The national spirit that has been prevailing over the past few day as Bermuda has endeavoured to recover from effects on our homeland of back-to-back storms Fay, and Gonzalo, has sent this writer reflecting deep into my memory-bank on how we coped with these events, back in the day.

‘Back in the day’, for the purposes of this feature alludes to the time frame in the late 1920s and early 1930s. I was then three or four years of age going on to be six, having been born December 1925.

Storms then did not have the sophistication of being given names. They were remembered by events connected with them. Such as the Vixen wrecked off Daniel’s Head; and the storm of 1926, when a Royal Navy Destroyer seeking shelter in what was expected to be the calmer side of Bermuda off Elbow Beach Hotel was sunk with heavy loss of life. Then there was the storm in the 1930s, that took down the original steeple of St James Church.

The two main sources for our storm alerts came from flags hoisted on Gibbs Hill Lighthouse, and by word of mouth from men working in the Royal Naval Dockyard at Ireland Island. They were known as ‘Dockyard maties’. The maties would be sent home an hour or more earlier than usual after having battened down places in the yard. They would come ‘flying’ home on their bicycles to secure their own properties before it got dark.

We learned how the giant 80-ton crane was secured. And more ominously how the floating dock, which was the biggest in the world, had been deliberately sunk, to the position it would be when about to take aboard a ship that had to be raised for repairs.

Meanwhile in my own home the atmosphere was feverish. My mother (Mummy, Marie) was for all practical purposes, a single woman householder. Our father, Trinidadian-born Aubrey Philip was a highly skilled printer and line typist. He was one of the ‘talkies’ of his day, and brought to Bermuda in the early days after the 1914-18 World War to modernise Bermuda press machinery that was behind the times because of the war. It was at the press he met and married my mother.

Aubrey eventually applied his printer skills in hotels, particularly the Inverurie in Paget; and aboard cruise ships plying between New York and Bermuda. He was part of the crew of The Prince David, a passenger ship that was blown in a storm on the rocks at the back of what is now the old US Naval Station. The ship was refloated; and my father was part of the crew when it left for the peaceful waters of North and South America. He never came ashore again, but could be relied on to support his family through Marie’s two sisters who many years before had migrated to New York, and the postal service.

Now, back to that big storm threatening Bermuda in the early 1930s when I was about six years old.

Marie was fully aware of the dangers. The house blinds were secured with nails that had been left in the frames from previous storms. The gutter to the tank was stuffed on the rooftop. Cedar wood placed inside to keep dry for the kitchen oven. The water bucket in the kitchen was filled. So was the tea kettle; the dipper was brought inside, and heavy stones put on top of the water tank.

Meanwhile Mummy had dispatched my older sister and me to the neighbourhood grocery shop. The owner, I later realised, was a most compassionate woman. She was white, who also hailed from the West Indies. She was prepared to wait until our sustenance arrived, from New York

Our list was not big, as we needed to charge the cost. We had to get a tin of corn beef, pork and beans, potted meat. and most importantly two tins of condensed milk, which served a dual purpose, being both a sweetener and milk for our porridge and tea.

By now we were all busted. The lamp was trimmed, and we were put to bed.

The next morning we woke up. Yours truly inquired about what had happened. I was the most down-pressed, disappointed person in the country, when told that storm-passed-us-by during the night. At that age, I thought all the excitement the day before had gone to waste! I really did not what to expect.

I did not realise we had been blessed!