St Helena is a small volcanic outcrop in the South Atlantic Ocean, settled in 1659. Together with two associated and remote colonies, at Ascension Island and Tristan da Cunha, it is a British dependency under a Governor appointed by The Queen.
The book is a Governor's personal account of four eventful years in the 1990s when he found himself between a rock and a hard place, seeking simultaneously to fend off a policy of cuts in funding from the British Government and the efforts of his Island Government to oppose the policies of structural and financial adjustment that it had agreed with HMG.
Entwined with this story of political trials and intrigue are the establishment of an International Ocean Yacht Race; St Helena's application to join the ICC; the successful restoration of British Citizenship to the Islanders; and news of the first Governor to land on Gough Island in the Roaring Forties.