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Courtney Pine

Top jazz musician and composer Courtney Pine is a London boy through and through, with West Indian roots at the core of his life. Holy Island situated in the North Sea off the coast of Northumberland, couldn't be more different from the bustling capital.

Courtney Pine's music is heavily influenced by his urban, London life - a world away from where he was sent to compose a new work for the Made in England project. As part of seeing the world form a different perspective, Courtney went from the bustle of London to the wilds of Holy Island Northumberland.

Courtney said: "I'm an inner-city north London youth and going somewhere so different to my cultural background could be so wrong. But it was so right because the music took a journey. It started at one place and it goes somewhere."

Courtney was amazed to find that when he arrived at the island it could only be reached by one road which is covered by the tide for up to seven hours, twice a day.

If you get the timing wrong your car is submerged into the North Sea and your only hope is the air sea rescue service.

Courtney used the beauty and isolation of the island to compose his new music, taking advice from local musician and world famous Northumberland pipe player, Kathryn Tickell.

Kathryn said: "The Northumberland pipes have a kind of coldness and clearness that I think you find in the air in this place, because when you're up on the fell sides and hill sides in Northumberland it's a bit bleak but it's very beautiful and very clear."

Courtney discovered that nature forces people to live differently - life has to revolve around the tides. Even so, even Kathryn Tickell has been caught out. She said: "It's no horror story. I have actually been stranded. It's one of those times you know you are going home and the answering machine is going to be going and then you get out here and think 'oh oops' and you have to stay."

Being stranded by the tide can cause problems in everyday life for the 170 inhabitants of Holy Island. Postman Dick Patterson has to change his delivery times to fit in with the sea. Sylvia Shell, in her 80's has to race against time and the tide for her hospital appointments. If a resident is to give birth the air ambulance has to be called.

Sylvia said: "My children were born here in the front room. The doctor had to be brought in by boat and he was 81. When I had my second child he was 86 and he delivered him too."

Holy Island's stunning landscapes played a part in Courtney Pine's truly original and poetic piece of music. He drew from the island's history of early monks, marauding Vikings and tales of hardship, struggle and joy.

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