article_snippet: It is mountainous, measuring just 12 miles by 21, with a population of 110,000, a high level of literacy and land ownership, and one of the lowest crime figures in the Caribbean.
article_snippet: The island’s recent peaceful history has emerged from two tempests.
article_snippet: One was a natural phenomenon, Hurricane Ivan, that struck in September 2004 and destroyed 85 per cent of houses and vegetation, including Grenada’s precious nutmeg trees.
article_snippet: The second was political: the 1983 Marxist coup in which Prime Minister Maurice Bishop was killed – a move that prompted Ronald Reagan to land 6,000 US troops on what was part of the Commonwealth.
article_snippet: My father was a Foreign Office diplomat at the time, and My father recalls meeting the Queen shortly after the invasion.