Perhaps the biggest single difference was the Casemates Square, back then it held accomodation for hundreds of Moroccan persons brought in to keep things going as there were no Spanish allowed in of course. Now it's all 'al fresco' eateries, Pizza, local seafood and 'Good ol' British fish and chips!
Two incidents in the garden I remember, we had a palm tree blown down by the wind and due to the fibrous nature of the wood the chain saw kept clogging up so I had to divide it up with a hand axe, it took me ages (I made the front page of the Chronicle with that one. In the garden was a HUGE Bouganvilie bush, it was immense. It flowered on the outer 'skin' but inside was all dead leaves and catsI I started to cut it back, burn in a 45 G oil barrel again and again for weeks (along with dragon tree leaves, my, they go up when they burn).
Eventually we had uncovered a set of ornamental stone stairways and a section of garden never seen before. We were left with the centre of the bush, I was all for carrying on cutting back and burning, but Jon Morgan Searle the Secretary of the library and the editor of the chronicle decided to set fire to what was remaining in place.
He applied the match (M'Lud) and whoosh, up it all went. All the spikey branches and all the dead leaves, well It would have been O.K. but across the top of the garden was the mains cable and telephone wires for the whole area! Well he said. after the conflagration had been douced by the fire brigade "That will have to be tomorrows headline news"!
We had the only Double Hibiscus on the Rock and the Governer's gardener had his eye on it. It wasn't there on my return, so if anyone gets invited to the Governor's house, keep an eye out for it!
My claim to fame is I reburbished the flagpole on top of the library for the visit of Charles and Diana and I watched them sweep past along Main Street from the roof of the Boxer Bar.
Cheers, Tony.
Oh by the way, we never found the doorway to the Boxer Bar, the most likely candidate was number 33 Main Street. If anyone can shed any light on this...