At about 11:30
I woke up
feeling some pitching motion
in the ship and
aware of the sound of breakers.
A nasty sea had already got up
and Solace had swung round
towards the reef.
We were lying off a lee shore
within 100 yards of the breakers
with a rapidly rising
sea and wind.
Pitch dark
raining
the anchor chain was clearly
foul of a rock
and liable to part
at any moment
and the engine was useless.
This is Rose Clark.
Rose is reading an excerpt
from a book written by her father
Victor
about his trip around the world
in a small wooden sailboat
with only a teenage mate.
This passage is
about their dramatic shipwreck
in November of 1954
on the reef
surrounding a place
in the Pacific Ocean called
Palmerston Island.
The ship was pitching
like a rocking horse.
It had all the appearance
and feeling of having parted.
There was now no hope.
It was a matter of seconds.
I sent Stanley below
for the lifebuoys
and we had scarcely
put them on when the keel
thank God it was an iron one
struck with a jarring shock.
We clung to the rigging
smothered by the seas.
As the ship was held by
oh, it's getting a bit emotional for me.
Okay.
We clung to the rigging
smothered by the seas.
As the ship was held
by the series of crashing breakers
onto the reef.
During the next six hours
the tide fell.
It was barely light
when we saw the islanders coming out to us.
Some in canoes
some over the reef.
There was a lot of long faces
but little was said.
The ship was obviously hulled
though she didn't look a wreck
but what a position to be in
on a reef
exposed to wind and water
on a tiny coral atoll
with only 70 inhabitants
hundreds of miles from anywhere
almost thousands from civilization.
I think I'm a born optimist
but my heart was never nearer my boots
then at that moment.
For Victor Clark
his Mate Stanley
and surprisingly enough
decades later
for Victor's daughter Rose...
This..
is the trip that changed
everything.
Hi, I'm Jonathan Groubert
and this is The Journey.
The Journey is an original podcast
from KLM Royal Dutch Airlines
where we meet extraordinary people
whose lives are transformed
by travel.
The story of the shipwreck
you just listened to
is an excerpt from the book
"On the Wind of a Dream"
written by Rose's father.
Rose is 37
tall
like her father
ginger and
English.
And she knows her dad's stories
by heart.
Her childhood was filled with
tales of his adventures on the high seas.
The whales, the storms and
all the exciting details.
Well
Victor found them exciting.
For Rose…
not so much.
In one sense he would love to tell his stories
you know, if people came around for dinner or whatever
and I think I just switched off.
I think I just didn't realize
how amazing he was.
The one place
the one story
that Victor returned to
again and again was:
the shipwreck
on Palmerston Island.
So it's between
New Zealand and America
in the South Pacific Ocean
probably a bit closer to New Zealand
and it's kind of like halfway around the world from
where I am in England.
And..
it is..
a couple of hundred miles from
the nearest other island
the nearest other Cook Island.
Palmerston doesn't have shops or anything
so we're literally talking
200 miles away
for the nearest shop.
Depending on the time of year
50 to 80 people live on this atoll
that is part of the Cook Islands.
Almost everyone on the island
is a descendent of the original settler
the English sailor and carpenter
William Marsters.
Back in 1863
he brought three Polynesian wives to the island
which is divided up between the three families
to this day.
Palmerston is the only Cook Island
where English is the first language
albeit with some anachronistic usages.
Palmerston is also
without exaggeration
one of the most remote inhabited
places on earth.
And despite having crashed his boat on its reef
that fateful November night in 1954
and being forced to stay here
far longer than he had ever planned or imagined
Palmerston was a place Victor Clark
came to love
deeply.
He always said that..
Palmerston was his favorite place in the world
and his favorite time of life.
We used to joke and say
oh, we know what your happiest time of life.
What about your
your wife and your kids?
And he used to do his raucous laughter
and um..
you know
we all used to laugh about it
it was an incredible time for him
and the people of Palmerston
were on
in his thoughts and prayers every day
for the rest of his life.
Why were the people of Palmerston
in his thoughts and prayers until the end of his days?
Why was his time here
the happiest time
of his life?
Why exactly
was Palmerston so special to
Victor Clark?
Here's why.
Lieutenant Commander Victor Clark
had retired from the British Navy
a mere two months
when he set out on a 33-foot
all-white ketch
a two-mast wooden sailboat
called
SOLACE.
His plan:
to sail the world.
He was having a really rough time in the navy
and uh, yeah.
So wanted to escape and..
have his trip round the jolly world.
Go for an adventure.
And for his trip
Victor needed a ships mate.
My name is Stanley Mathurin.
Born 14 March 1937.
While on the Caribbean island of St. Lucia
Victor met the then 16-year-old islander
Stanley Mathurin.
Stanley was already locally famous
for his sailing prowess
and he was looking for new adventures.
So when Commander Clark turned up in Solace
introductions were made.
He was a retired naval officer
and he knew that my great ambition
was to go to sea
and be a captain.
He figured that was a good opportunity
for me to..
go to sea.
He said that
he liked the cut of my jib
or something like that.
And so the next thing I knew
I was gone.
They left the Caribbean
in January 1954
and set sail towards the Pacific Ocean.
Everything went well until November
of the same year
when Victor and Stanley
stopped at Palmerston.
They had stopped off at Palmerston
and you have to anchor outside the reef
because you couldn't take the boat
into the lagoon.
Well we were on board
and it started blowing
and um
well we figured we better
take up the anchor
and sail away, you know.
What did you think to yourself
the moment you realized
everything was going wrong?
Well, I thought, that's it.
We're thrown on the reef.
Yes, I still remember
what he looks like
and his friend
that he brought with him
from the Caribbean
Stanley
he was only 16
when he came here.
This is Bill Marsters.
He's the son of Tuakana
and Inano Marsters
the family who took Victor and Stanley in
after the crash.
I managed to reach him via Skype
something they have there these days.
Bill was only 6 at the time
but he has vivid memories
of the time of the shipwreck.
It took a great effort
but the islanders managed to
get the badly battered Solace
on the beach.
There were barely any tools and
no electricity, so
everything had to be done by hand.
It took 9 months
to make it sea worthy again.
But when it was
the duo set sail
but used Palmerston as a base
while criss-crossing the Pacific.
All told
they were on Palmerston
for more than 2 years.
Victor and Stanley
enjoyed life on the island greatly.
This is what
Victor wrote in his book.
I shall never cease to marvel
at my good fortune
in getting wrecked on Palmerston.
If I had wanted to get wrecked
and had had the whole world to choose from
I could never have found a better place.
Green waving palm trees
white sandy beaches
trimmed with verdant bushes.
Blue lagoon
cooled by trade wind
no noises other than nature's
wholesome food in abundance
Robinson Crusoe
did not do nearly so well.
As time passed
Bill Marsters remembers
how Victor and Stanley integrated themselves
into life on Palmerston.
He always have
classes for kids to study
about the Bible
and singing hymns.
As you can imagine
the arrival of two new men
for an extended period of time
was kind of a big deal
full of grand moments
carved into the history
of Palmerston Island.
Moments...
like the air drop.
We had to light a fire
so that the pilot could see
how the wind was blowing
in order to know
where to drop his parachute
with all the stuff.
Screws and bolts
and nuts and glue
and stuff
to help with the repairs.
I was all excited.
This boy from St. Lucia
you know
all this is happening to him, you know.
I mean, I was living a dream.
Newspapers worldwide
ate up the story
of the daring airdrop
delivering supplies to a
shipwrecked naval commander.
Victor Clark had some notoriety back then.
Not just because of his daring circumnavigation
of the planet in a tiny wooden ketch.
But also because
Victor was a decorated war hero
who saw extraordinary action
in the Pacific.
He was bombed a few times
in ships in the ocean.
He swum in shark infested water
for a few nights
with a broken arm on a
piece of old barrel or
wood or something.
I think he absolutely believed
that God had his back.
That was always his first in life
is that he knew
that moment he was in the water
that God had his back and
that he would survive it.
Survived the oceans
survived the sharks.
And eventually got rescued..
by someone
and then betrayed
and then he was a Japanese prisoner of war.
Um..
and that is something he never spoke about.
And I think that's a lot to do with
the pain that they all suffered
he saw incredibly awful things.
After the war
Victor was passed over for promotion
and given a desk job.
He resigned
and immediately
began his ambitious trip
around the world
that lasted more than 5 years.
Back in England
at a youthful 68 years of age
he married a woman 30 years his junior
and had two daughters.
Rose was born
when Victor was 72.
Despite his advanced years
Rose says he was an energetic father
and, because he was already retired
always around.
Well..
he was around physically.
Emotionally
he may have been somewhere else...
Here's a tender moment
Rose sent us
of Victor and herself.
He used to love reading us stories.
He would dress up and
knock on the door as a
different character each time
and come and be that person
for a Sunday afternoon.
He was just really fun.
I felt close to him
but it was only when
I was older
at the age of 20
that I realized that
I had dad issues
in that I didn't know anything about
an intimate father.
There had been an emotional distance
between us that I hadn't
probably realized at the time.
I don't think
as a child
I don't remember
affectionate words being spoken to me.
I don't particularly remember ever being told
I love you
by dad.
So as a family
we're not
we're not very..
warm affectionately like that.
I think towards the end of dad's life I
I learnt to say
I love you.
Yeah.
And it was hard
but..
I got there.
Did he ever say it back?
He was in hospital
one time
and I..
was just able to be really honest with him
but he..
I think he just smiled because
he probably actually couldn't talk at that point.
Lieutenant-Commander Victor Clark
died in January of 2005
at 97 years of age.
And as large as he was in life
that is how humble
his funeral was.
As far as mum's concerned
like when a body's dead
it's nothing because their spirit is gone to heaven
and the body's just the body.
So she wasn't precious about this kind of thing at all.
We weren't in a great state when
dad died.
We had like a tiny family funeral
with a few people
and that was it.
Dad had always envisioned
horses with feathers
and carrying his coffin on a
you know
a carriage, you know
like an important person
would have.
Um..
and obviously he definitely didn't get that.
Rose was 25 then.
Meanwhile
she trained to be a special education teacher.
And got a good
but demanding job.
I had been working in a Manchester
central Manchester primary school
as a learning mentor
training as a
therapeutic play worker
to help with the children
that were really troubled.
I loved it
but I
as the years went on
I got increasingly burdened by it
and I just felt more and more useless.
And I didn't know
how to fix these people
that were very broken
and I think that really began
to frustrate and upset me
and it just became too much
and I guess you would say I got
burnt out.
Just like her father
Rose is a devoted Christian.
She walks around with a worn
dog-eared bible
full of notes and comments
written in the corners.
But back then
Rose says she became...
alienated from her faith.
I had begun to slip into..
patterns of life that weren't particularly helpful.
Um, so..
I had started
drinking...
a bit more excessively again.
I had started dabbling in..
smoking weed again
but all the time going to church still
that was the thing.
It felt like I was being really hypocritical
because on one hand I was loving Jesus
and knew that I was
unconditionally loved by him.
But then on the other hand
I was doing things that
were just really not great
for my quality of life and
probably hurting other people
along the way as well I think.
Add to that
a difficult living situation
and a complicated
and unfulfilling love life.
But..
just then
a couple of remarkable things
kind of..
came together.
Her cousin inherited Solace
the sailing boat Victor Clark and Stanley
circumnavigated the world with.
Rose and he were
refurbishing Solace together.
They came across all kinds of
silent witnesses to the long journey
Solace made with her father
like the improvised nails
the Palmerston islanders
used to stitch her together.
She started rereading her father's book
about his voyage around the world.
When she was a child
her father's stories often bored her
but now
for the first time
she found a new appreciation
for her father's amazing feats.
And she was particularly curious
about his time on Palmerston Island.
Yeah. So I was reading dad's copy
of 'On the Wind of a Dream'
and tucked in the front cover
there was a piece of paper
and it had a Palmerston telecom address.
And I thought, wow
this could be my route in.
So I emailed it and
I said, for the attention of Mama Inano.
And I wrote and I said
dear Mama Inano
I have no idea
if you remember who Commander Victor Clark is
but I'm his daughter
and I am wondering if
I could come and visit you
because, you know, Palmerston was a
great time of his life
and he spoke very fondly of you and
Tuakana and all your family
when I was growing up.
So..
can I come and visit?
Tuakana and Mama Inano were
the people who took in Victor and Stanley.
Despite the passage of nearly 6 decades
Mama Inano remembered them very well.
She also told Rose
she was more than welcome.
So..
Rose prepared for the trip to
tiny Palmerston Island
that speck in the Pacific
that played such an outsized role
in her father's life.
She took enough for a few months' travel.
My cousin Tom said to me
are you going to take your dad's ashes?
And I said..
oh..
if I got room I might
you know, it definitely wasn't a planned thing
from my point of view.
I had like a front pocket
on the front of the rucksack
and uh
so I had room
so I took some of dad's ashes
as many as I could fit in a jar.
It was a big old peach jar
that my mom had lying around.
So I stuffed his ashes into this peach jar
screwed on the lid
and thought that'll do.
Why, why would you take your dad's ashes?
Because..
it was..
the place he loved most in the world.
Getting to Palmerston
is still quite a journey.
First Rose flew to LA
followed by a long flight to Rarotonga
the largest and most densely populated island
of the Cook Islands.
Mama Inano happened to already be there
for a medical procedure.
So, the two met on the island.
And together they prepared
for the final leg to Palmerston.
There are no ferries or flights there.
The only way to get there from Rarotonga
is to wait for a cargo ship that
just happens to have Palmerston on its route.
They waited a month for the ship
to take a trip
which even today
is not for the faint of heart.
So..
going across on the journey
you all lie on the deck
like little sardines in a tin.
Wrapped up in my sleeping bag.
We had a tarpaulin over us in case it rained
and to probably cover us from the wind a bit as well.
There were people chucking
chucking over the edge, you know
being sick.
And how long did it take?
It's about
three days. Two nights.
We had arrived at the nighttime
when we were sleeping.
I think the little boy Nariki
he had started to get excited when
he'd peeled up the canvas
to see that we'd arrived
and there was a light in the distance.
And he said to me, oh
this is Palmerston, we're home, we're home.
Yeah. It was amazing.
We get picked up by the little tin boat
you know, the islanders come out
and they pick you and your stuff up
and drive you back across the lagoon.
And I was in the same boat as Mama Inano.
We stepped ashore
and she put her arm around me
and she said
'Welcome my dear.
You have fulfilled your father's dream'
because she knew that he'd
always wanted to come back.
Your eyes are tearing up a little.
Yeah.
Every time.
It hit me that, that was what I was doing.
I was coming to -
because of dad.
Yeah.
So who came out to greet you?
All the island come down.
You know, when they know that family members
are coming back
they'll all come down to the seashore
to welcome you if
if they're physically able. Yeah.
Yeah. So big.
I mean that's a massive thing in itself
you know, they all come and
give you a kiss or two kisses
always two kisses.
I was explaining to them
who I was and they would say
oh yeah, we know
we've grown up hearing stories about
your father.
Bill Marsters explains how Victor Clark
is remembered on the island.
Well, I think he was a really..
a good man
a Christian man
and everybody who was on the island knows him
what he had did for the island.
We never thought that
his daughter will come back
to follow up...
her father's...
route what he did.
Rose settled onto the island
staying with Bill and Mama Inano
- or Grammy
as Rose calls her.
And then she showed them the peach jar
with her father's ashes.
I said to her, listen
I've got dad's ashes.
Is it okay if
I scattered them in the lagoon or whatever?
And she said, leave it with me, my dear.
I'll speak to Bill, her son.
Well...
I just felt that
she were just following up to the, uh..
the history of her father
one of the reason is to bring his ash back
but that's what the really aim.
She said she wanted to come to make
to get approval
from the family
if she can bring her father's ash
and bury besides my father.
I feel really happy about it
because I
my, my father had
a lot of time with him
and they seem to be
worked together
as like brother.
All the Palmerston islanders then
held a memorial service
laying Commander Victor Clark's ashes
to rest
in a manner closer to what
he had envisioned.
Death to them is
much more of a precious thing than
it was to our family, you know
they would think the idea of
throwing him in the lagoon or
something was outrageous.
You know, he needed a proper burial
and they were
you know, they, they were so honored
that I had brought him home
So it was a really
special thing for them.
All the islanders came to the memorial service and
the old mamas that were still alive that remembered him
told their stories and memories about him.
And we sung his favorite hymn.
Um, yeah.
And it was just really special
and definitely felt like
it had been how it should have been.
That's incredibly moving.
Well, I mean, at the time
I was a wreck obviously.
Yeah. All my emotions
that I'd
pushed down for years
came out and I.
Yeah, I definitely cried that day.
And another thing was that
on the day of his memorial
it rained and poured the whole day
and to Palmerston people
rain is such a blessing.
So they were saying to me
oh my gosh, this is God's hand of blessing.
Just the whole thing was amazing.
I love to think that he saw it.
Yeah.
I love to think that he, that you
can look down from heaven
and then see what's going on.
Rose's sojourn on the island
helped her gain insight
into a man she loved
and respected but
barely knew.
Like his inner struggle with God.
Take the story of the
night before the shipwreck.
So he's having a quiet time
on his boat that evening
just spending time like reading his Bible or
you know, with God
and he felt like God said
I want you to stay and teach these people about me.
And being the naval officer he was
he said, sorry Lord, I'm leaving in the morning
and just left it at that.
And it was that night
that the wind changed direction suddenly.
And he got flung on the reef
and ended up staying there for nine months.
Is that how he said it to you?
No, absolutely not.
So I found that out from Mama Inano
when I got to the island.
What did you think when you heard that?
It was amazing.
That makes so much more sense.
Because..
he had always said that on his grave
he would like..
sailor and missionary written.
And I used to kind of laugh at him going
you weren't a missionary
what the heck are you talking about?
But I see now why
that made sense to me more
because he had spent a lot of time
teaching them about Jesus
while he was there
and God's love for them.
Rose says that, after that
she was done.
She'd buried her father in the place he loved most.
Got to know him better
and finally closed off the chapter of his loss.
Time to leave Palmerston Island behind.
Right?
So my plan was to get a cargo ship
to go back to Rarotonga
and fly to New Zealand where
I would be for another few months and then
go back to life in England.
Um..
but what happened is
that a ship never turned up
so I missed my flight.
So the ship never came
Rose missed her flight
and there was one more thing...
Carly.
Yeah.
She was seven or eight by then.
Carly had behavioral difficulties
and they didn't really know how to deal with her.
She wasn't able to start school
until they could get the funding
for somebody to come and
specially work with her.
At that point
the local school principal found out that
Rose had experience working with kids
with special needs.
So, of course
the principal…
asked Rose to stay.
I said, 'no way.
This is a tiny island
hundreds of miles away from anywhere else
and I am not going to stay here.
But thank you anyway'.
Um...
and then I think my conscience began to get the better of me
because I realized that
if I walked away
she would not be a seven or eight year old
who hadn't started school
she would be a nine, 10, 11 year old that
hadn't started school
and hadn't had that chance for education.
I totally believe
that God uses his word to speak to us at
situations where we need guidance.
So the next morning I was walking around the beach
doing my daily walk
and there was a weird strip of
red water right by the water's edge.
It was bright red.
A couple of hundred meters worth.
And um, God spoke to me about the Red Sea
and how he had parted the waves for the Israelites
to leave Egypt to their freedom.
Um, and...
just said to me, in my spirit
I'm going to make a way where
there seems to be no way.
I knew what I felt God was saying to me.
Um...
and then just thought, okay
there's nothing else I can do now.
I'll stay on Palmerston.
So..
you plan to leave
something happens that intervenes
you change your mind and
you decide to stay.
Where have I heard this story before?
You have heard that with my dad.
So for him
it was like a little argument with God
and for me it was a
God saying
this is the shape hold that I've carved out
that you fit perfectly into.
And it didn't take a shipwreck
for me to say, okay, I'll stay.
A religious person would listen to this story and say
"She read God's signs correctly."
Others might say
"she was looking for reasons to stay."
Whatever you believe
Rose, who, like her father before her
had no intention of staying on
one of the most isolated places on earth
decided that, for now
Palmerston Island..
is home.
And this is what Rose's routine was like.
So Carly was only in school for a few hours a day.
So then in the afternoons
I would go into the main classroom
and help out with all the other
20 however many kids.
Rose says time is a relative thing on Palmerston.
One day is much like the next.
There is abundant fresh food.
Limitless sunshine.
And, Rose didn't exactly say this
but I'll say it
a sense of purpose.
The feeling that she was there for a reason.
In this new environment
far away from everything familiar
she could reinvent herself.
I thought, okay
I'm going to try and live life without alcohol.
And for me alcohol had been a real confidence thing
especially..
socially.
It had always been a bit of a crutch for me.
So, um, to try and integrate into a little community
without my false
crutch of alcohol
was a challenge.
But, you know, it was one that I overcame
and managed it.
After that I never drank alcohol again.
And Rose changed her life in other small
but significant ways..
Apart from the alcohol thing
I would never step out the house
without a tonne of eye makeup
because I literally thought that I was gross
and like people wouldn't want to see me
as I am today
but when I got to Palmerston
I thought, okay
here's my chance.
These are people that have never known me with makeup
so they're not gonna know anything different.
So then I stopped wearing makeup.
That's a tiny, insignificant thing to a lot of people.
But to me that is just so freeing.
How long did you stay in the end?
Four and a half years.
Because I loved it.
There was no reason
not to be there.
I just really loved it.
I loved that slower pace of life.
I loved learning how to enjoy my own company.
At the end of four years
the day came that Rose
returned to Britain.
Bill and Grammy gave her a send off
befitting the departure
of a member of the family.
Took me to the beach where we always say goodbye
when anyone's leaving.
Same as when dad was there
big semicircle of people all gathered.
And then they sang their Maori songs
traditional Maori song that
they sing when people go
um, and yeah
then all the kissing begins
and all the tears obviously this time
because it was a final goodbye.
Um, yeah..
So very emotional.
Especially saying goodbye to Grammy
because I knew that
it would probably be the last time that I saw her
because she was well into her eighties already.
So that was really hard.
I think I tried to tell myself that
I would see her again
just to make it easier
but I mean we both knew that
we wouldn't this side of heaven.
So yeah, that was hard.
She, she like physically found it difficult to let go of me.
Yeah.
Psalm 121, verse eight.
The Lord shall preserve thy going out
and thy coming in
from this time forth
and even for evermore.
And that's what they read for your father, right?
Yeah. And for me.
I think it's just a real send-off
you know, a real beautiful send-off.
Now when you were standing on..
that yacht
and looking back at the island
as the trees and the sand
were fading in the coastline
what went through your head?
Uh, I, I went to the...
end of the boat and just sat looking out to it.
Yeah. And crying turmoil.
Yeah.
Rose has been back in England
for a year and a half.
She works for a charity
and loves it.
And she says her time on Palmerston
has changed her for the better.
Are you happier?
Yeah, definitely.
Yeah.
I feel like I went a prisoner
and came back free.
I've learned lessons and
I've carried them back into this busyness
and I'm determined not to get
caught up in the rat race again.
Do you understand your dad better, you think?
Yeah.
What part of his life do you think you understand better?
His need to find..
a purpose
and..
just to run away from all the crap that life brings sometimes
and go and
I hate that expression
find yourself
I guess for both.
Well, for me it was to find..
God in a more intimate place.
Yeah.
And just to experience
the most loving people I've ever met
honestly
they definitely gave me a different outlook on life
without a doubt.
Yeah.
You think you'll ever go back?
Yeah, I'll go back.
Definitely.
And whether that is to live for years
or just to visit for months
I'm not sure
but I will without a doubt go back.
Your father said that...
his time on Palmerston was the happiest..
in his life.
How about you?
For me, I can say the same, as well.
If he were alive today
sitting here in this room
what would you say to him?
I love you so much, dad
and thanks for being an inspiration.
Rose
Clark.
If you'd like to see pictures of Rose's time on Palmerston
or if you'd like to listen to an interview Victor Clark gave
to the Imperial War Museum
about his time in WW2
we will put them on our website:
podcast.klm.com.
Go and look
go listen
they are fascinating.
This was the last episode
of the first season
of The Journey.
An original podcast brought to you by
KLM Royal Dutch Airlines.
To hear more stories about
the trip that changed everything
go to podcast.klm.com.
And why not review us
on Apple Podcasts.
It helps other listeners find this podcast.
Thank you so much for listening.
I'm Jonathan Groubert.
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