Letter to the Government and The Anguillian Newspaper

ENJOYING THE BEACHES

To: CM Osbourne Fleming, Hon. Victor Banks, Hon. Kenneth Harrigan, Hubert Hughes, Hon. Albert Hughes, Edison Baird & Hon. Evans Rogers, Ministers of the Island of Anguilla.

My husband and I first came to Anguilla in the early 1970’s. The first paved road had just been laid and the only electricity on the island was produced by owner operated generators. We fell in love with every inch of it – the atmosphere, the beaches and as everyone who comes here does, with the Anguillian people themselves.

Our first taxi driver and I shall always remember him- gave us his card. ‘Sam- your friendly taxi driver- #63’, the card said and we kept it for years, representing as it did, the wonderful welcome Anguilla first gave us and has continued until this year to give us.

Although we never caught up with Sam again, we haven’t missed a year of visiting Anguilla since 1983. Before the hotel was built, we stayed in the beach villas at Malliouhana and at Cap Juluca. We waited on the beach until 7:30 at night to check into our room in the first of the villas because the varnish on the doors and windows hadn’t dried- a bulldozer sat on our front terrace the entire time we were there. We loved it and travelling from beach to beach all over the island - talking to everyone we pleased -was a joy.
On March 8, of this year we were asked to move off the beach at Maunday’s Bay or rather to move to one of its opposing ends. We were told we were off limits in the area where the hotel had set up its chairs. Even native Anguillians, we understand are unwelcome and when a friend who was with us (an Anguillian ‘belonger’)protested that the beach was not the hotel’s but “The Queens,” the hotel representative called for a security guard to remove us. He even went so far as to call us “pathetic” for protesting for the rights of all the people of Anguilla. Such a terrible change! Such a terrible new image for the island.

Sincerely, but with regret,

Victoria S. Poole
24 Old Mill Road,
Cape Elizabeth, Maine 04107
U.S.A

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