David Lea

David and his family have been living in Montsorrat for 32 years. With a background as host of the popular television programme, “Caribbean Crossroads,” he had some experience with video production. From the first rumblings of the Soufriere Hills Volcano, he found himself becoming more and more involved in documenting the ongoing events and getting this information out to the Montserratian community, locally and abroad. This has resulted in the nine volume DVD series, “The Price of Paradise,.” These nine volumes were also edited down into a one-hour version called, “Memories of Montserrat,” which tells the whole story in a nutshell and includes many interesting bonus items.

David’s footage has been used in dozens of television productions for National Geographic, Dateline, Discovery, TLC, Nova, PBS, ITN, BBC and numerous other networks around the world. Over the past seventeen years, he became more immersed in videography, volcanoes and their documentation, which led to his building an editing suite and small recording studio, known as Living Letters Productions on the family property, Gingerbread Hill, in Montserrat. Using this facility, he and his family have produced several educational projects, including the DVD, Montserrat’s Andesite Volcano, on which he collaborated with Professor Steve Sparks, of Bristol University, also former head scientist at the Montserrat Volcano Observatory. They both saw the need for a teaching video on andesite (“grey”) volcanoes and their phenomena for university-level geology students.This powerful teaching tool is now available in eight languages.* This, their most recent educational DVD is for middle school students, aged 8 to 13. This DVD, “Volcano Island,” is narrated by Montserrat’s own Rose WIllock, and is used in many schools throughout the Caribbean and around the world.