A HAMPSHIRE woman is set to return to the South after spending a year marooned on a remote Scottish island.

Sandy Colbeck, 58, was living in Stubbington and working as a microbiologist lab technician before she took up the challenge of taking part in Castaway 2000.

She and the 28 other remaining castaways will leave the island of Taransay by helicopter today and spend the night on a neighbouring island before making their way home.

Sandy left a grown-up family and grandson to join the original 36 castaways last January to build their own community, cut off from the rest of the world.

They grew their own food, reared animals and recorded their experiences for millions of BBC viewers.

It was a year of highs and lows with lifelong friendships formed and the blossoming of romances but also, perhaps inevitably, major fallouts and disagreements among the group.

Sandy, who was heavily involved as a costume-maker for the local amateur dramatic society in Fareham, said she wanted to take part to fulfil her desire to grow old disgracefully. Not all the castaways lasted the whole year on the island, with seven leaving before the end of the experiment.

The show's producer, Jeremy Mills, is convinced it has been a success, and his company, Lion Television, is planning a spin-off.

He said: "The year has given people the chance to reflect on their lives and look at themselves in different ways, which was the whole point of the project."

He said the fact that seven people left before seeing the year out did not mean it was a failure, adding: "I am amazed that it was not more.

"From the point of view of the castaways, whatever they think of the television project I think they would all say they have got a lot out of it."