A body - thought to be that of missing teenager Robert Merton - has been pulled from the sea off St Agnes.

The coastguard and lifeboat recovered the body, which is believed to have been in the water for some time.

There has been no official identification, but police say they may have found the St Martins 17-year-old.

Robert, a well-known gig rower and cricket player, was reported missing after leaving home for a paddle in his canoe on July 26.

His family has been informed of the discovery.

This week’s Islander of the Week is Graham Walker.

Graham is 31 and has lived on Scilly for three years. He works as a delivery driver for the Wholesalers on St Mary’s.

Graham was a tutor for children with behavioural problems on the Wirral in Merseyside before making the move to Scilly. “I was fed up of the ratrace and wanted to start anew,” he explains. “There was a job at the HellBay hotel on Bryher advertised in the local jobcentre and I just thought why not?”

In fact he didn’t even know where he was applying. “I thought it was in Scotland at first, but when I was interviewed on the phone, the lady I spoke to asked me when I could ‘come down’ and I thought surely she means ‘come up’? So I got my atlas out and realised where I was going!”

He stayed on Bryher for three months but found it a little too isolated. “It was also the end of the season and there wasn’t much work.” He had never been off the island since he started and had never been to St Mary’s, but got a winter job at the Bishop and Wolf pub. He followed this in the job-hopping pattern familiar to many islanders, working seasons at the Porthcressa Inn, as a baker at the Co-op, making pasties in Old Town and finally in his current year-round job at the Wholesalers.

In his spare time, Graham is an active member of St Mary’s Theatre Club. It was a hobby he came to purely by accident. “I was out one evening with a friend and he asked me if I wanted to go to the pantomime auditions for a laugh. I said no at first but we eventually went along, expecting nothing to come of it. We were the last ones to turn up and I think people were quite surprised when we walked in!” After reading for a couple of parts, both were surprised to find they’d been cast in major roles.

Since then he has starred in two pantomimes and last year’s summer play, as well as in a play written specifically for the Islands’ schoolchildren by Hall for Cornwall in Truro. “I think it was largely geared towards getting the kids more involved in Theatre Club. We went to visit them and they wrote a play for us to get the kids and adults working together.” The Alice Analysis - performed on two nights last summer – was a success and the move has certainly paid off. Pupils from the school are putting together part of this year’s summer production - and Graham will once more be a part of it.

He says he likes the sense of the community on Scilly, as well as the beauty of the islands and “the tranquility and sense of isolation. There’s very little stress in my life now. I don’t miss the mainland at all – apart from McDonald’s!”

This week?s Islander of the Week is Rev Julian Ould.

Rev Ould has been Chaplain of the Isles of Scilly for almost eight years but admits to some reservations when he was asked to move to the Islands after visiting for several years as a holiday-maker.

?We had an apprehension in that it is a world apart actually living here to coming on holiday, so the parish said come and have a look at it in winter and think about the idea,? he says.

Before moving to Scilly, he had spent four years as curate of a parish of 20,000 in Peterborough, and then of three villages. The decision to move was a difficult one for him, wife Rebecca and their three daughters. ?I asked the parish to tell me all the bad things about the Islands and they were very good, so much so that one of the wardens said ?it?s not that bad, honestly!? But they were honest in as much as the isolation of the community can be difficult sometimes. But we thought we?d give it a go and we loved it.?

As Chaplain of the Isles of Scilly, he looks after six churches, two on St Mary?s and one on each of the other inhabited islands. ?We actually enjoy enormous congregations a lot of the time,? he says. ?Over the winter months, the average congregation in St Mary?s on a Sunday is 30 or 40, but when you think only about 1500-1700 people live here and there?s also a fairly good sized Methodist congregation, that?s quite a good percentage. And then in the summer months, it escalates with the visitors up to 100 plus every week, so in many ways we have much larger congregations than many churches on the mainland.?

It?s a varied job. Scilly is not only a small island community but a unitary authority in its own right, with its own council, which means that as well as looking after the pastoral welfare of both islanders and visitors, he is involved in various community projects, education committees and social clubs.

?It?s a case of being generally involved in the life of the community and sharing that life by being alongside everybody and also being there as a parish priest,? he says. ?I?m approachable, I hope because they know me not just as a priest but as a friend.?

?I actually do know everybody near enough who lives on the Islands and if I don?t know them well, near enough all of them know me, they know who their parish priest is. Many people don?t know who their parish priest is because nowadays we have to cover much larger areas. The difference on Scilly is that there are 28 miles of water separating us from the mainland so there?s absolutely no way they can add anything else to us!?

In that respect the Islands are unique. ?It means there?s hardly ever a baptism, wedding or funeral where I don?t have personal knowledge of the people involved. It also means it?s a great privilege being a priest. I share all the important moments of people?s lives, some of them cheerful, some of them not. It?s a very special sort of ministry.?

And being an island priest certainly keeps him very busy. ?It?s a 24 hours a day, seven days a week job,? says Rev Ould. ?I never feel like I?m off duty. I can honestly say, I don?t think I?ve ever worked so hard in my life.?

He says the way to cope is to enjoy being part of the community, so there?s little distinction between work and normal life. ?A priest?s job is very much like that anyway. My escape is to be involved in social things, like the pantomime. As well as being a great deal of fun, you get to meet members of the community you might not otherwise have dealt with other than saying hello over a shop counter.?

He was asked to do panto soon after his arrival and has been regularly treading the boards ever since. ?I usually end up playing the part of an idiot or a dame, so as my wife says, I don?t really get to do any acting!? he laughs.

Although Rev Ould loves island life, he admits that being cut off from the mainland does have its problems. He has limited contact with the rest of the Truro diocese and is rarely able to attend clergy meetings or make much contribution to the diocese as a whole.

He was meant to be leaving the islands this summer to take a parish in Falmouth but the move has been put on hold and he wont be going anywhere for a while. ?The time is coming when the bishop feels that I need to get back into the swing of things,? he explains. ?But also in any parish you come to a point where you?ve given what you?ve got to give and its time somebody else came in and gave a different perspective to it.

I?ll miss Scilly and all my friends here a great deal. But a move will offer a new challenge and a new opportunity in my ministry. Whether I match up to it or not, I?ve yet to find out!?

This week?s Islander of the Week is Dave Metclaf from St Martins.

Dave has lived on Scilly for 4 years. He is 25 years old and manages the Sevenstones Inn on St Martins.

Dave moved to Scilly along with his family from Cardiff, to run the pub on St Martins. Although he had been working on Bryher the year before as a “slave” hence the nickname “Dave the Slave.”

At the time he had just finished University and having visited the islands since the late 70s he decided that it would be a good move. And a good move it has turned out to be. Although the pub is up for sale Dave has no intentions of leaving the islands because “they are very much home for me now - though i still miss the welsh accent!”

As well as managing the pub he is also a retained fireman on St. Martins, a job which he says he really enjoys.

Dave is a keen gig rower and in the summer plays hockey and cricket whenever the opportunity arises.

Dave says that the best thing about the island is “the community - it?s like living in an extended family, you have lots of relations some you get on with better than others but if your ever in trouble then they will all pull together to help you. I also like the fact that people over here have the time to stop and chat, its very rare to find someone in a hurry.”

Kristine Taylor is the island?s local chiropodist. She moved to the Isles of Scilly in 1979 but had visited the islands since she was a new born baby.

She camped with her family on Bryher every summer.

After Kris married her husband Geoff she went to live in Newport South Wales where her oldest daughter Francesca was born.

Kris and her husband moved to Bryher when her daughter was 1 year old and took over a farm on the island. Her sister Marian was married to Keith Bennett on Bryher. Since then Kris has had 2 other daughters.

Six years ago she trained as a chiripodist and this winter has started a surgery on St Mary?s two days a week. She has now been accepted for registration with the Health Professions Council.

Kris is a member of the Women?s Institute and enjoys walking and meeting friends.

She says the best thing about Scilly is “what we haven?t got.”

Whilst shopping in Ikea in London, or backpacking in the Australian outback you wouldn?t expect to see a little piece of Scilly. But a local artist?s work has been brought all around the world. Richard Pearce lives on Byher with his wife Caroline and has recently become a grandpa! The Golden Eagle Studio is set on the beach, no wonder his work captures the sea and solitude so perfectly. A review of Richard?s Pearce?s recent exhibition in St Just as startling in their reflection of the Islands. Scillynews caught up with the man behind the sparkling reviews.

How the Isles of Scilly inspire your work?
Well the Isles of Scilly is my work! I?ve lived here all my life my very being is inexplicably intertwined with the islands its like a responsibility that?s been handed to me by my ancestors and if I went to a therapist I would probably be told that its a mill stone around my neck.

What you want to achieve with your work?
That?s exciting because of the free way I apply the paint its like a mystery tour I just follow my work and hope it takes me somewhere good. The most difficult thing is keeping the work fresh and new ideas

You have recently had an exhibition in St Just, how did it go?
I believe the Exhibition went well, I tend to avoid contact with the gallery until its all over for superstitious reasons

What are your future plans?
I just take each day as it comes, the paintings just sort of happen and its affected by mood, weather, something I saw or felt or a memory, sometimes I get an idea and If I?m lucky I can apply it to my painting but more often than not I forget.
I do one major exhibition on the mainland and have outlets in a few galleries but I don?t plan to do any more than that, I?ve been approached by a couple of London Galleries but it wouldn?t fit in with what I do here, logistics of getting work out is a big factor lifestyle another, I have to be on Bryher on the beach.

This is a new section for Scilly News looking at the people who live and work on Scilly. This week Scilly News has talked to Dr Mike Gurr from St Mary?s.

Mike is married to Anne and has three children Nicholas, Stephen and Eleanor. He has lived on Scilly since the early nineties but first visited the islands in 1964. In the 1980s he was director of a large Institute of Food Research in Reading but a few years before coming to Scilly, he left the institute and worked as a nutrition adviser to the dairy industry. On coming to Scilly in 1990, Anne and Mike set up their own consultancy business (?Maypole Scientific Services?), which they ran until they retired in 1999. Mike explains ?When clients telephoned us, they always seemed intrigued about Scilly. None of them seemed to have a clue where it was. Some thought it was part of the Channel Islands and others that it was ?somewhere off the west coast of Scotland?!

Mike described to Scilly News what he loved about living on the islands: ?Beautiful land- and seascapes; relative tranquillity; climate; relative lack of crime; thrushes hopping over my feet when I work in the garden! But every place his its drawbacks and Mike thinks that the ?Goldfishbowl? feeling with everybody knowing your business can be tiresome. But also he thinks little animosities can be magnified also it?s difficult to get simple jobs done quickly. Subsequently there is a lack of choice in shops and a ?we?ve always done it like this? attitude.

But the traditional ways of doing things often attract people to live on the islands. Mike says ?When we bought our house and had completed the contract, we telephoned the vendor to say tat we would be down in a couple of weeks and would he please leave the keys with the Estate Agent.. There was a long silence, and then a voice said: ?Keys? ? no I don?t think we have any of those!? Coming as we did from a place where we would not have dreamed of going out for more than thirty seconds without locking the house doors we found it very funny.?

Mike has now retired but still keeps busy as a volunteer for the Wildlife Trust. He is the Chairman of the Board of Trustees. ?Most of my ?spare? time is taken up with IOSWT work. This involves regular meetings with staff to review the work programme, helping to look after the finances, applying for grants and planning future strategy.? But Mike also has many other hobbies on the islands. He is a member of the St Mary?s indoor bowls club, a life member of the Museum Association, a member of the Carreg Dhu Garden Committee and a member of the St Mary?s Hand bell Ringers. Other interests are: gardening, sailing (Drascombe Dabber), piano playing, hand bell ringing, listening to music, reading, growing herbs and making medicinal extracts from them.

Margaret Rowe has been living on the Isles of Scilly over 20 years. She worked as a legal secretary before moving to St Mary?s to live with her mother after the death of her father in 1981. She has been married for 34 years and has a son Peter. Since arriving on the Islands, she has been a commissioned artist and tarot card reader.

?I do my artwork because I can?t help it,? she says. ?I?ve been interested in art since I was four. I remember myself in a field of flower and grain and it was dusky mauve. So I rushed to Woolies to try and find the exact colour because I wanted to paint a big piece of paper, and I was frustrated that I couldn?t find it.?

She soon progressed to painting ?ladies of fashion? and princesses. The turning point came at the age of 17 when she studied under John Tunnard, a Surrealist of the Newland School. The experience opened her eyes. “After a while, he asked if she wanted to see some of his work,” she says. ?I sat and stared at it with my mouth open. I?d never seen a picture like it before. He said to me ?I?ll give you one truth. You can do anything in the confines of a canvas.??

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An embroidered cushion

From then on, she was no longer interested in doing landscapes and seascapes. ?I realised I didn?t have to do all the stereotypical things. I started painting gnomes and goblins, things I saw in my imagination.? She was often inspired by the tarot. She would ask people to pick one of the 78 cards from the tarot and when they chose a character, she would do a painting around that theme.

Her father was unconvinced by the new road her art was taking and encouraged her to “churn out sunsets” and make a good living. But at the time she was busy painting Marilyn Monroe as a snail, bleeding over cinders, ?crying because her life was going wrong. I thought that?s what she?d feel like - a snail going over hot cinders, dying and beautiful at the same time.?

As far as making a living goes, other people?s opinions simply don?t come into it. She has no particular respect for people in authority in the country?s major galleries. ?A real artist paints for themselves. I don?t think wholehearted artists are too commercial. You can never paint for someone else.?

She sees colours swirling around when she goes to sleep at night. Colours are the lullaby that send her into oblivion.
She is also an accomplished poet, although she writes mainly for herself, contributing only to the bi-annual Scillonian magazine.

“I write when it hits me,” she says. “Words fall like pieces of cheese from the sky and I think ?that?s a poem.?
?They usually go well until I reach a big sticking place like a chunk of meat. Sometimes they just don?t solidify. There?s a gestation period when you have to be careful not to chase away the butterfly of inspiration.”

{I dreamed I was lost in a wandering place. Trapped in a maze, in a web of dreams. Drowned in the cream of a curdling dawn, when the nightmare runs with a soundless scream, and I dreamed of a life that is mine to save. And I watched as a beggar man struggled from the grave. Worm in the flesh of a withering vine, stench of decay in a flowering waste, drawn by the sign of a beckoning tomb, driven by hunger,greed and haste. Where the beggar man came from, no one could tell, with a rag and a bone and a sounding bell.Dreamed I was down in a bottomless pit, dropped like a stone to the city?s hell, where overhung buildings strained to meet, and death came walking whence I fell, and I knew that the beggar man read my mind, for mine was the should he sought to find. And the flies came thick and black as coal, and I wept for the man nailed up to die. as they fed on his naked, beautiful place, Combed through his hair and suckled his eye. And the beggar man howled like a fiend possessed. With the mark of Cain on his brow and breast…
~ From Eyes of the Blind
by Margaret Rowe }

It is a peaceful life on Scilly. She paints and embroiders flowers, or draws cartoons; increasingly she is asked to paint landscapes, which have commercial value. But her roots lie in symbolism. Her favourite painting is Rozzamajazz, an abstract representation of her feelings about jazz music.

For her, there is nowhere like Scilly; it is a place of spiritual healing. ?All islands are special. I felt like I?d come home when I came here,? she says. ?It?s like Cornwall before it became commercial.
?You can think of Scilly in two ways - that the sea makes it a prison, or that the sea is an embrace. I think the second. The sea surrounding the place makes it really special. Water is the symbol of emotion. Scilly is a fairytale place, filled with legends. And sometimes looking over to Samson, you can believe it. It?s a balm to the soul.?

She has never travelled further than Exeter and has never felt the need. She has a firm conviction she has done it all before, in another life. ?I?m centred, at rest,? she says.

Margaret still lives with her husband of 34 years. Its a good relationship, although she says they have nothing in common. He is rational and scientific, with his feet on the ground. ?He walks whilst I fly,? she says. ?But I need him to keep me organised, to remind me what the time is and that I have to take out the post.? Sometimes she will paint for hours and not even know what day it is.

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Rozzamajaz, Margaret?s favourite painting