The Bermudian - Spring 2017

other fishermen. Captain Llew still lives at Boss’s Cove. He has often lamented the fact that moorings are so prohibitively expensive today young people find it virtually impossible to join the commercial fishing industry.

He often gave permission to neighbours to swim at the cove. Shirley Pearman remembers as a child visiting Charlotte Oats, who also lived there, and who would give her bread, possibly homemade in a brick oven, topped with slabs of butter and sprinkled with sugar.

She remembers walking along the road “very gingerly “ because of the many dogs “who were not afraid to express their personality.”

The Spanish Point Boat Club

Debbie Lombardo remembers the Spanish Point Boat Club’s annual social. Her parents belonged to the club although they did not sail. “Most people belonged to it,” she says, although, in its early years, during the 1940s and ’50s, as Shirley Pearman recalls, it was racially segregated. Founded in 1941, the club became famous for Snipe Class dinghy sailing, winning the Western Hemisphere Snipe Championship, the SPBC Championship and the Bermuda National Championship in 1956. Every year they would organise a picnic with activities such as bobbing for apples, swimming races and musical chairs outside on the dance floor. But the event Debbie most vividly recalls was crossing the telephone pole. “The men at the club would spend months greasing it up with layers and layers of vaseline,” she says. “Then they suspended it over the water and made people crawl on it to see if they could cross it. It was very dangerous!”

Boss’s Cove

John Kennedy, from a piloting family and a pilot himself, grew up at Boss’s Cove as did Captain Llewelyn who moved there as a young boy. It was known as “the Bay” and it was here Captain Hollis started fishing during the summer and the Easter and Christmas holidays when he was four or five. He learned from his grandmother and mother whom he remembers fishing off the rocks with their lines to catch bait. His grandmother would take him out on the water in her punt. He would also go out with various fishermen to learn different types of fishing. Often he would join the net fishermen on shore before daylight and then go out with them. As an adult he ran the Boss’s Cove Boatyard and his

Lana J, a boat he built himself mostly out of cedar, has long been a familiar sight although sadly it is now destined for destruction. Used to going out to sea in all weathers, he was responsible for a number of rescues, especially to the north and northwest of the island.

Indeed, a number of people owe their lives to him. In recognition of his rescues, he was made Water Safety Person of the Year, along with Mark Selley, in 1999.

He became a full-time commercial fisher-
man, but by 2010 “retired” to provide bait for
own gymkhana,” she laughs, “with trails and
routes meandering through Spanish Point
Park to Plaice’s Point.” Her mother wasn’t
too fond of Flicker. “Flicker chased her for
carrots and she couldn’t stand it!” But her
father, Vincent Lombardo, a mechanic for
Stevedoring Service, was sympathetic: he cre-
ated a stable for Flicker out of a wooden crate
in front of their house not far from Soares’s
Grocery Store.

Debbie also had a dog, as did most
residents in Spanish Point. Called Boy, “he
was half collie and half Alsatian and he was
my protector and defender and he was hated
by the postman! Everybody had dogs in the
neighbourhood and they mostly didn’t tie
their dogs up.”
She remembers farming being an impor-
tant part of life in Spanish Point. Her family’s
neighbour Jerry Bothelo, for example, had a
large vegetable garden and kept rabbits and
chickens. Farming was in her blood since
her maternal grandfather was a farmer, but
it skipped her mother’s genes. “Everybody in
the neighbourhood had as big a plot as they
could but we were the only ones that didn’t.”
However, that didn’t stop her from digging
up a part of her parents’ yard and planting it
with potatoes.

Founded in 1941, the club became famous for Snipe Class dinghy sailing, winning the Western Hemisphere Snipe Championship, the SPBC Championship and the Bermuda National Championship in 1956.