'A Ferry Journey Back in Time'

As advertised as part of Cultural Affairs' Historical Heartbeats lecture series, it was indeed 'a three hour tour...a three hour tour' (think Gilligan's Island) covering 200 years of history, but one with every detail enlivened by guide Andrew Bermingham (Andy) aboard a full-capacity 'Coral Sea'. After departing Albuoy's Point we cruised past the former POW camp Huntley Towers and the wartime censor station at Hamilton Princess filled with happy-hour revellers. Captain Beau Evans piloted us into the constellation of islands in the Great Sound that held male Afrikaner Boer War prisoners in 'concentration camps' at the turn of the 20th century, Andy spoke to their harsh treatment by the British and the varying ages (from age 6 up) and politics (from the yielding 'Hands Uppers' to the rebuffing 'Bitter Enders'). He emphasised this being a place of poignance for South Africans today, not only given it's place in life and death for some of 'South Africa's first freedome fighters', but as one of the Bermuda sites of early meetings of the African National Congress in more recent political democratisation of South Africa. As we disembarked at Long Island, Andy reminded that our arrival was a 'special moment' being the first public tour here in four years with the opportunity 'to see what was like in 1902' thanks to the eradication of casaurina and other invasive vegetation and endemic replanting by Jim Butterfield and his crew. Our band spilled down from the obelisk into the cemetary of Boer POWS and British military yellow fever victims, including the 'saddest grave' of Frankie Bosch, a Boer shot by British guard (who was later exonerated) simply marked by the number '21'. We reboarded and heard more Boer-related stories of the Boer Relief Committee and its stalwart Anna Maria Outerbridge. HMS Malabar and the former Governor's Cottage greeted us at Dockyard in their shamefully derelict and delapidated states and we headed over to the Royal Naval cemetary, which like the Long Island cemetaries is under the care of Bermuda National Trust. We saw the last military grave in Bermuda, the markers of war veterans, in addition to other military personnel and their families. One family attending pointed out their relation to one of the military officers laid to rest here. And a former prison officer at Westgate told me prisoners on punishment cleaned headstones here in the recent past, though sadly this rehabilitation programme for both prisoner and this heritage site isn't the case today. Passing through the convict cemetary, which represents just a few of the hundreds of known convict graves throughout Dockyard, we rambled in the dense casaurina shoreline to discover the flushing engine house built in the 1840s, interestingly newly privately restored by a local commercial fisherman for use as a fish processing plant. Henry Ming spoke to the excellent proportions and fascinating engineering of this structure designed to supply salt water for all the flushing in Dockyard, calling it one of 'Bermuda's best' while recognising the restoration work of Dr. Edward Harris and volunteers of Casemates Barracks, also in Dockyard. We ventured inside and upstairs to take in the structure and the stonework consolidation and other restoration that's been achieved. Finally, on the return trip to town in the setting sun Andy gave us a timeline of a few dates to remember in Bermuda history and the fascinating story of the German U-Boat, U-505, today at the Science Museum in Chicago as noted by Roger Sherratt. So many stories and memories...a ferry journey back in time indeed.