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The revelation came only slowly, dazed as I was, prostrate under a palm tree, sheltering from the full strength of the sun. Gradually it gathered its full portent, the horror and responsibility, while the sunlight spangled through the restless brushwork of the palm fronds. But then it clicked. Poised above me was the Coconut of Damocles.

For those who are a little shaky on their ancient history, the courtier Damocles had a dangerous habit of overstating the contentedness and good fortune of his tyrant king Dionysius, who consequently decided to set the record straight. He treated Damocles to the most lavish of dinners, but sat him beneath a sword hanging by a horse’s hair. And here was I, luxuriating in the charms of Nevis, one of the loveliest islands in the Caribbean, responsibility looming ominously overhead. Rather a pertinent dilemma altogether.

But then, Nevis really is a lovely island. It is small and still relatively difficult to get to, which means that it is not swamped by crowds. It is beautiful too. Tropical greenery clamours at the roadsides and throttles the old stone walls and sugar estate buildings that survive from Nevis’s heyday two centuries ago, when the slopes were carpeted with cane. Some of these estate houses have been restored into plantation house hotels and they retain the graciousness and elegance of that time.

It was all too easy to succumb to the dreamy quality of the planter’s life at Montpelier - the tropical fruits and cocoa for breakfast, gardens where bougainvillea bushes cast arcs of pink and purple in the shade of magnificent trees. I made a mental note to watch for coconuts. And the best moment of the day, early evening on the veranda, sipping a planter’s punch before dinner, as the tree frogs struck up their nightly peeping chorus and the fireflies meandered, flashing, around the garden in their 20 minute search for a mate.

I might have hoped that Nevis would never change, but in the way of the West Indies, as soon as you arrive the latest island gossip reveals itself. Nevis is on the move. A normally terminally dozy island, it has a buzz about it. In the last two years people have begun to drive quickly, because they have to get to work on time (somehow, it never seemed to matter much before, but now they’re in danger of being fired if they’re late). In the three years since I visited last, Nevis has lost its innocence.

It would be pure sentimentality to gainsay progress unless it destroyed the island’s charm, but Nevis is still a thoroughly charming place, far more so than lots of islands that pretend to be undiscovered. I scowled at the threatening coconut, took full stock of my responsibility, hopped up and set off along the sand of the beach - sumptuous, grainy and golden brown, with a tangled backdrop of slender palms, under which are dotted beach bars. I stopped in one to admire the beach and the magnificent view of Nevis’s sister island, St Kitts.

I’ve always had a private joke about the relationship between the two islands. There are the Kittitians, pronounced as in petition (which they occasionally do) and Nevisians, as in revision. The joke seems to have come home to roost and the Nevisians are revisionist after all. Nevis, all 9000 inhabitants and 36 square miles of it, is in the process of declaring Independence from St Kitts. Like most small partners in convenient colonial alliances, the Nevisians feel put upon, but the Kittitians do not want to let them go.

‘It gotta happen’, said the barman as we settled in for a beery debate.

It’s complicated of course, because every Nevisian has relations in St Kitts, and although in the past all but 12 Nevisians have voted for independence, it’s a little more daunting now that it’s suddenly more possible. On a more practical note, St Kitts has all the pension and social security money and it is using its legal powers to set constraints on Nevis’s small but growing offshore banking industry. The barman intoned gravely: ‘I mean to ‘ave words wid Mr Amory (the Nevisian Chief Minister) about it’. In the way of the West Indies he probably will. He will probably bump into him at the weekend.

‘Actually secession was on hold for a while’, said James Gaskell when I returned to Montpelier Plantation, ‘but now with the CCM re-elected (after a snap election held in February), it looks as though it will go ahead.’

That’s presuming that the same political shenanigans do not occur as when the five-member Nevis Assembly last met (it sits just four times a year). Then, the process could have been put in motion by a simple two-thirds majority vote, but the two opposition members (who themselves have pushed for secession from St Kitts in the past), decided not to attend at the vote. They have said that they will not stand in the way of independence.

With such visible history, the sun-blackened ruins poking out from the undergrowth and overgrowth, Nevis is fun to explore. I took a walk up into the hills with Jim Johnson, a trained agriculturalist who sprinkles his walks with satisfying snippets of knowledge about the local animals and the traditional uses of Caribbean plants. Apparently it’s the gathering moisture of evening that makes the tree frog sing. It stretches a membrane in its head - I suppose this also explains why when it rains the whole place is overwhelmed with peeping song.

We walked up into the Green Ghaut (a ghaut is a local name for a watercourse in the mountainside, a sort of volcanic stretch-mark), where whole hillsides, even other plants and trees, were blanketed with morning glory vines, making them look like furniture in storage. Red and black jumby beads like ghostly eyes watched us pass and ear-like jelly mushrooms listened out for our footfall.

Once, of course, most of this hillside was planted. As we descended in the jungle, Jim Johnson pointed out domestic and medicinal plants - cinnamon, cashew, limes and soursop. Eventually we stumbled into the foundation of an old plantation house. Not much was visible except the floor plan of a once magnificent house and its outside kitchen. But you could see why they chose the setting, though; because of a superb view of the island’s possibly-soon-to-be-ex-partner, St Kitts.

Of course you’re told never to sit under coconut palms - people have been killed by falling coconuts. For me, natural over-enthusiasm aside, Nevis really is a charming place.

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