13th June 2003

Owners of Internet satire site The Rockall Times (www.therockalltimes.co.uk) today revealed their plans to conquer the world's most isolated island and their namesake - Rockall - and bring the number of people who have ever set foot on the UK-owned volcanic outcrop 230 nautical miles off the Scottish coastline to double figures.

The audacious plan, codenamed Rockall Ho!, has already found the backing of BBC undercover reporter Donal MacIntyre - no stranger to danger himself - and will be done in aid of Learning Difficulties Media, a new initiative by charity Mental Health Media to give support to people with learning difficulties. The team hopes to raise £20,000 for the charity. The uninhabited island, which gives its name to a weather region, rises vertically 74 foot out of the Atlantic Ocean, is just 100 foot long, 60 foot wide and can only be tackled between May and July because of sea conditions. The intrepid team of five, including an expert climber, therefore plans to tackle Rockall towards the end of the window in July this year.

The team will sail from Troon, just south of Glasgow, in a 40-foot ocean-going yacht that several members of Troon RNLI have kindly volunteered to skipper and head to Rockall. Once at the rock, climb into an inflatable to draw up to its most sheer face. There, one man will climb unaided to the top and secure ropes for the others to haul themselves up.

Managing editor of The Rockall Times, Lester Haines, said at the official announcement of the assault plan held at the Waggon & Horses in Mistley, Essex: "When we started The Rockall Times just over a year-and-a-half ago, we'd joked about actually getting to Rockall and climbing it. Well, now we're going to bloody do it."

Although the sheer face appears to be the most difficult way to conquer Rockall, it has the advantage that it is a straight drop into the sea if someone falls. The weather-beaten rock also has a friction-full surface and is pockmarked with good grips courtesy of the British Navy, which has traditionally used the rock for target practice.

If the team succeed in their mission to conquer Rockall (many have failed in the past), they will be one of only a handful of people ever to have managed it. Famously, in 1971, Mr William Ross, the member of Parliament for Kilmarnock, told the House of Commons: "More people have landed on the moon than have landed on Rockall." While that is no longer true following a stay of 40 days by SAS man Tom McLean in 1985 and the longest ever stay by three members of Greenpeace in 1997 (whose solar-powered beacon the team has agreed to service provided it's still attached to the rock), less than 10 men are thought to have ever been atop the UK-owned rock. In contrast, over 1,500 people have reached the peak of Everest.

Rockall also has a fascinating and chequered history, claimed as it is by no less than four nations: England, Ireland, Iceland and Denmark. In a bid to stamp its ownership, Parliament introduced the Rockall Bill in 1971 and it officially became part of Invernesshire when the Queen gave it Royal Assent on 10 February 1972. Rockall and its territorial waters contain billions of pounds worth of oil and gas as well as lucrative fishing grounds. At one time, the British government feared the Soviet Union might build an observation platform on it to track missiles being test-fired into the Atlantic from a range in the Hebrides.

It is this rich history in the best of British eccentricity and bloody mindedness that made Rockall the ideal spot for the editors of The Rockall Times to make their weekly satirical observations of the UK and beyond, and it is from this rock that they hope to produce a special edition of the online paper in July 2003.

-ends-

Notes for Editors

1. For further details please contact Kate Summerside or Katie Brudenell on 020 7700 8171

2. Mental Health Media is a voluntary organisation, which works with the media to promote people's voices in order to reduce the discrimination and prejudice surrounding mental health and learning difficulties.