Ascension : Where are they now??? - An occasional series
Submitted by The Islander (Islander Internet Editor) 12.06.2008 (Article Archived on 26.06.2008)

How many people now on the island remember Steve and Tina Cox? They first arrived on Ascension in 1980, Steve having attended the Cable & Wireless College in Cornwall.

How many people now on the island remember Steve and Tina Cox?   They first arrived on Ascension in 1980, Steve having attended the Cable & Wireless College in Cornwall.

          During their first tour with Cable & Wireless  until 1983, which covered the period of the Falklands’ War, they lived in a house near the hospital adjacent to the area occupied by employees of SACC.   Returning in 1990 for a second tour they lived in the house on the northern outskirts of Georgetown overlooking Long Beach.

          Now, they live in a delightful white-stone country cottage set in an acre of garden at Drayton St Leonard, south-east of Oxford in England.   Steve is semi-retired looking after the Aston Martin Car Owners Museum and on-line shop in a hugh barn structure on the edge of his property.   Tina is a Production Assistant in the reprint department of the Oxford University Press.

          During their years on Ascension, Steve and Tina played an active part in the social life of the community.   She was a founder-member of the island Mah Jong Club and a committee member of the Coffee Pot Club, involved with the planning of dishes for the monthly meetings of the KWV Club.   She also took up diving - a popular past-time on the island at that time!

          She used her artistic skills to design a tea towel identifying the salient features of the island.   Hundreds were printed, but do any still exist?   Does the Fort Hayes Museum have one?  As the trustees of the museum well know, it is in the minor things of everyday life as well as the major events of history that the identity of a community is preserved.   In the aftermath of the Falklands’ War, when international attention was focused on Ascension, there was a demand for memorabilia of the occasion.   Tina spent hours at her kitchen table sticking Ascension postage stamps on First Day Covers that I had signed and dated with a special island imprint unavailable anywhere else in the world.  

          The second of their four children, Robin, was born on the island in August 1982. His elder brother, Jordan, was born in 1980. In 1996 the family went to San Jose in California where Steve worked with Vitacom, a subsidiary of Cable & Wireless. Jordan remained in the United States and is now working in the electronics  industry.

          Steve and Tina had another overseas interlude in the Caribbean on Grand Turk where, in 1985, Tristan was born.   He is now studying graphic arts at Coventry University.   The youngest of the family is Tamsin born in England in 1989.   She is now at Portsmouth University studying psychology.

          Looking back on their days on the island , Tina remembers friends including Dee and Gerald Green, Puddy Crowie, Winnie in the shop and many others.   Steve recalls his Cable & Wireless colleagues Ray Ellick and Geoffrey Augustus; David Joshua - accountant and fantastic tennis player - Anita and Alan Stevens among so many.            

          As to the future, they have bought a 12 acre plot in the Aquitain region of France near Bordeaux to which they plan to retire and to build a log cabin house.

          A postscript.   Tamsin has retained her links with Ascension and can be found on ‘Face Book’ to say hallo to her friends!

Bernard Pauncefort

Administrator 1980-82