Tell me about your early career.

I started with the Dockyard Apprenticeship Scheme in 1949. Six months into it they decided to close the Dockyard down. They sent us to England because we were on a five year contract. That was September 1950.

What was England like at that time, so soon after the end of the Second World War?

We were sent to Portsmouth in the south of England. There weren't too many black people in the area. We were such a novelty that the little kids wanted to touch our skins to see if the colour came off. They couldn't accept we spoke English. They thought we spoke our own language. A lot of them didn't know about black people. After awhile we got use to the people and got along quite well with them.

So you learned boat building?

When I left here to go into the Dockyard, I went to go as a carpenter. I always wanted to work with wood. But when I got there, all the carpentry places were taken.

So they suggested to my mother to let me take shipwrighting, because it would let me take woodwork. I didn't care what it was called as long as it included woodwork. This entailed metal and things like that.

What happened when you finished your apprenticeship?

I stayed and worked as a tradesman for about a year and a half. I came back to Bermuda and I wasn't able to place myself in my profession. I did all sorts of things. I worked in the hotels as a waiter. I worked as a labourer pushing a wheelbarrow. I went to many of the ship yards but instead of employing me as a boat builder to repair, they wanted me to scrape the bottoms of boats. I didn't have any problem doing that when there was no woodwork available. When there was that available I expected them to let me do what I was trained to do.

What did you do?

Eventually, I was working in Dockyard for a company that was working on Watford Bridge. Not the one that is there now, but the one that would be on the eastern side of the bridge that exists now. I applied to the Admiralty and told them I would like to come back to England to work in my trade.

How did you get back to England?

They arranged for me to get on this tanker that was in Bermuda. It cost me £7. It was going from here to Curaçao first to pick up oil and then to Glasgow, Scotland. They had berths for civilians if they wanted to go to England. After we left Curaçao there was a German barkentine with trainees that had gone down. We spent four days searching for survivors. We didn't find any and eventually we went on to Glasgow.

During this period did you work on anything like the Deliverance replica?

I was lucky enough to have three months working on HMS Victory, Lord Nelson's flagship at the Portsmouth Naval Base in Hampshire, England which is in dry dock being repaired all the time. That was why I was able to build the Deliverance because I knew the method of construction.

Why was the boat built?

The boat was built by the Bermuda Junior Service League to raise money for charities. But in the beginning they didn't intend to build a boat. They wanted to build an apartment building, and use the rents for the charities.

Ralph McCallan, the uncle of Bermuda Junior Service League treasurer Nola Haycock, suggested they build the Deliverance replicainstead of apartments.

They probably would have had a lot more money now if they had built apartments.

They made their money. After awhile they didn't need the expense of repairs. They were able to find a couple of people to buy it. So they sold it to a group. But the group split up. That was the reason for the decline and disrepair of the boat. Eventually, the boat was sold again, and the Bank of Bermuda funded repairs to the boat.

What state was the Deliverance in when you started working on it?

Ralph McCallan, consulted the man who drew the plans for the Mayflower replica. They decided the shape of the waterline. It was built from the waterline and not to be put in the water because if she had been in the water, the owners would have had to use the money raised to have the bottom cleaned. That would have defeated the purpose of why the boat was built.

Have you been down to see it?

I was invited to come over there by the fellow who sells the tickets. But it is not my job to come over there and say whether it was a good job or a bad job.

Ordnance Island looked quite different at that time, didn't it?

There were buildings on Ordnance Island at the time. It is void of all those buildings today. One of them was the St. George's Dinghy Club, which was the one closest to the bridge. There were also carpentry shops and dwellings. There was another building that was vacant. We used it to lay out the shape of the ship. It wasn't big enough to put the whole length out, so we put half of it, and then we put the other half, so we could get the measurements, so I could make the shape of the frames.

How difficult was it getting materials?

Mr. McCallan ordered all of the material from abroad. We didn't have most of the materials in Bermuda. A lot of the frame work we used was pitch pine otherwise known as long leaf yellow pine. That was brought from a lumber company on Front Street. It was beautiful lumber – full of sap, and very long lengths.

Did anyone help you?

Yes, another guy helped me, Gary Paynter. He was 25-years-old. He was a carpenter, he wasn't a boat builder but he had good knowledge of woodwork. I would not have been able to build that boat without his assistance. He and I did all of the woodwork. A lot of people don't believe that. Fred Roberts and Peter Olander did the rigging, and three guys did the painting and oiling of it. Other people who helped were Robert Bannard, Roger Ming and a Mr. B. DeSilva who was the assistant shipwright. Cyril H. Smith was the draughtsman. There was one guy who made up the deadeyes.

What are deadeyes?

Deadeyes are things where the ropes go through to hold the mast in position. You often don't find them on boats today. Levison Smith, who was in his 70s did all the caulking of the two decks.

That comprised of caulking with oakum and then hot pitch in the seams. McCallan insisted on using linseed oil, whitening, a powder and cement, to get a pliable thing to go into the seams. It wasn't a good thing to use, because we had better stuff. But he wanted to use the type of thing that would have been used originally.

How long did it take you?

It took us about 18 months to complete. I made the mast myself. It was made of Canadian spruce. When I started we were being paid in pounds shillings and pence and before I finished it changed to dollars. I was quite happy with the outcome.

There must have been a big ceremony when it was finally finished?

I didn't attend the opening ceremony, because my then wife Ismay wasn't on the invitation. I made them aware of the situation and gave them the opportunity to make things right, and they didn't. At that time there were a lot of things that were done to degrade black people. That was one of the things.