There’s something about Norfolk Island that keeps drawing me in. It’s a beautiful speck in the ocean with a frighteningly murderous past and its like there’s a big Norfolk Magnet pointing right at me, genetically speaking.

It starts with James Neale, my 3x great grandfather. He was a British Redcoat who guarded convicts. He ‘met with an untimely end‘ on Norfolk Island in 1832, in circumstances that sound slightly suspicious. We only know about that thanks to the amazing story-telling stonemasons of Norfolk Island and the wonderful caretakers who keep the stones from returning to the earth and the stories from fading into oblivion.

James’ headstone is front row, facing out to sea. He probably has the best view in the Norfolk Island cemetery.

The next connection is James Goodson, also my 3x great grandfather. James was a convict. He arrived on Norfolk Island in 1844 where he served his 2 year probation before serving out the rest of his sentence in Tasmania. He got up to a bit of mischief on Norfolk Island and had six months added to his sentence, meaning he was on Norfolk Island at the time of the infamous Cooking Pot Riot. Convict conditions had been bad and were getting progressively worse, so when their cooking utensils were taken from them by the overseers, it was the final straw and they rioted, murdering several of the overseers. Thirteen convicts were hanged and in the end the hanged ones might have been the fortunate ones.

Then comes Robert Evans, another of my 3x great grandfathers. Robert was a Redcoat soldier who happened to be on Norfolk Island at exactly the same time as my convict 3x great grandfather, James Goodson. A giver and a receiver of the barbaric torture are in my genes. A couple of generations later, James’ great grandson married Robert’s great granddaughter and perhaps only then were the wounds of the past healed.

My connection to Norfolk Island doesn’t end there. My grandfather, the one that married Robert Evans’ great granddaughter, was an Australian soldier who served on Norfolk Island during World War 2. His job was to sit in a tiny watch tower for hours on end, watching the skies for enemy air craft while an air strip was built.

In 2015 I visited Norfolk Island. It was a full week of overwhelming emotions and weird happenings.

I visited the cemetery twice. Each time I entered through the gate it began to rain – a drizzly misty kind of rain – and each time I left through that same gate the rain stopped.

The convict settlement made me feel nauseous but I couldn’t stop going there. I couldn’t get enough of the tours and the learning. I wanted to know everything – all of the beastly, nasty things that Englishmen did to Englishmen – and I didn’t want to know, all at the same time.

I was given directions to go and see the remains of my grandfather’s watch tower – and when I got there I was guided to it by a very small and brightly coloured bird that led the way up a very steep volcanic mount, doubling back again and again to show me the way and make sure I was still coming.

No matter where I went the views were spectacular. Stunning.

The Island made me look deep inside myself and think about the blood that flows in my veins. The notion that James and Robert were both on this stunning speck in the middle of the vast pacific ocean at precisely the same moment in history, and that the coming together of men in an unholy barbaric time somehow led to… me… completely overwhelmed me.

And then there was the comic relief. The island is over run with dozey-looking cows who have the absolute right of way. And a zillion spectacularly colourful ‘wild’ chickens run around every which way but never look quite like they’re going the right way. How can you not laugh?

What was it that drew my ancestors to this dot in the pacific, and what is it that draws me also?

Is there a Norfolk Island Magnet tugging at my genes?