My story of Necker Island

[Applause] [Music] I first heard about it when I was 27 years old and I was chasing Joan so um I pretended I wanted to buy an island and the estate agent laid on a house and helicopter for me and um we came down for the weekend saw this beautiful Island from the air and um put in a ridiculously low offer for it but about a year later they rang me up and said that nobody else had come to see see the island and if I up the offer to $120,000 um we we could have it so we bought it on that basis but then of course it was going to cost Millions to actually develop fortunately the record company became you know the most successful Independent Record Company in the world and over the next few years we managed to get the resources together to make it what it is [Music] today there was nothing on the island when we first came here uh the only inhabitants that ever been here were the Carib Indians hundreds of years before we actually found some carab Indian arrowheads on this path they' left no no trace of mankind well two Telegraph journalists were told to find a deserted island and see how long they could survive and they chose neker Island and within a couple of days they were radioing for help to get them off the island they come back to the island since and uh we couldn't get them off [Music] so the only buildings we've already got is the the great house which has just been completed we've got our house on on the hill here we've got barley low and um barley high in the distance over there so we've kept the kept the buildings to a minimum it's enough for about 40 people to stay on the island at one time anything more than that I think would would spoil [Music] it my original plans for NECA was actually to turn it into recording studio I didn't continue with that plan instead decided to turn it into a place where wonderful interesting people could come debate issues think and have a great time and I'm quite glad actually that that's where we ended [Music] up the most extraordinary people come to NECA the elders was conceived here on NECA with Arch Bishop tutu with President Carter with Kofi and an the carbon war room was conceived here an organization that tries to work with industry to try to extract carbon out of the Earth's atmosphere things like Virgin Galactic you know sitting in mammock looking up at the stars at night just thought surely in my lifetime I should be able to go to space surely my friend should be able to go to space my children should be able to go to space so great place to think and a great place to conceive ideas NECA really has been my home for about 30 years it's the place where you know Sam and Holly grew up it's place we I got married place my daughter got married and you know it's the place that we get away from it all to relax as a family and and spend time with you know toast's friends [Music] Diana and the kids in particular used to come here quite a lot when the kids were young and used necer as an escape a place where they could get away from the paparazzi and they could bring their family and friends and let their hair [Music] down Sam where are you oh oh it's good isn't it why didn't you go to the bedroom and talk to me what [Music] J J it was 2011 there was a hurricane it was 2: a.m. in the morning and lightning hit this house 300t Flames erupted out of the house my mother was 88 at the time Kate Winslet was good enough to sweep her up into her arms and carry her out and I remember saying to Kate's kids things don't matter in life you know the fact that everybody's well is all that matters and and it's on moments like that you realize the things really don't matter and then the next day while the fire was still burning we got out a massive sheet of white paper and we started planning the new [Music] house we've reintroduced species Ona that used to exist in the British Virgin [Music] Islands and I think that's very important for most species they're in Peril there should be a few in captivity make sure the surroundings are absolutely beautiful for them then you can be assured of the species future we're turning neker Island into a few months from now will be almost carbon neutral so we're putting up windmills we're putting a lot more solar on the island and we want to be able to show the British Virgin Island government and you know other Caribbean governments that by turning to clean energy uh you can also save your people quite a lot on their electricity bills and put less carbon out out into the Earth's atmosphere look neker is home I mean the other places that we created are equally magnificent in their own way but neker is home and therefore there's something particularly special about this little [Music] Jewel [Music]

Channel: Richard Branson

Views: 256,544

Keywords: Necker Island (Island), richard branson, interview, british virgin islands, lemurs, joan branson, holly branson, sam branson, conservation

Id: A-2qbgJfa5c

Length: 6min 26sec (386 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 22 2014