What life’s really like on Ascension Island

Ascension Island, a mere 34 sq miles and one of the world’s most barren islands, is now used mostly as a spy centre, airbase, communications relay hub and a hatching site for sea turtles.

Annexed by Britain as a garrison after Napoleon began his exile on Saint Helena in 1815, to deter any French rescue attempt, Ascension Island was then used as a supply station for British ships involved in the suppression of the Atlantic slave trade.

The lack of water was a problem, and in 1836 British botanists, and Charles Darwin, proposed planting trees and shrubs to condense the mist to provide water.

Ascension has no independent economy and limited state-owned housing

ALAMY

The island was used as a strategic airbase during the Second World War by the Americans, who leased the land from