Walter Lister has seen plenty of changes in more than 30 years as an MP and 60-odd years living in Sandys. He looked back and reminisced when im Smith visited Sandys South Central with Up Your Street.

An otherwise beautiful beach stained by ugly balls of tar, demonstrating how man-made pollution can take the shine off what ought to be a perfect tourist attraction.

But this is not the oil-damaged Gulf Shores of America- it's Bermuda's Harman's Bay of yesteryear, where children couldn't play without getting their feet covered in tar.

Harman's Bay was just one of many beaches plagued by tar balls right up to the 1980s, a far cry from the pure pink sand everyone enjoys today.

Sandys MP<\p>Walter Lister, a lifelong West End resident, recalls how warships would pour waste into the Great Sound, causing lumps of oil to wash up on the little beach where he spent so much of his young life.

The mess - which left many a mother cleaning her children's feet with Lestoil at the end of a day in the sun is a lesson environmentalists would have liked the oil companies to learn before the calamitous Deepwater Horizon spill that now threatens marine life and beaches across a colossal area.

Mr. Lister took The Royal Gazette onto the now-spotless Harman's Bay as he talked about the changes he's seen during his long political career which he's announced is coming to an end.

His roots in Constituency 34 go back long before he became the area MP in 1976. Born and bred in Sandys, as a boy he played on Harman's Bay accessible down a steep bank off Sound View Road along with friends including the future Bishop Ewen Ratteray and Travis Gilbert, whose home still overlooks the beach.

"Travis and I, and all the other kids would spend our summers on the bay," said Mr. Lister.

"There were lots of big grey battleships. Massive ones. You'd get these tar balls on the beach the same thing they are experiencing in beaches along the Gulf because the ships would open up in this water and do all sorts of things.

"Without environmentalists being involved, they would just flush it out here. There was a lot of oil and tar on the beach. You'd go home in the evening and your mom used to clean your feet.

"When I<\p>saw them in the Gulf doing that stuff, it brought my memories back here."

A hive of activity in the days before everyone owned a car, nowadays Harman's Bay is often empty as locals head for places like Horseshoe Bay.

That reflects one of the major changes in society Mr. Lister has observed over the years, as Somerset has become less of an enclosed community.

"People approach things a lot differently today," he said. "Money wasn't as plentiful then as it is today. If people want something today, they just go and get it. Many people travel today, go overseas, go on credit. There was no such animal in those days. You saved up, and all the money you were going to spend, you took with you."

Of his constituency, he said: "Somerset in general was more of a quiet village in those days. The violence which we see today was not here.

"The unfortunate thing is that even a quiet little village like us in Somerset is affected by the violence that is engulfing not only Bermuda but also many parts of the world.

"It was a laidback community. Today, many of the people who live in Somerset work in the city. It was a lot less hectic in those days going into the city.

"The traffic only demonstrates the growth of our community and the affluence of our community. One good thing is that with the new fast ferries it's taken a large portion of traffic off the road. I think Dr. Brown had a vision and his vision has proved to be true."

Mr. Gilbert reflected on the changing face of Somerset: "Generally, Bermuda was more about neighbourhoods. There was no opportunity for people to go to Horseshoe Bay because there was no buses and most people didn't have a car.

"We had different communities: this community here; around the corner Knight's Hole; Mango Bay; Scott's Bay. All different communities."

A few yards from Harman's Bay is a bridge, forming part of the Railway Trail, which has been there so long many residents think it's been there forever.

In fact, it was built under the current MP's watch, albeit 30-odd years ago; Mr. Lister and other locals petitioned Government into providing $24,000 for the bridge to allow joggers and cyclists to continue using a popular path.

"The replacement of the bridge has proven to be very successful," said Mr. Lister. "The bridge today is just considered a part of Somerset."

Mr.<\p>Lister's tour of his constituency with Up Your Street highlighted how, while long-serving politicians may become familiar faces on their territories, it's not necessarily compliments all the way.

For every pat on the back such as from 86-year-old Helen Bean who congratulated him for saying Works and Engineering would be along to tidy up litter before Cup Match there's a cross word from somebody altogether more difficult to please.

Driving up Tranquility Lane, Mr. Lister told this newspaper how happy people are with recent road repaving, before reaching the top and asking one resident what she thought of the new surface.

"It's the worst road in Bermuda," replied the woman. "All they do is patch it up. This road is terrible."

Put firmly in his place, Mr. Lister explained Works and Engineering are on the case, but need to install waterlines before they can complete the job.

"He's a flipping nuisance," said the woman of the man who's been her MP for 34 years but, now, not for much longer.