OLDER Guernsey folk looking at the headline on page seven – Island Thinking is ‘Priceless’ – will probably pause for a moment and ponder that, truly, the wheel has come full circle.

Little more than a generation ago, to be regarded as insular was a term of abuse and the UK proprietor of a large local hotel felt it acceptable to greet a representative of this newspaper with, ‘oh God, they’ve sent me a donkey…’

Now, however, there is a greater appreciation of the fact that islands are special places and that rubs off on their peoples and the way they think and react to circumstances.

Yes, Guernsey people can still be stubborn and narrow in outlook but such attitudes are the exception and what past history has shown is that people who live on islands are adaptable as well as independent.

The reason is that over centuries they have had to devise their own solutions by being more isolated than any mainland and thus more likely to retain an independence of mind.

And it is when people are left to their own devices that they have to rely on creativity to resolve problems because there is no alternative.

It is this enforced inventiveness coupled by no innate desire to follow others that Specsavers’ creative director was alluding to in his address yesterday to the Arts and Islands Conference and it is a point that was well made – and well worth making.

For too long art and creativity has been regarded as the exclusive province of some sort of pretentious elite when in fact it permeates society as a whole.

Business, in particular, has readily embraced the need for original and innovative thinking in the challenging global environment and Apple, perhaps better than anyone, has demonstrated the potential of blending function and form.

Locally, of course, it is the energy and creativity of Eric Snell and his team that is responsible – against the odds – in bringing the Arts and Islands conference here in the first place.

And what the conference does is to help remind us that one thing keeps Guernsey going: our originality of thought. And long may it continue.