virgin islander

The challenge was: write about a place you know almost nothing about.  

She was always known as Great Aunt Laetitia in the family, but no-one really knew what happened to her. She was actually my great aunt three times removed, the youngest of eleven children, who disappeared at the age of twenty leaving her family bereft, including the second youngest child, Ferzackerley Beaumont, my great-great-great-grandfather, who had apparently been very close to her. Shortly before she disappeared, he had made a sketch of her, which is still in the family, and shows a very beautiful young woman, with a wry, playful expression.

It was a story I'd heard many times in my childhood, and now with time on my hands I determined to try and solve the mystery once and for all. Now I was off to the British Virgin Islands to follow one of the leads!

The rumours were many and various. Had she been a victim of the white slave trade? Had she died in the Crimea, one of Florence Nightingale's angels? Or was she part of the British Virgin Society's controversial settlement programme in the mid nineteenth century?

So here I was, looking out over the crystal clear waters of the Caribbean as the characteristic twin volcanic peaks of Sterling Island rose above the horizon. Though cruise ships now dock at the new port facility, I had chosen the more traditional route of a pirate ship. These are no more than tourist vessels nowadays of course, although I was told they do the occasional bit of drug running out of South America. But the picturesque sloop with its jolly roger flag gave me a feeling of what Great Aunt Laetitia must have experienced, in just such a boat as this. Dolphins flipped along in our wake, racing us as we approached the old harbour of Port Guinea, stacked up the hillside, with Mount Victoria now looming above us, and Mount Albert less distinct beyond. Around us the palm-fringed atolls of the outer islands could be seen: Peseta Island in the foreground and beyond it Rouble Island and many others to the horizon. Many small 'money boats' were plying between the harbour and the islands at a fair lick, or loading and unloading at the quay.

When paper money was introduced in the UK, it quickly fell victim to the depredations of Britain amongst those 'dark satanic mills' of the early industrial revolution. Health reformers were worried about the spread of disease by this filthy form of currency and so the Bank of England decided to have money cleaned in the then pristine environment of the colonies – where there was also cheap labour available. The Dutch, Portuguese and other colonial nations had already set up similar industries for polishing gold coins (names such as New Guinea and Guinea Bissau remind us of this tradition even today). The Bank had also been doing this in British Guinea (now Guyana), and decided to experiment with paper money there. However this project soon failed because of high humidity and malarial swamps.

Meanwhile the British Virgin Society, set up to prevent respectable young ladies falling into bad ways (there being a shortage of eligible young men following a series of wars), had established banana plantations in the Windward Islands, to be managed by their ladies. However, these were not doing as well as it was hoped, and so the Society bid for and won the money cleaning contract from the Bank. The rest is history: the islands became the British Virgin Islands and they remain to this day the money laundering centre of the world.

Pulling into Port Guinea, we could see row upon row of whitewashed cottages climbing up the hillside, each with its own yard, with lines stretching across filled with brilliant fluttering notes. Somehow I had imagined that the laundering process would have been modernised by now, undertaken in bland anonymous factories, but it was a joy to discover that the notes in my pocket must have been lovingly washed by hand right here on the island and then hung out to dry in the balmy breezes of the Caribbean. I could see groups of big brawny women scrubbing away around large, circular stuccoed vats dotted around the town, then pegging out the dripping notes on the lines.

After checking in to a charming old quayside inn, all oak beams and fishing floats, I made my way up steep cobbled alleys to the BVS headquarters building, a rather grand if fading colonial establishment, built around a shady colonnaded courtyard with brightly coloured shutters at the windows. A few old locals were hanging around in the shade, and an old dear was sweeping the courtyard rather half-heartedly. I had arranged to meet the BVS historian, Williametta Brooster, a descendant it turned out of a mixed marriage between one of the British virgins and a local. A mix of African, local tribal and European blood had given her striking good looks even in late middle age. She was a charming woman. Nothing was too much trouble for her – she seemed grateful that someone would take an interest in the history of the islands. She explained that many of the English ladies who had come over had ended up in relationships with the locals. In fact, it was only for a relatively short period that new virgins were sent to the colony; but the laundries were so successful that they continued eventually under native hands, in time taking on other countries' laundering requirements. Although Sterling Island continued to deal mostly with UK and commonwealth demands, the outlying atolls took on various European currencies: hence their names.

The islands have seen their economic health fluctuate as currencies came and went. The introduction of the euro was a troubling time for them as there was talk of an automated facility in Dortmund, but in the end Brussels relented and the euro work continues to be carried out here in the old way. There is now a major concern with the introduction of contactless payments as there has been a significant drop off in volume lately.

Miss Williametta explained all this to me, then took me to the rather grand oak panelled library, where the archives were kept. The building, foursquare and solid, had withstood many hurricanes and preserved the records, although she said that rats and mice and weevils had damaged some of the records. I had worked out – from Great Aunt Laetitia's age when she disappeared and her date of birth recorded in the parish register – that she must have left in 1858 or 1859. Miss W. pulled down the great leather bound volumes for those years, luckily intact, and we worked our way through the hand written entries, which meticulously logged every aspect of the work of the Society.

Suddenly, there it was: “Beaumont, Miss L. Arrived on Sloop Mary Jane, Nov. 9. Allocated to new Foreign Currency Division. Pig Island.”

Pig Island? I had thought all the islands were named after currencies. Miss W. explained that this was right at the start of the new contracts for non-Empire currency. Pig Island was now Peseta Island. And Laetitia would have stayed in the main house there, which still existed.

I was thrilled. The mystery was solved: I now knew for certain what had happened to Aunt Laetitia – and soon I would be able to see where she had spent her days, and maybe discover more about what happened after her arrival.

Early next morning I hitched a lift on one of the money boats, packed dangerously high with dirty old euros, and sped off to the nearby island. The captain pointed me in the direction of the old homestead and I set off, followed by a jolly bunch of curious laughing children.

The house was huge, an old Victorian gothic pile with wide shady balconies. It had obviously had a seeing to by the frequent tropical storms. Parts of the ornate fretted fascias were missing and the roof was patched with corrugated iron. One whole wing was abandoned and falling to ruin. Thousands of briliantly clean 20 and 10 euro notes were stretched on lines set up higgledy piggledy around the yard. A large old lady, sitting in the porch on a rocking chair, eyed me suspiciously as I approached.

I introduced myself. I believe a relative of mine once lived here many many years ago. Had she heard of Miss Laetitia Beaumont?

Without a word she stood, still stony faced, and beckoned me into the dark interior. The rooms were heavily curtained, with ancient wallpaper part peeling and torn, and big old mahogany furniture scratched and broken. There, in pride of place, was a very old photograph in an elaborate ebony frame. A couple on their wedding day. A handsome young African man and a beautiful young woman with a wry, playful smile. Unmistakably Great Aunt Laetitia.

“We calls her Great Aunty Tisha in my family.”

“So do we, so do we!” I said, as tears came to my eyes.

She looked surprised, then slowly her formidable look melted away and a huge smile swept across her face.

“Then we cousins!” she said, as she enfolded me tightly in her formidable washerwoman arms.