Scilly has had some strange visitors in its time but none so weird as a Blue Cow who took a trip on a London Bus to the islands last Friday…

Blue Cow is a cartoon character on BBC?s hugely popular children’s series THE STORY MAKERS. The writer of this particular episode - Nick Mercer - has been a regular visitor to the islands since the 1960?s. He explained to Scilly News how Blue Cow came to visit one of the most remote places in Britain….

Blue Cow is a thoughtful and imaginative bovine who, every day, escapes from her dull field (full of ordinary, cynical black & white cows) and makes a journey to explore the Wide World beyond her field.

In this episode she gazes at a cloud that looks very like an island, then wonders … what would it be like to live on an island? The bus which stops at her field then takes her off to the Isles of Scilly and deposits her on Tresco Quay (What would Dorrien-Smith have to say about that?!).

Here she finds a boy called Samson, who she helps by towing his broken-down boat across to Bryher. Samson shows her all over the island. They see a pirate’s cave with a lake in it, a ruined castle where the king once stayed and a rock in the shape of a giant tooth (admittedly, not all landmarks of Bryher, but that’s poetic licence for you).

Blue Cow finds it to be a wonderfully peaceful place and goes back to her field refreshed and relaxed, and vowing to come back again (like most visitors!)

An interesting element of the Blue Cow cartoons is that all the characters and locations she visits are animated from children’s drawings and paintings. Nick would have preferred school children on Scilly to have done the pictures used in this episode, but it was, apparently, too far for the researchers to travel - either that, or they found the crossing too daunting! However, he was very happy to have Blue Cow visit his favourite place.

He comes to the islands every year, and still has memories of his first visit when he was six : “We met a newly-arrived resident, Dorothy Neasham - who had moved into the Island Studio on St Martins. She looked after us on a very rainy day, when both my sisters were grumpy with measles. We have always kept in touch, visited and stayed at her house when she let it for the summer. Now ‘Neash? is one of the oldest residents on the islands, well-cared for at Park House and heading for the age of 98 in July”

Nick does all the voices in the Blue Cow cartoons, and also puppeteers and voices the pink and furry Jackson in The Story Makers (more children’s tv details at www.greenclaws.co.uk - Greenclaws being a previous ?incognito? character, which some older viewers may recall). He also manages and promotes GO-CARTER - an indie band from Newcastle, now gigging in and around London and also playing festivals with their soundtrack of Magnus Mills’ novel The Restraint of Beasts.