"I VERY MUCH ENJOY LIVING HERE"

Glynn Burridge is a writer and a legendary figure in Seychelles.
The compelling nature of his story lends an air of mystery to his work...
" My name is Glynn Burridge, I'm English born, but grew up in Iran where I lived for about 20-23 years.

I was working for an Iranian family who, in 1975 bought one of the outer islands of the Seychelles, called D'Arros. When in 1979, the Islamic Revolution took place, we had to leave.

We came here and had a decision to make. I had never lived near the sea before, or in such an environment. It was a decision between staying in Seychelles or going to Europe, of which I didn't have much to say. My boss said to me, "make" a decision, and I replied. "Well, I'm going to try Seychelles."
I'm delighted that I did!

I ran his private estate for 20 years, from '79 to '99, then I came to the Seychelles. In the meantime, I had become Seychellois citizen, and then I was kind of kidnapped by tourism. Because I'm a writer, I know Seychelles well. Those years when I was living on the outer islands, were of great profit to me, basically visiting most of the islands in the Seychelles, we have 115 islands, even as far away as Aldabra.
20 years later, here I am, a very happy Seychellois, and I very much enjoy living here, I can't actually imagine living anywhere else, it's as simple as that.

There are a number of things that are unique about the Seychelles, if you look at the Seychelles in its geographical context, it's probably one of the most beautiful set of islands in the world.

My old clients from D'Arros, very wealthy people who travelled a lot, they told me that they have never seen anything like it, but I think that the appeal of Seychelles goes beyond the physical beauty of the islands and their surrounds, I think it's a way of life.

If you appreciate nature and a kind of spiritual life, I would say that Seychelles is the place for you.

Simply put, it's a place where people who do not want to lead a processed artificial life, which we're being squeezed into, in Europe and elsewhere, they would choose a life in the Seychelles.

We are one big family, we are only ninety-five thousand people, basically you have an ability here, like nowhere else on earth, to know a very large portion of the population, so you feel very much part of a family, I think this is important.

Interestingly enough, over the years when I first came here, there were a lot of exotic people living here, people who had got squeezed out of these highly processed societies in Europe. It is very automatic, you feel like you're an automaton, you wake up in the morning, there's so much paper work, there's a noisy dirty environment.

You can't really complain about that here.

Seychellois are very friendly people, it's a very accommodating environment, very benign, with no nasty diseases. There are no nasty animals, for example, we don't have snakes, nor things that bite, we have very little illness.

We like to call Seychelles, a place where, not only a land of perpetual summer because that's basically what it is. Although we've had a little bit of rain recently, that's what makes it green so we can't complain. It's also the land of where harmony is a way of life, we all get on here and it's a huge melting pot of different people.

We have people from just about every walk of life, from every corner of the world, and there's very little racism here. Everybody just gets on and lives together and enjoys, and there is incredible bounty.

Seychelles has 115 Islands, and what sets Seychelles apart from so many other places is the diversity, not only diverse topographically, in terms of the islands, we have these tall mountainous Islands but then we have 74 low lying flat islands, which are coral islands, which we call the outer islands. There's an incredible diversity of topography, there's a current incredible diversity of people, different peoples from all over the world, diversity therefore of culture, diversity of cuisine.

It's a very spiritual existence here.

I don't have a family, the whole Seychelles is my family! I found that my connection with Seychelles was almost instant.

What helped along the way were very welcoming people, I made friends here very quickly, there was a smaller population in those days and maybe the pace of life was even slower than it is today, but I made the connection very quickly and I was very eager to learn about the ocean, to dive, to sail, to fish. "

For more information on Glynn Burridge, please visit: https://glynnburridge.com/