I've always wanted to visit Heligoland. The nearest I ever got to it was during a miserably cold off-season (meaning in the depth of a Nordsee winter) "Fürsorge"-financed "holiday" on the island of Langeoog when I was very little and still wetting my bed.
The island is just 70 kilometres or two-hours-and-a-bit away by boat from Bremerhaven. More than fifty-six years ago, I left by boat from the same Bremerhaven to travel for six weeks the 15,000 kilometres to Australia, and now have only two chances left to make it to Heligoland: slim and none ... and Slim has just left town.
However, there's always Freddy Quinn to remind me of what I've missed, the island's homepage, and this interesting hour-long YouTube clip:
To listen to Radio Ankerherz, Heligoland's own radio station, click here
Lächelnd, wie von ungefähr, einen Fleck getupft: Die Insel!
Und dann hat er, gutgelaunt,
Menschen diesem Fels gegeben und den Menschen zugeraunt:
Liebt die Welt und lebt das Leben!." (James Jacob Hinrich Krüss)
And here is Heligoland in winter:
To round things off, I found this chapter in Ben Fogle's "Offshore : in search of an island of my own". The book describes itself as "the story of an incredible, inspiring journey round the rim of the British Isles", ignoring the fact that Heligoland was returned to Germany in 1952.
And, as much as I like Ben Fogle's TV documentaries, YouTube clips, and books (especially "The Teatime Islands"), he's got it wrong when he writes on page 196, "I sat in one of the 'sun boxes' with a bottle of German beer and immersed myself in Erskine Childers' novel 'The Riddle of the Sands', which is said to be based on the island." It isn't, Ben!
P.S. Hooked on Heligoland? Watch more clips here, here, here, and here.
