Bequia enjoyed repeat visitors each season and I got to know many of them. I often forgot their names but I usually knew which hotel or guest house they stayed at, which table they liked best at the Pizzeria and what they would most likely order from the menu. The tourists were a hardier breed in the 70’s and 80’s, getting to Bequia often took two days and it wasn’t a comfortable trip. Those who made the pilgrimage each year knew it was worth the discomfort once they arrived, they were greeted like family from the moment they stepped off the ferry.
Gradually these repeat guests were replaced by younger visitors who were new to the Island. After staying at one of the hotels or guest houses they often explored the possibility of renting a house for their visit the following year. This was easier said than done – with no websites to browse and no villa rental agencies it was difficult for them to identify and book a property.
Bequia didn’t have what are today called “villas”. Jimmy and Sandy had a fancy house but it was not a rental property. Local people (such as my old landlord Guildford Stowe) had rental houses but they were not suitable for tourists, they were in the “bare bones” category. Some Bequians rented out the downstairs or upstairs portions of their homes, but advertising their existence was left to word of mouth and good old local knowledge.
Tourists wanting to rent properties on the Island sometimes wrote letters to the Tourist Bureau, and when I became Chairman of the Tourist Committee I started answering them. There were no fax machines or computers, snail mail was the method of communication, and it took quite some time for letters to travel back and forth. In order to give advice about rental properties I had to do a bit of research; I needed to find rentable houses and obtain addresses for the home owners, which I would then send on to those making inquiries
People started renting the properties from the lists I mailed to them and I soon found that I had created a bit of a monster. That’s an understatement! I was not a rental agent, just a person trying to help, but whenever anything went wrong either the renter or the homeowner was on my doorstep complaining. I already had a full plate, the Pizzeria, Junior Sailing Club and Tourist Committee kept me fully occupied, and the last thing I needed or wanted was having to deal with other peoples’ problems!
The first irate tourist to tackle me arrived at the Pizzeria just before sunset. I had no idea who he was, his name was vaguely familiar but I had never seen him before. He was waving a cheque at me, and before long I realized that he was one of the people I had sent a list of rental properties to. He was seriously pissed off and was blaming me for the difficulty he had encountered at the property he thought he had booked. He had written to the homeowner, who had assured him that he could book the house for the first two weeks of February. The man wrote a cheque for the rent and mailed it, figuring he was all set for his vacation on Bequia. He arrived to discover another family occupying the house, the homeowner said they had booked it for a longer period of time so he was giving the man his cheque back. The owner of the house figured that as long as he hadn’t cashed the cheque the booking was not written in stone, and the man had to find someplace else to stay. Needless to say he was not a happy camper!
On another occasion I got a call from the police station to say I had better come and deal with “my people”. Although marijuana was smoked on the Island it was done with discretion, possession of the weed was illegal and the laws regarding it were enforced. The police had received a message from the maid at a rental house to say that the guests had drugs on the premises, and the two English couples had been arrested when the house was searched. I chastised the maid, she had rifled through a drawer to find the two joints, why on earth had she been been groping through their underwear? The woman glared at me and said, “Miss Mac, de reason I do it, dem people real nasty. Dey does leave use condom beside de bed for me to pick up.” ‘Nuff said, they could damned well sort out their own problems with the police!
I rarely got any thanks from the owners of the rental properties. I wasn’t expecting a commission for my efforts but a simple “thank-you” once in a while would have been nice! I usually got the opposite, a litany of complaints about the type of people I had sent or about the type of mess they had made. They used too much water or they complained about the lack of sheets and towels. One lady came to my house on a Sunday to say “my people” had broken a glass and there was a fork missing, she obviously expected me to replace them. Sheesh! Some people are impossible to please, why did I always have to discover this the hard way?