I explained in part 32 of this series, which was published on April 3, that I wanted to make Mabel Wagner’s book Lest I Forget better known. Many of the mere 1,000 copies printed in Florida in 2012 were destroyed by the hurricanes that ravaged the Virgin Islands in 2017 (mine is damaged but legible), and I know of only one second-hand copy available for sale, held by a Canadian bookshop (perhaps previously owned by a Polish sailor).
In view of the negotiations regarding the revised level of fees the VI is to charge United States VI charter boats operating in VI waters, we note with interest Ms. Wagner’s claim that her husband Captain Wladek Wagner introduced chartering in both territories. She writes that tourists and affluent residents in St. Thomas welcomed the novelty of day sails, which were later extended to multi-day trips to neighbouring islands crewed by enthusiastic local sailors (see part five of this series, published on Oct. 11, 2023).
‘A conundrum’
In part 30, published on Feb. 27, I reported Ms. Wagner’s comment that a pilot from St. Thomas had landed a plane on the nearly completed Beef Island airfield on Sept. 1, 1957, to test its safety for ferrying the film company that would be based at the Wagners’ clubhouse at Trellis Bay. Her account of events between then and her husband’s official resignation from the airport project on Nov. 18, 1957, faces us with a conundrum.
After hearing that his integrity was being maligned in the legislature, Mr. Wagner decided he didn’t want to work for the government any longer as he had “enough to do at Trellis Bay,” presumably referring to his management of the boatyard and his new commitments to the film company. Yet he still managed to fulfil his remaining contractual obligations to the government (as recounted in part 31 of this series, published on March 20).
Mr. Wagner’s absence from the airfield while being paid a small stipend under his contract would certainly have invited further criticism which even his friend and admirer, the VI’s administrator, would have found hard to deflect. Yet when the legislature received his letter of resignation, they immediately asked him to build the airport terminal building. He appears to have worked on two full-time projects at the same time, and, according to Ms. Wagner, he was pleased at the results.
The film crew
Directly after Mr. Wagner had unloaded Herbert Lee’s bulldozer off the pontoon on which it had been carried from St. John (as I related in part 32), he returned to the West India Dock in St. Thomas to collect the film equipment that had just arrived from London. Ms. Wagner comments that from then onwards the company’s needs dominated her days.
The Bigelows’ boat brought the film company’s actors and co-workers from the hotel on Guana Island to the clubhouse on Bellamy Cay for breakfast. Ms. Wagner remarks that most guests were very polite and considerate, and that John Cassavetes and Sidney Poitier greeted the staff cheerily. But she found the female star, Virginia Maskell, much more aloof and difficult to get on with.
Ms. Wagner was irritated by demands that Ms. Maskell had made on her staff that they didn’t understand. I can imagine Ms. Maskell complaining to her that “one of your serving girls” had ignored her request for a brand of dietary supplement commonly available in London and having to explain that her staff probably hadn’t heard of the product but considered it impolite to say so.
Clothilda Penn, my future mother-in-law, had recommended the most able and pleasant-mannered girls available in East End to assist the film company at very little notice, and Ms. Wagner writes that she resented having to placate the actress by promising to look in St. Thomas for something that she could have brought with her from London.
The day’s shoot
Each day after breakfast, the director gathered the actors and technicians together onto the pier for instructions on that day’s” shoot.” Then they all sailed off in the Wagners’ yacht Rubicon, towing the pontoon loaded with two generators, six sun lamps and other equipment. One generator and two sun lamps were always left behind for back-up or shore use.
Mr. Wagner stayed with the filming crew and later recounted to Ms. Wagner his day’s events (for example, he learned that the men used sun lamps for a type of film needing very strong light as well as sunlight). He appears to have been less interested in what she and her staff had been doing at the cay while he was away: cleaning, tidying up and preparing food and drink.
She says the meals seemed endless and included mid-morning snacks taken out to Rubicon on the motorboat Trellissa followed by lunch and afternoon tea. At the end of the day, the throb of Rubicon’s engine was like a drumbeat through the bush ordering the clubhouse staff to take up their respective positions, ready to meet the company’s needs before cocktails.
Ms. Wagner confesses that she felt uncomfortable at tending the bar and preferred that guests helped themselves and signed for what they used, as the honour system seemed to work well. Despite all the demands on her time, she managed to maintain the children’s schooling every day and tried to take them for a swim before dinner was served.
