In 1962, Brendon Grimshaw did something incredible – he bought a tiny island in the Seychelles for $10,000 (£8k then, or £80k/$107k in today's money) and spent decades turning it into a lush nature reserve. 

Once deserted, Moyenne Island is now the world’s smallest national park thanks to Grimshaw’s hard work planting trees, caring for giant tortoises and protecting wildlife.

Click through or scroll on to discover what one ordinary person’s passion and persistence can achieve...

Born in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire in 1925, Brendon Grimshaw left school at 15 to join his local newspaper, Batley News. At 23, he became Britain's youngest chief reporter before eventually moving to East Africa, where he became the editor of successful papers in Kenya and Tanzania. 

However, Africa's political landscape was changing and Grimshaw began looking for a new challenge. It was only when he visited the Seychelles for the first time in 1962 that he found it...

After a week exploring the remote Indian Ocean nation, he knew he wanted to make it his home. However, it wasn't until the final day of his holiday that he was approached by someone who knew of an island for sale.

The moment he stepped onto the tiny Ille de Moyenne (pictured, centre top), he was hit with a realisation. He recalled years later in the documentary film A Grain of Sand: "It was a special feeling. That this is the place I've been looking for."

Grimshaw bought the tiny isle for about $10,000, which is roughly $107,000 (£80k) today.

The last person to live on Moyenne had left in 1915, leaving Mother Nature to reclaim the island. However, it had healed unnaturally – so choked by weeds that the trees were devoid of birds, rats ruled and "falling coconuts never hit the ground", according to the BBC. Despite this, Grimshaw was mesmerised by the island's wild beauty.

Grimshaw is pictured here (right) with his good friend René Lafortune and their dogs in 2003. René was the son of the local fisherman who had taken care of the island for its previous owner. Together, they cut the first paths around the island, slowly discovering what it needed to thrive. 

"We realised it was nearly all bush," Grimshaw revealed in A Grain of Sand. "So we decided we'd better start putting in some trees and making the island look good."

Despite spanning just 0.038 square miles (0.099km2), Moyenne is now home to three miles (4.8km) of paths and 16,000 trees and shrubs planted by Grimshaw and Lafortune. Around 40 native plant species now grow on the tiny isle – and more than half of these can only be found in the Seychelles.

Thanks to the duo's hard work, Moyenne is one of only two places in the world where the six palm species unique to the Seychelles coexist.

As Grimshaw and René explored Moyenne, they uncovered its secrets – including this ruin, known as the 'House of Dogs'.

A plaque at the site reveals that it was built in 1899 by Moyenne's fourth owner, Miss Emma Best, to house stray dogs. She left in 1915 with 40 dogs in tow and owned 70 canine companions when she died in 1919.

Some unscrupulous fishermen exploited her kindness by stealing dogs to claim rewards, then selling her fish to feed them, profiting from her generosity.

According to TV adventurer Simon Reeve, who visited him in 2011, Grimshaw had felt lonely living in a bedsit in London, but never while living on Moyenne.

He did, however, regret not marrying, according to the Daily Mail. "But how could I ask anyone to live out here?" Grimshaw asked Reeve. "We didn’t have running water for years!"

Moyenne's remote location and huge, strangely-shaped granite boulders combine to give the island an ancient, otherworldly feel.

However, despite living in this secluded sanctuary with just fruit bats and tortoises for company, Grimshaw wasn't a recluse. "I have a mobile phone," he told the Daily Mail. "I'm not one for living in the Dark Ages." And while his mother never visited, his sister and brother-in-law moved to the main island, Mahé, and opened a café.

During his years on the island, Grimshaw introduced and bred 120 giant tortoises, which are native to the Seychelles but are rapidly disappearing.

Growing up to four feet (1.2m) long and 550 pounds (250kg), they're currently considered vulnerable due to overhunting by sailors, habitat loss, climate change and attacks from non-native species like cats and dogs. Grimshaw painted them with identifying numbers and christened them with names like Alice and Florita.

While the island has very few structures, it hosts not one but two tortoise nurseries to help raise the next generation of island life. Signs on the island remind visitors that the slow-moving inhabitants have the right of way. As they can live up to 180 years, that seems more than deserved.

With trees to nest in and provide food, birds returned to the island. These days, species including the Malagasy Turtle Dove, Seychelles Sunbird and the Seychelles Blue-Pigeon are regularly spotted by visitors.

For Grimshaw, it wasn't enough to simply build this island paradise; he wanted to protect it and its inhabitants from future development. He was offered $50 million (£37.4m) by a Saudi Prince who fell in love with the tropical idyll. However, he turned it down – well aware that a swanky hotel would spring up on Moyenne as soon as he handed it over. 

When René Lafortune died in 2007, it sharpened the Englishman's focus and he made a plan to preserve the island...

In 2009, Grimshaw successfully lobbied to have Moyenne Island designated as part of the Sainte Anne Marine Park. Though it holds the title of the world’s smallest national park, its impact is anything but small – protecting rich biodiversity and leaving a lasting impression on all who visit.

Grimshaw died in 2012, aged 87, safe in the knowledge that his island paradise would be protected. During his lifetime, the Brit welcomed day trippers to the island, and today, tourists continue to enjoy this conservation haven.

"He wanted a mini-Seychelles", a friend of Grimshaw told the BBC. "He wanted to try and replicate what Seychelles and its islands were like before tourists came." 

As a result, Moyenne is the only island in its small group that remains undeveloped. Even neighbouring Round Island, smaller than Moyenne, is home to a resort comprising 10 villas, a restaurant and a spa. Moyenne doesn't even have a jetty, so boats moor in the island's shallow turquoise waters.

Pristine slivers of white sand await visitors – along with a hefty dose of pirate lore. The Seychelles have been a centre of pirate activity for centuries.

Grimshaw was so intrigued by ancient rumours of buried treasure that he dedicated a lot of time to searching the island during his early years there. He even "shifted tonnes of rock at two excavation sites" while following clues, according to Simon Reeve. As far as we know, no treasure was ever found.

This tiny home belonged to Moyenne's first settlers, Julie Chiffon and Melidor Louange. The children of freed enslaved people, they were gifted the island when they married in 1850 and lived here with their three children.

As fresh water was unavailable, the family would have collected rainwater during the wet season and ferried it over by boat each day during the dry season.

In 1892, they sold it to an unconventional Englishman, Alfred d’Emmerez de Charmoy from Berkshire.

Tourists can explore the island themselves or join a guided tour, discovering key attractions such as two pirate graves and a small museum dedicated to Grimshaw's life. As well as information about Moyenne's animal and plant life, a plaque lists all Moyenne's known owners right up to the Moyenne Island Foundation, which cares for the park today.

The island is open to explore between 10am and 4pm and best enjoyed during the dry season, which runs from May to September.

Not far from where Miss Emma Best lived lies the Jolly Roger restaurant, which serves typical Creole dishes like grilled fish, octopus curry and coconut rice.

The Seychelles' Creole identity emerged from the French settlers and enslaved African people who lived on the islands during the 18th century. Today, the Creole language Seselwa is still one of the nation's three official languages, along with English and French. Moyenne also celebrates Creole heritage by hosting music and dance events honouring the island's history. 

Grimshaw's grave stands next to the tiny Church of Saints George, Charles, & Brandan, alongside those of the pirates he and René discovered back in the 1960s. It's also the last resting place of his father, who moved to the island in 1981, aged 88.

A plaque on Grimshaw's tomb reads: "Moyenne taught him to open his eyes to the beauty around him and say thank you to God." 

In his will, Grimshaw declared: "Moyenne Island is to be maintained as a venue for prayer, peace, tranquillity, relaxation and knowledge for Seychellois and visitors from overseas of all nationalities, colours and creeds."

Thanks to his heroic efforts, it continues to be just that.

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