Monserrat: Tune in, the dust has settled

It is four years since the last volcanic eruption shook Montserrat and forced many thousands to flee. Most residents have returned, but the tourists still stay away. Yet this is one of the few remaining islands that offers a genuine Caribbean idyll

Eight in the morning... Montserrat lock off... till late in the evening... Montserrat lock off...

This is the refrain of the song that comes from Radio Montserrat ZJB in the cool hours of the morning before the sun starts burning out on the Caribbean Sea. I've been humming it for a while now, without really knowing what it means.

"It's 'cos that's when the ferries and the helicopter go," says Basil Chambers, morning DJ on Radio Montserrat, "then we're all locked off for the day." And so we are. We're all locked off on this gloriously lush Emerald Isle of the Caribbean. Once the chopper has hummed away and the ferry has swooshed off to Antigua, you can't get off the island. It might sound like a threat, but to me it's more of a promise.

Basil explains the significance of the lyrics to me in between a blast of chat, weather, hellos and morning greetings to the nurses on his daily show. He says that every day he says hello to a different group of workers on Montserrat. Today it is the turn of the nurses, teachers get their special greeting tomorrow, etc ­ all apart from Wednesday, which is just plain old Ladies' Day. I think it might be Basil's favourite day of the week. His studio is in what used to be the double bedroom of a fine Montserrat villa. It has en-suite facilities of which I'm very envious ­ most radio stations build toilets down three corridors and a flight of stairs, which makes relieving oneself a mad dash of mercy in between records or news items.

No one on Montserrat now would think it strange that the radio station lives in a nice old house. But so much has changed since the volcanic activity of 1997 that this is the least of all their concerns. Although the island's population sank to a low of 1,500 when the subterranean sabotage was at its height, it is now back up to a healthy 4,500. I think every single one of those people is tuned into Radio Montserrat ZJB, which proved itself to be a lifeline during the ash clouds, phreatic eruptions and evacuations in the danger zones. I've come here to spend some time with Rose Willock, the outgoing station manager of ZJB who is a legend in the Caribbean.

She is also the world's best unofficial tour guide. She's taken me on a hike up The Cot, a long, winding farm path that gets its name from a ruined summer house at the top of the hill. From here you can look out over the volcano in the Soufrière Hills. It is awesome. And I don't use that word in the ubiquitous way that American tourists do to describe everything they see in Englandshire. I mean truly awesome ­ a great smouldering rock where the earth below has burst its seams and spewed out tons of rock and lava in a heated tantrum. When we stood and watched the steam puffing out, it was the only time that Rose and I were silent.

Within a couple of days, she had introduced me to nearly everyone we passed along the quiet winding roads, and chatted about the time she was on air when an ash cloud descended and she had to talk her nation through the frightening darkness that followed.

In between time I have been living a life close to perfection.

I'm staying in the most luscious villa that looks out over the Caribbean Sea. I can see the lights of St Kitts and Nevis dancing in the evenings. My next-door neighbour brought me some small, tasty bananas the day I arrived. People have started hooting and waving at me as I pootle round in my hired jeep on the way to the radio station or down to the extraordinarily titled Gary Moore's Wide Awake Bar, in Olveston.

Am I making it all sound a bit like life with the Waltons, a faraway place in a gentler time?

In some ways it is. Except their mountain has more of a story to tell. And that is the strange thing. Montserrat relied on its tourist industry before the volcano started rumbling and spewing ­ now it needs it back more than ever. Yet it's almost as if the rest of the Caribbean has some kind of conspiracy of silence surrounding Montserrat now. Liat, the local airline, has a handy map in its in-flight magazine which of course has the island on it ­ but when it comes to all the descriptions of how to get to places and what to see and do ­ nothing. This seems odd. You can stay here in style in one of the many villas, the island is almost drug-free and has minimal crime, unlike some nearby islands. And you get to study one of nature's most violent absurdities if all the tanning and pottering and lying by the pool gets too much.

The only downside I can find is trying to stock your holiday larder. Montserrat has to import most of its food because so much agricultural land was lost in the volcanic mudslides, so food is expensive and tinned or frozen. It's like setting yourself a Ready Steady Cook challenge every night. What shall I do today with a can of sweetcorn, two frozen frankfurters, rice, and Pringles? My tip: everything tastes better with a dash of rum in it.

I took Rose out to dinner one night at the best restaurant on the island. It's called Ziggy's, it only seats about 20 people and is built from an old UN container. It's all breezy awnings and plants, and has an element of magic that not all previous customers have shared. Prince Andrew was a gent, and insisted on taking out a dessert for his security men. But Bono from U2 apparently sent his minders in first to check the place out before he dashed in, as if avoiding a press pack outside. That's not Montserrat's style.

One day, Rose and I took a trip out across the Belham Valley to the Exclusion Zone ­ the part of the island where the authorities have deemed it unsafe to live. We drove across the dried riverbed, amid broken trees and swathes of mud. The villas were deserted, with straggling bougainvillea growing across driveways. I walked into the garden of one magnificent peach-coloured affair where the swimming pool lay empty, its hot tubs all caked with ash. My, how they must have lived here in Montserrat's pre-volcanic heyday.

We walked up to the viewpoint at the top of Garibaldi Hill and looked back over Plymouth, the deserted and out-of-bounds capital. When the wind sweeps down it howls in an eerie, desolate way ­ no sound barrier of offices or houses to stop it now. You can pick out the half-buried landmark of the clock tower, but most of the town is covered in a thick layer of ash. There's a boat out at sea that Rose says shouldn't be there. The Exclusion Zone is a nautical one, too ­ no boats are allowed to come too close to the shore. I can understand the crew's curiosity though. What I can't understand is why more people don't want to come to this mesmerising place. If you're in the area, do get locked off for a day, at least.

And if you are worried about the volcano, don't be. It is unlikely to blow overnight without warning. Some of the world's finest vulcanologists are stationed here. And if anything is about to happen, you'll hear it on ZJB first. Keep it tuned.

Fi Glover's new book, 'I am an Oil Tanker', is published this week by Ebury Press (£9.99)

Travellers' Guide

Getting to Montserrat

Virgin Atlantic (01293 747 747, www.virgin.com) flies direct to Antigua from Gatwick once a week with flights starting from £530, as does British Airways (0845 7733377, www.britishairways.com) which has flights from £495. Trailfinders (020-7937 5400) currently has flights with British West Indies from about £385. From Antigua ferries and helicopters leave daily for Montserrat. Call Montserrat Aviation Services (001 664 491 2362) for more details.

Villas and rental cars can be booked through West Indies Real Estate at www.wirealestate.com.

Foreign Office advice: "On arrival all visitors should collect at their port of entry, a copy of the current risk map. In addition, all visitors are urged to have a small portable radio tuned in to Radio Montserrat (FM 91.9 and 95.5) to listen to updates on the volcanic situation and for instructions on what to do should the siren sound."