South Africa, today, is in its first day of a three-week "lockdown". The whole country has been shut down, and the army deployed. I remember my first quarantine. We had arrived at Ocean Island -- once described as an "extremely remote corner of Empire". My sister and I had (had) measles. On landing, we were taken straight to a room with a high ceiling and high windows, which was shuttered and dark. I remember the day I was released, as though it were today -- the English boy now released into a magical new world. There was a long footpath in front of me, under tall coconut palms. I walked down the path -- beside it flowers which were a blaze of colour. The island dropped off steeply to my right, to the ocean below, which stretched vast into the distance. OBSERVATION: Wikipedia describes the island as having a coastal woodland. The woodland is "made up mostly of mangoes, flame trees, guavas, tapioca, and common Kiribati shrubs such as the saltbush."
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