LOG ENTRY 002

You Couldn't Make It Up...

Dundee, Scotland

Before I start...

I know what some of you are probably thinking."Hang on... you've only just published Log Entry 001 and now here's Log Entry 002 already?"

Fair point.

Don't worry, I'm not planning on writing every day for the rest of my life!

The truth is, I've got nearly fifty years of stories to catch up on. When I started writing these Journals, I realised something. Terra Nueva didn't suddenly appear because I woke up one morning and decided to start a company. It's been quietly following me around for most of my life.

So, over the next couple of weeks, I'm going to take you back through some of those stories and bring you up to date.

Think of these first ten Journals as The Origin Story.

Once we've caught up with the present day, these Journals will become a weekly diary of everything that's happening as we build Terra Nueva together.

Right...

Back to the story.

At the end of my last Journal, I promised I'd tell you about the strange connection between Terra Nueva and a ship called Terra Nova.

Well...

The more I thought about it, the more I realised I hadn't actually gone back far enough.

Because I don't think this story starts in the 1980s. I think it starts in 1977.

I was a Scout.

It was the Queen's Silver Jubilee year and, through the Scout movement, I was lucky enough to spend a week living aboard RRS Discovery while she was moored on the Thames.

Now, if you're a young lad, spending a week on a real exploration ship is about as exciting as life gets. I remember climbing everywhere I could, peering into every cabin and imagining what life must have been like for the crew. No satellite navigation. No mobile phones. No weather forecasts. Just a ship, a compass and the courage to sail towards the unknown.

I absolutely loved it.

At the time, I thought it was simply a brilliant adventure with the Scouts.

Looking back...I think it planted a seed.

Fast forward a few years, and I was in my first proper rock band, December Rose. Like most young bands, we wanted to do something different. Instead of writing a collection of songs, we decided to write a concept album. It was called Leaving Home. The story imagined a future where humanity had pushed the Earth to breaking point. Wars. Environmental collapse. A planet that could no longer sustain life. The only option left was to leave Earth and search for a new world.

That's where the name Terra Nueva was born. A Brand New World.

But there was another problem.

How were billions of people supposed to get there? Most people would've designed a sleek, futuristic spaceship.

We didn't.

For reasons I still can't explain, we designed a galleon. A huge sailing ship...that just happened to fly through space. At the time, it felt perfectly normal. After all, the great explorers had crossed oceans in sailing ships. Our explorers were crossing the stars. It wasn't until recently, when I dug the original artwork out again, that I suddenly stopped and stared at it.

That wasn't just a spaceship. It looked remarkably like the great exploration ships I'd admired as a Scout. Almost as though my subconscious had quietly borrowed those memories from Discovery and tucked them away until it needed them. Funny how the mind works. Then life happened. The band came to an end. I spent the next forty years doing what became my career. Working with incredible artists. Meeting incredible people. Collecting thousands of stories. Thousands of miles.Thousands of memories.

And all the while...

Terra Nueva never really disappeared. It just sat quietly in the background.

Waiting.

Then, last year, life took another unexpected turn, and I found myself moving to Dundee.

As I started learning about the city's incredible maritime history, I discovered something that genuinely made me laugh out loud.The famous Antarctic expedition ship...Terra Nova...was built here. I actually remember saying to myself..."You're having a laugh..."

Think about it.

In 1977, I spent a week aboard Discovery as a Scout, and here she was now permanently moored back in her birthplace. A few years later, I helped create a story about humanity escaping Earth aboard a galleon-shaped spaceship to a new world called Terra Nueva.

More than forty years later, I found myself living in the city where Discovery was built and where Terra Nova was built...while building a company called Terra Nueva.

Honestly...

You couldn't make it up. Now, before anyone starts talking about fate or destiny...I'm not claiming any of that. I just think life has a funny way of joining the dots when you finally stop long enough to look backwards. The older I get, the more I realise that some of the biggest influences on our lives aren't obvious at the time.

They're just little moments. A week on a ship. A conversation. A song. A chance meeting. You don't realise how important they were until years later.

Mind you...

If you think that's a strange story...Wait until I tell you about the rainbow and the unicorn.

Honestly...

That one is even harder to explain. But that's a story for another Journal.

Anyway...

I'd better leave it there. Writing these Journals has made me realise something. For years I've been talking about Terra Nueva as my project. The funny thing is...I don't think it ever was.

I'll explain what I mean in the next Journal.

End Log.

The journey continues...

Stu