I was ready for a change when I began my Isles of Scilly mysteries. I’d spent eight years writing a series set in the crowded South London streets where I grew up. It had been a labour of love, but my imagination needed a break from the traffic-filled city streets, so I chose a radically different environment. I’d been visiting the Isles of Scilly since childhood, and had fallen for its pristine landscape, full of winding paths and uncluttered beaches, gleaming with mica.
The challenge I faced was how to bring a character to life that typified such an extraordinary landscape. I wanted, above all, to create a hero that the islanders themselves would accept as their own. So, I began my research, during a trip to St Mary’s in the spring of 2015. I spoke to people on all five of the inhabited islands, asking about the traits they observed in themselves and their fellow islanders. Two aspects kept on cropping up: resilience and a strong community spirit. It made perfect sense to me. You need a firm backbone to withstand the toughest of winters, when Atlantic storms pound the islands’ shores. And it’s never wise to isolate yourself in a small community, where almost everyone is connected.
One story above all was instrumental in helping me shape Ben Kitto’s character. When I spoke to Peter Hicks, the lifeboat coxswain on St Mary’s, he told me about one of the RNLI volunteers. There had been a terrible storm the previous winter, and the lifeboat had sailed out to save a stricken fishing boat, which needed towing back to harbour. One young man volunteered to jump aboard the trawler in a raging sea. He fell between the two vessels and sustained life-changing injuries. He spent months in hospital, learning to walk again, yet his determination to remain a lifeboatman never wavered. By the following autumn, he was back on duty, despite being fitted with an artificial foot.
I knew that my character needed the same kind of unshowy heroism, and be programmed to help others, whatever the risk. He took shape the moment I named him Benesek, which means blessing, or good will, in Cornish. I wanted him to possess a bone-deep desire to support his community, which I witnessed right across the islands. But he needed flaws too, so I made him shy, especially with women, and prone to obsess over issues that bother him.
Ben Kitto’s personal history needed to parallel the islands themselves. Scilly’s fate has always been inextricably tied to the sea, from the days when Irish pilgrims sailed over, to establish religious communities, through centuries of smuggling, to the fishing industry which endures today. So I made his father a trawlerman who had drowned when Ben was fourteen, and his uncle Ray a master boatbuilder, on the island of Bryher.
Socialising matters in Scilly too, with each of the islands having at least one pub, even though some have less than a hundred permanent residents. Much of Ben’s back story has been shaped by the Rock pub on Bryher, which is run by his godmother Maggie Nancarrow. I know from experience that the pub matters in winter, after getting stranded on Bryher for a week, when storms became too fierce to fly back to the mainland. The majority of islanders battled through strong winds and rain to reach the pub’s warmth, to gossip, or play chess by the log fire. I wanted Ben’s childhood memories to have been shaped by spending many evenings crammed shoulder to shoulder with the other islanders, until they became like relatives.
I took a risk in using real places in all the books, so Ben Kitto would find himself dealing with familiar buildings and people, when he investigates crimes. But I wanted to give him a degree of objectivity too. Many people leave Scilly to go to university or work on the mainland, but plenty return to raise their children there. Ben Kitto’s experience of spending ten years in London, is typical, only to find himself longing for the islands when he hit thirty.
I gave myself a significant challenge when I decided to narrate all the books from Ben’s perspective, first person, as if each story is unfolding in present time. Ben is a colossal six feet six inches tall. So, as well as imagining a male perspective, I had to get used to a totally different physique, which turned out to be fun! I made him a typical islander, keen on wild swimming, and outdoor sports. But we share a passion for watching the landscape. I gave him my favourite walk, to the brow of Gweal Hill on Bryher, to watch nesting kittiwakes and the vast Atlantic stretching almost to infinity, studded with charcoal grey islands, thrown down like pebbles.
I suppose the true test of whether or not a community accepts a fictional character is whether or not they read the stories. I was thrilled to get a message from Mumford’s shop on St Mary’s recently, to let me know that each of the books always sells out on the day it hits the shelves, which helped me breathe a sigh of relief. After eight years spent writing about Ben Kitto and a range of characters, most of whom are based on real people, I’m relieved that the islanders have taken him to their hearts.
Kate Rhodes is the bestselling author Deadman’s Pool, book eight in the Isles of Scilly series, featuring DI Ben Kitto, published by Orenda Books.
