Lally Brown

Life has gifted Lally with some extraordinary experiences and her desire to share them has resulted in five books to date. The first adventure is ‘HIGH AND DRY IN THE BVI’ an amusing memoir of life in the British Virgin Islands before the arrival of cruise ships. It was the early Seventies and depressed by the British weather and trapped in the numbing bondage of boring jobs, Lally and her husband bought tickets on Fyffes banana boat TSS Camito and headed for Trinidad in the company of Princess Alice of Athlone. For two years the couple worked in the British Virgin Islands, the recreational playground of the rich and famous including Dr. Spock, Rockefeller, Jimmy Carter, Liz Taylor, Jacky Onassis and Jack Cousteau. Lally’s memoir of life on island introduces the colorful characters who lived in the BVI and the 'snowbirds' who flew in for winter. The couple returned to the British Virgin Islands eight years later, with a baby and a toddler. ‘TREEFROGS CAN'T SING’ is the light-hearted story of the family’s three years on Tortola. It’s a lovely warm-hearted memoir of life on a Caribbean island for an expat family. Meet an old friend, the Catholic Priest who liked singing The Red Flag; but watch out for the electrician with the dark and deadly secret; experience a hurricane and the tension on the island as a prisoner is condemned to death; see a baby grow into a boisterous, sandy, sun-soaked boy and a toddler develop into a self-assured little girl. The third book in Lally's Caribbean memoir series is 'DON'T DROP THE DOLPHIN', which finds the family living on Providenciales in the Turks and Caicos Islands. The children are now teenagers studying and taking UK GCE exams by distance learning. Witness DEA drug busts; the arrest of cocaine drug barons; the friendship of newly released hostage (Sir) Terry Waite; being befriended by JoJo, the island's wild dolphin; helping with the rehabilitation of captive dolphins brought from the UK. Chapters include visits to Mexico, United States and Dominican Republic. Lally’s fourth book ‘THE VOLCANO, MONTSERRAT AND ME’ is a unique, compelling and remarkable account of three years living with a dangerous, unpredictable, erupting volcano. Captivating, heartbreaking and heartwarming too, it chronicles the unfolding drama of the 1995 eruption of the Soufriere Hills volcano on the tiny Caribbean island of Montserrat. There is tension, tragedy, stress and fear but there is also much laughter and love. The fifth book ‘THE COUNTESS, NAPOLEON AND ST HELENA’ moves from the Caribbean to the remote South Atlantic island of St Helena, famous as Napoleon Bonaparte's island of exile and death. Lally lived in the house built for Napoleon’s Grand Marshal Count Henri Gatien Bertrand and his family. After helping transcribe some of the original manuscripts concerning Napoleon’s time on island 1815-21 Lally became intrigued with the story of Countess Fanny Bertrand. Using primary source material discovered during her research she decided to write Napoleon’s island story from the personal perspective of Countess Bertrand. This is an accurate and detailed factual account of Napoleon's five and a half years on St Helena written in the form of a 'diary'. As well as writing Lally is a hobby photographer. She first started developing and printing her own black and white pictures in her father's darkroom at the age of thirteen. Her father, a professional photographer, taught her everything he knew. She particularly enjoys taking nature photographs and is extremely lucky to have a very large garden on the Isle of Wight which attracts red squirrels, pheasants, ducks, moorhens, rabbits, butterflies and birds of all varieties.