A FORMER prison governor will leave Fetcham to run a jail on a remote South Atlantic island.
Martin David, of Canon Grove, has resigned as assistant governor of HMP Coldingley in Bisley and will move to the British overseas territory of St Helena – more than 1,000 miles off the coast of Angola – with his wife and two daughters.
Mr David, 44, will run the prison, HMP Jamestown, and will set up a new probation service on the island, which is about twice the size of Guernsey.
"It's still a big unknown," he said. "We are all excited and nervous because the kids have got to come out of school and go to school on the island and my wife has given up work. There are about 4,000 people on the island. To put that into perspective, that's about half the size of East Horsley so it's very small.
"The whole country is very Anglicised but the population is very mixed ethnically. St Helena was populated because it was on the trade routes.
"It was safe, free from diseases and had clean water, so it developed as a stopping place for ships. Over the years quite a varied population developed there."
Mr David, his wife Julie and daughters Phoebe, nine, and Lottie, six, will move to the island for two years.
"We've been well looked after by the small ex-pat community on the island," he said.
"In return we've got to take a few goods out for them. One guy wants a copy of the Telegraph and others want copies of a couple of magazines you can't get out there."
Daughter Phoebe said: "I'm excited and nervous at the same time. I have seen pictures of our house but not really any other pictures. I'm pen pals with a girl called Mia, who is ten and in Year 6. Her mum is a lawyer out there and I've been speaking to her for a couple of months."
