Posted on 08/24/2013 11:40:16 AM PDT by EveningStar
Tom Christian, known as the Voice of Pitcairn for his half-century-long role in keeping his tiny South Pacific island, famed as the refuge of the Bounty mutineers, connected to the world, died at his home there on July 7. Mr. Christian, Pitcairn’s chief radio officer and a great-great-great-grandson of Fletcher Christian, the mutiny’s leader, was 77.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
ping
I can’t help but be reminded of the 1935 film, and the books comprising The Bounty Trilogy.
“Mutiny On The Bounty”,”Men Against The Sea”,and”Pitcairn’s Island”.My father gave them to me as a boy and I read each through a number of times!
It’s a crazy place this island, I was just reading a book about it. The movies are all fantasy, and not about the life on the island.
Pitcairn Island - a place I would never want to take children if they were girls.
Infamous Pitcairn Island child rape case: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/australasia/evil-under-the-sun-the-dark-side-of-the-pitcairn-island-880226.html
The Bounty Trilogy...
I only actually read “Men Against the Sea”, which details Bligh’s heroic open-boat-voyage across 3000 miles of the Pacific.
I have seen the 3 movies, starring Clark Gable, Marlon Brando and Mel Gibson, as Fletcher Christian. These movies made me a student of this historic mutiny. My research compels me to state that the Mel Gibson “Bounty” is the most historically accurate.
Bligh never was the cruel “Captain” depicted in the Gable or Brando movies.
He did not even attain the rank of “Captain” until long after the Bounty episode.
Of the 3 movies, the 1935 Clark Gable offering from Hollywood was the most ludicrous, utilizing white, American girls in dark make-up to play the role of Tahitians.
Still, the Mutiny on the Bounty is a most fascinating subject of research.
I was very disappointed that the Bounty, re-made for the Brando movie, had sunk. It used to be docked in St. Pete, FL, where I spent some of my early years...
The original Bounty’s still underwater just off Bounty Bay on Pitcairn. I get their monthly newspaper, published on the island, and available online at http://www.miscellany.pn/. The July issue had coverage of this story.
No, but he did have an amazing proclivity to incite, or at least get in the way of, mutinies.
He was later in life governor of New South Wales, and the local militia mutinied against him.
What an appalling story.
Of course, the Pitcairn Island culture is probably as much Polynesian as English, and maybe child rape is a cherished part of their culture.
Who are we to impose our values on them?
or at least get in the way of, mutinies.
That’s true. He was later the victim of yet another mutiny on a ship that he captained. But, perhaps, this may have been precipitated by knowledge of his earlier history and the further “liberalization” of British naval practices.
The further watering of the Grog ration, perhaps...
For an excellent read on this subject, I would suggest Jack London’s The Seed of McCoy.
Looked up a bit about him.
After the Bounty affair, he was involved in two more shipboard mutinies, but those were more general affairs where British sailors during the Napoleonic Wars basically went on strike for better conditions. Nothing specifically to do with Bligh.
The Rum Rebellion, OTOH, in Oz happened because as governor he tried to enforce the law against wealthy, powerful and oppressive settlers.
“...without the men, “you might as well pick Pitcairn up and throw it away, because no one is going to survive”.”
Sounds like a possible place to go ex-pat to, considering how things are going here. A far away island in need of a larger population.
There had been a Polynesian population on the island earlier but it was uninhabited when rediscovered by the British.
Hey, the Brits are looking for emigrants to the island, ‘coz the natives are dying out!
I remain disappointed that that version has not yet been released as a Director's Cut on Blu-ray. It was excellent.
And it had an EXCELLENT sound track, too (by Vangelis).
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