The longest-serving employee of the Fairmont Hamilton Princess had to cheat death to make it to her own retirement luncheon.

Newly retired room attendant Victoria S. Smith, 68, was one of seven employees recognised at the luncheon on Friday. Between them they had 249 years of service.

"In 2007, I was diagnosed with breast cancer and was off for a few weeks following a mastectomy," Mrs. Smith told The Royal Gazette. "I felt healthy and worked up until my wedding anniversary in March 2009."

It was around this time that she found her husband, Neville, lying under a banana tree having had a stroke.

Mr. Smith survived the stroke, but soon after Mrs. Smith became ill again. "I took ill with blood clots in both my lungs, as well as a form of pneumonia," she said, adding that she was in hospital for about three weeks.

"During that time I looked the picture of death," she said. "I was dying."

Her pastor, the Reverend Blanche Burchall of the Glory Temple New Testament Church of God, visited her and prayed for her. And this seemed to make all the difference.

"The doctors prepared to release me in 48 hours because they had seen a change in my body," she said. And so she was able to make it to the retirement lunch, after all. Mrs. Smith was the first ever shop steward at the Fairmont Hamilton Princess.

"We used to get paid at 5 p.m. Thursday," said Mrs. Smith. "Back in the 1960s at Cup Match you still got paid at 5 p.m. Thursday, and Friday was usually the first day of the holiday."

This caused problems for some of the staff because it meant that stores were closed when they received their money.

"I was the youngest person then," said Mrs. Smith. "I said, maybe we could change this. Maybe if we became a member of the union they could negotiate for us."

So Mrs. Smith went to the union office – based where the union gas station is now – and signed up the staff. She had to produce names of people who wanted to be involved, and also collect union membership from them. "I had to deal with about 500 staff," she said. "We had busboys, captains, waitresses, parlour maids, people that cleaned the floors, and others.

"When they had a grievance they all came to me. I didn't have somewhere where I could have a meeting. I used to hold my meetings in a linen closet.

"I would go to management and tell them what the staff wanted. If we couldn't settle it here I would go back to the union. They would come in and talk to management about it and they would work it out."

Eventually, she gave it up when she was asked to be afternoon maid in addition to her regular duties. "They asked me to do it until they could find someone," said Mrs. Smith. "Everyone they had had caused the guests to complain. So I was supposed to do it for three months until they found someone."

She ended up doing it for 25 years. Also in addition to her regular duties as room attendant, she was a night service turn down maid for seven years and maid for the British Airways staff for 15 years.

Mrs. Smith was born in Jamaica and migrated to Bermuda when she was 22 years old. She started at the Hamilton Princess shortly after it was purchased in 1959 by American billionaire Daniel Ludwig. As part of the deal he built the Southampton Princess and renovated the Hamilton Princess adding a new wing and lounges.

"I was hired to clean rooms in 1964," she said. "I cleaned the rooms on the fourth floor."

But all the dust from the renovations caused her to develop bronchitis.

"The doctor said I had to stop immediately," said Mrs. Smith. "He expected me to be at home for a month to clear my lungs.

"After two weeks he said, 'God worked a miracle on you. You can go back to work'."

In the years that she has worked at the Fairmont Hamilton Princess she has seen managers come and go and also met many celebrities including Robert Kennedy and Michael Jackson. "I met Michael Jackson when he was at the hotel in May 1991," she said. "He was trying to get away from the media. He didn't come through the front. He had two little boys with him. I was coming down the back steps with the staff. He was very soft-spoken. He was shocked when he saw me. I was on the second or third floor stairway. I yelled: "Hi, Michael Jackson!"

But she said, whether the hotel guests were famous or not, she always treated them the same.

"My focus has never changed... doing my work with pride and dignity," she said.

Mrs. Smith said she can clean a room in 30 minutes or 40 minutes, if it is particularly dirty.

"You have to know what you are doing," she said. "When you walk in the room you empty your trash cans. Most people forget that. They clean the room and leave the trash in the trash tin."

After giving the room a thorough cleaning, Mrs. Smith leaves the room, but is still not finished.

"When you finish you come out of the room, but you don't just close the door," she said. "You go back in the room. You might have left something in there like a piece of rag or something. Your last look is the guest's first look. So you try to get it right the first time."

And in turn she has become a minor celebrity herself with the guests.

During her time at the hotel, guests would often call to make sure that she would be working while they were there. They only wanted her to attend their rooms. And numerous people have sent letters to the hotel over the years, praising her work.

One guest wrote: "I have travelled all over the world and this was the cleanest I have seen my room."

"I love people and that is why I stayed in the industry," she said. "There was a time when they asked if I would be interested in the assistant housekeeper's position but I turned it down as it would mean that I would not get as much opportunity for direct contact with the guests."

She said aside from the early bronchitis, she was hardly ever sick in 45 years.

"Perhaps now, the Fairmont will want to consider rehiring me now that I am a healthy woman," she joked. "However I would turn them down because I realised too late that life is short and there is more to life than work."

Mrs. Smith has four children.

Other people recognised for long service to the hotel were Ulanda Thompson, Norma Grant, Florence McIntosh, Joao DaSilva, Myrtle Tuzo, and Rose Burrows.