I was prepared for life in the South Pacific to be different to the way things are on Coll. I was prepared for some similarities and some surprises. What I was not prepared for, however, was a simple question I was asked by somebody who lives here on the most remote island I have ever been to, over three hundred miles from its nearest neighbour, with no electricity, one boat every six weeks, two planes a month, and only two incomers in the whole population. What I was asked was:
"Do you know Ian Cochrane?"
I looked in amazement at the man who asked me this. There had to be a mistake. Here I was, on the other side of the world, on a South Seas island, and somebody asks me, out of the blue, if I know Cocky. My mind raced. "It must be some sort of hoax", I thought. "Perhaps this is `Game for a Laugh'." I looked around, expecting to see Alan Brodie trashing another Lunghi-mobile off in the distance. But no, the man just looked at me expectantly. This incredible occasion clearly warranted a momentous reply.
"Errr - yes" I said, shakily, and sat down.
"I thought you would. We met in a pub in Glenshec in the summer and had a few beers."
I felt weak. At this rate I thought, I was going to meet the Poll Tax inspector next, closely followed by Hamish telling me I had left my car in the way at the pier for over six months, or something like that. Amazement was no longer strong enough to describe what I was feeling, and I had to resort to astonishment.
If the man talking to me had not been one of the two incomers I think my brain would have given up there and then. And I realised that, yes, improbable though it may be in this part of the world, he did have a Glaswegian accent. He continued.
"Perhaps it's not the same guy," he said "This one lives on the west coast - Coll I think - and set fire to his caravan."
"Three times", I thought, but said nothing.
We sat down and talked some more and it turned out that, yes, it definitely was the Ian Cochrane he was talking about. No doubt about it. I always knew Cocky was well known - some would say infamous - but this was absurd. I was literally as far from Coll as it is possible to be without going to the moon. This guy had heard that I had lived on Coll, remembered back to his holiday and that was all there was to it. So Cocky can justifiably claim to be world famous and I realised that it is impossible to ever fully escape from the clutches of Coll, even on the other side of the world.

Steve Price-Thomas left Coll in June 1993 after 4 years on the island and now looks after VSO's programme in the South Pacific. You can write to him at: PO Box 14910, Suva, Fiji, South Pacific.