclusion was sorely tested when the World-Telegram ran an article on them in 1939.
In 1947 Langley stumbled into one of his own booby traps and was crushed beneath a "junk-slide" of his own making. Homer, now blind, crippled and alone, starved to death shortly afterwards. More than 130 tons of accumulated items and material were removed from the house during an attempt to clean it out... but the mass of junk only raised $1800 when auctioned off.
Sealand, a Micro-Nation
The British Isles have always been protected by the sea - any would-be invader must brave the briny depths if they want to get boots on the ground. Complicating matters even further were a collection of off-shore forts built over the years, designed to act as gun-platforms and supply points in the event of an attacking armada.
Of course, these forts became somewhat obsolete as technology improved. Many were either sold off or abandoned - such as HM Fort Roughs, a defense platform jutting from the ocean that would become known as the micro-nation of Sealand.
Sitting 12km off the coast, Sealand was established by a former British army major turned "prince" who moved there in 1966. Reaching a peak resident population of only 50 people, it's not officially recognised by any nation... which has led to a fair number of difficulties. In 1978 a group of German and Dutch mercenaries attempted to storm the island, only to be captured by the armed residents. An official German delegation and ambassador had to be flown in via London to negotiate their release!
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