No Restaurants, Lawyers or... Loneliness: Life on the Remotest Island

<p>The first multiple blind dates in the world are believed to have taken place in April 1827. The story goes that Thomas Swain, a 52 year old bachelor, had vowed to take the first woman to step ashore the world’s most remote island. Her name was Sarah Jacobs, a widow, and Thomas Swain took her hand as soon as she put her foot on the island.&nbsp;The four other women who had arrived with Sarah Jacobs married the four other bachelors on the island.&nbsp;</p><br><p>From those beginnings, the island population at Tristan da Cunha grew exponentially.&nbsp;</p><p>By 1832, just five years after the five women arrived, Tristan had a population of 34--22 of them children.&nbsp;</p><p>The solitary outpost which had been a British garrison had become a community.</p><br><p>Today, it is still the most isolated island in the world where people live and Tristan da Cunha is located in the middle of the ocean between two continents.&nbsp;&nbsp;The residents who live there, all 247 of them, understand a type of loneliness like no one else. But their isolation has, for hundreds of years, been a place that others have learned from: how to survive away from anyone else.</p><br /><hr><p style='color:grey; font-size:0.75em;'> See <a style='color:grey;' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'>acast.com/privacy</a> for privacy and opt-out information.</p>