Cramond Island rescue for 'Daniel Defoe'

The couple became stranded on Cramond Island in the Firth of Forth

A man named Daniel Defoe has been rescued from a small island in the Firth of Forth, coastguard officials have revealed.

An RNLI crew set out to help the man, whose namesake penned Robinson Crusoe, after he and his female partner became stranded on Cramond Island.

Defoe's 1719 novel tells of a castaway who spent years on a remote island near Venezuela before being rescued.

In this case, the stranded couple were rescued within hours.

A spokesman for Forth Coastguard said: "The man was a bit sheepish about revealing his name at first. He was called Daniel Defoe - the same name as the author of Robinson Crusoe.

"Crusoe was stuck on his island for years, but he didn't have a mobile phone. This Daniel Defoe did all the right things and the rescue was relatively straight forward."

Defoe's classic tale was believed to have been based on Alexander Selkirk, a sailor from Lower Largo in Fife, who was rescued in 1709 after four years on an uninhabited island off the Chilean coast.

The RNLI station at Queensferry was this week named the busiest in Scotland, with 74 launches.

They included the rescue, along with colleagues from Kinghorn Lifeboat, of dozens of people who had attended an all-night music festival on Cramond Island.