The Queen of Whale Cay
by Kate Summerscale
In December 1993, a letter arrived at the Daily Telegraph
obituaries desk where Kate Summerscale worked, from a woman who had noticed her
godmother's name in the death announcements column of the newspaper. She had not seen her
godmother, Marion Carstairs, in decades, but wondered if they might like to publish a
piece about her. Enclosed with the letter were a few newspaper cuttings recording
Carstairs' motorboat triumphs of the 1920s and her decision to exile herself in 1934 to an
island in the Bahamas. After talking to the goddaughter and reading cuttings filed in the Telegraph
library, Kate put together a piece about 'Joe' Carstairs as she was known. But the piece
was not enough for Kate; the more she read the more intriguing Joe Carstairs became. As
each layer of her strange life unfolded, Kate knew there had to be another way of
recording the uniqueness of this woman. What has come out of that bizarre obituary request
is a fascinating biography of an extraordinary woman that is as quirky and witty as its
subject - a woman champion motorboat racer of the 1920s who bought and became 'ruler' of
her own island in the British West Indies.
Joe Carstairs was born in London in 1900, the daughter of a Scottish colonel and an
American heiress. Educated in Connecticut, she returned to Europe in 1916 and drove
ambulances for the Women's Legion in France. She deserted her husband at the church door
(marriage was a prerequisite of her coming into her $4 million inheritance) and settled in
England where she took up racing, established a boatyard at Cowes and won nearly every
trophy going. In the 1930s she started travelling widely, finally moving to the West
Indies where she bought the island of Whale Cay. There she developed the island into a
populated community, building everything from roads and schools to lighthouses and
churches. Carstairs then succeeded in establishing hegemony over the 500 islanders,
controlling not only their sexual morals, but also their diet. In 1944 she built a
deepwater harbour for the Royal Navy's use and, without a word to her population, left the
island to build warcraft in Florida, where she settled for forty years, ran a steamship
freight line and set up a chain of airports. Kate Summerscale's brilliant biography brings
out of obscurity a woman whose very boldness took her beyond fame and notoriety.
Born in 1965, Kate Summerscale was brought up in Japan, England and Chile. She took a
double-first at Oxford, an MA in Journalism from Stanford University, Ca., and for some
years wrote and edited obituaries on the Daily Telegraph. Now, she writes
features for the Telegraph.
Title information
The Queen of Whale Cay by Kate Summerscale, Fourth Estate, London
1997, 248pp, £12.99, ISBN: 1-85702-360-9
US Edition
Hardcover, 256 pages - Published by Viking Press - Publication date: May 1998 --
List: $21.95
Your Price: $15.37
ISBN: 0670880183 -- click here to
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