The Isle of Wight

Prompted by this controversy in the national press, how do we feel about the Isle of Wight?

Despite my mockery of the island to tease Halo, I’m a fan. Considering moving there after the kids are grown up.

The Ofsted chair, David Hoare, has come under fire for describing the Isle of Wight as a poor “ghetto” that suffers from inbreeding.

Hoare, a former City banker, said the island was blighted by a “mass of crime, drug problems [and] huge unemployment,” as well as underperforming schools.

His extraordinary comments provoked a strong backlash from people on the Isle of Wight, where the council leader, Jonathan Bacon, condemned Hoare’s remarks as “an insult to the proud and hardworking Isle of Wight community”.

Ofsted also moved swiftly to distance itself from its chairman, insisting that Hoare’s views “do not reflect the views of Ofsted or the chief inspector [of schools]”.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/aug/05/ofsted-chair-david-hoare-isle-of-wight-poor-ghetto

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I found it a bit bonkers to be fair.

Everyone is related to each other, all the surnames end the same, the landscape, while fascinating, gets boring within a day and a half, and the cost of drinks was extortionate.

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Racist and disgraceful.

Only ever been twice, both times for extended weekends.

Mind, both those weekends were for Bestival. If that’s what the Isle is like, I’m a big fan.

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Actually, I think I might be getting it confused with Iceland.

Is the Isle of Wight the one with the glaciers and the Blue Lagoon?

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I think that most of us from the mainland are glad its there.

Helped Southampton grow as a port and city due to the double tides. Not a bad place to go to for a few relaxing beers during the summer.

keeps the grockels moving through the forest to the ports ie they don’t hang about on the mainland.

All in all we should keep it.

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Originally posted by @pap

Prompted by this controversy in the national press, how do we feel about the Isle of Wight?

Despite my mockery of the island to tease Halo, I’m a fan. Considering moving there after the kids are grown up.

The Ofsted chair, David Hoare, has come under fire for describing the Isle of Wight as a poor “ghetto” that suffers from inbreeding.

Hoare, a former City banker, said the island was blighted by a “mass of crime, drug problems [and] huge unemployment,” as well as underperforming schools.

His extraordinary comments provoked a strong backlash from people on the Isle of Wight, where the council leader, Jonathan Bacon, condemned Hoare’s remarks as “an insult to the proud and hardworking Isle of Wight community”.

Ofsted also moved swiftly to distance itself from its chairman, insisting that Hoare’s views “do not reflect the views of Ofsted or the chief inspector [of schools]”.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/aug/05/ofsted-chair-david-hoare-isle-of-wight-poor-ghetto

This is something that I heard many years ago. A relative who worked in local government, had been involved in a report which had identified that the IOW had the highest levels of muttation in the country.

The IOW is ok if you fancy going back in time 40 years.

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Hoare, a former City banker, said the island was blighted by a “mass of crime, drug problems [and] huge unemployment,” as well as underperforming schools.

Yeah, those comments aren’t that wide of the mark TBF, the inbreeding one I wouldn’t know but it does tend to happen in a closed community!!

Born and raised on the IOW but haven’t lived there for 20 years. Great place to grow up until you reach adolescence and then it’s limitations begin to bite. For me, it was the lack of higher education, bands and football. Lovely home-grown though…

Low educational standards are seen in coastal communities across the UK and are a consequence of lack of investment and opportunity for pupils and teachers (and their families) alike. Regarding inbreeding, the guys comments tell you all you need to know about Ofsted’s prejudice - I can match them by referring to the well known inbreeding located in the upper and monied class’s. It’s why they’re all such massive cunts.

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Hoare might have a point about the poor educational standards and high unemployment etc, but his comments on inbreeding are based on ignorance and lazy stereotyping.

Over the past couple of centuries many groups of people have left their genetic imprint on the Island; indeed, the Island gene-pool has probably undergone far more mixing than most areas, for reasons that include the following:

  1. Before the advent of decent road systems, coastal communities, such as the Island’s, moving about by sail, were often far wider travelled than inland communities.
  2. Unlike vast swathes of Britain up to the late 1700s, the open field method of farming, whereby agricultural workers were tied to the same strip of land for generations, was largely obsolete on the Island; instead, the agricultural labouring classes were forced to travel to wherever they could find work. Also, agricultural workers from the mainland often had to be brought over to the Island to help bring in the harvest.
  3. Due to its strategic location, the Island, for many generations, had a large permanent garrison of troops, and for many years served as the recruiting depót for the Militia/Army as well as the East India Company. For instance, in the Napoleonic Wars, when the population of the Island was little more than 20,000, there was a constant influx and outgoing of several thousand British and foreign troops.
  4. The Island became a tourist destination for the monied and landed classes from the late 1700s onwards. Over the centuries this evolved into the mass-market tourist industry that exists today.
  5. Since the first rotting prison hulks were moored off Cowes in the early 1800s to house poor souls awaiting transportation to Australia, the Island has been home to several prisons with their associated prison officer population; the latter almost exclusively recruited from the mainland.
  6. From c1830 to c1950 the Island, due to its climate, was considered the best place in Britain for convalescing TB patients, who arrived from all over Britain and abroad, along with their servants etc; not to mention all those employed to care for them.
  7. There were several German Prisoner of War Camps on the Island during and after WWII.
  8. From 1968 the Island has played host to various music festivals. Estimates of up to 500,000 loved-up hippies attended the 1970 one.

All of these groups of people have helped to mix the local gene pool.

I could go on; but, it being Friday night, it’s high time for me to take some drugs, commit a crime and call in at my sister’s.

Not necessarily in that order.

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I always thought Halo such a clean edged sort as well, although this is not unwelcome news.

The IOW has a large skate population, so the inbreeding is probably fair comment TBH. :innocent:

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Went…

Looked…

Caught earlier ferry back.

The End

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Last time we went for 5 days…it rained and blew a hoolie. The dog barked constantly and we came home after 3 days…cold wet and nerves burn to a frazzle…but what do you expect for mid-summer.

The best thing about the IOW is the beef suet crust pie at the Taverners in Godshill. It is worth going just for that.

Hoare has only himself to blame. If he’d only made those comments about Portsmouth nobody would have batted an eyelid (apart from a few Portsmouth residents, who’d have batted all six).

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There was talk of building a tunnel from the island to Titchfield.

Bollocks to that. If anyone’s claiming the island, it’ll be us. When I move back down there, something will be done, you’ll see. Even it’s just me screaming “dig, man, DIG!” while horsewhipping a plastic spade-wielding bletch.

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Only been to iow 3 times, once camping aged about 21, then iow festival and bestivalso. I remember the camping trip as the local pub was also the local shop and taxi driver in the village. We stayed in a rather odd b&b for the iow festival.

At work I sit next to a guy from iow he often says it’s a little in the past.

Not sure the ofsted guy is doing himself any favours. Wondering why an ex Etonian banker is a chair of ofsted. He had something to do with academies so must be that. But maybe needs to work on his empathy.

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I have been to the Isle of Wight so many times as a child, found it fine unoffensive with enough to do for a day or a long weekend. Beyond that, gets a little boring. Cycled around it once, but a bit samey. When I was younger the PO post code wax a huge negative, along with the amount of skates that live there.

I remember buying the Saints pony tick replica top from the only sports shop that supplied Saints tops on the island on the day it came out, while on holiday in Sandown, or Shanklain (not sure if that is how it is spelt).

Going to go there between 12-19th August while down in the forest on a family camping holiday. The wife and kids have never been, so on the red funnel for the day it is.

There are much better places to visit on the mainland, but that does not mean it is nice there!

What few people realise, is that as little as nine years ago, the Isle of Wight was under threat of invasion.

Two sozzled sailors were arrested after being rescued from a dinghy dressed as pirates - armed with pistols, a cutlass and a bottle of rum.

The pie-eyed pranksters - sporting black beards, long curly wigs, waistcoats and tricorn hats - ran into trouble after heading out into the English Channel to “conquer the Isle of Wight”.

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