The boat we are staying on in the foreground.

 

So… as you know by now I was working as a nanny in Antigua…

(I feel like singing, “I was working as a waitress in a cocktail bar – when I met you “by The Human League.  I Like The Human League. Apparently I danced like the girls way back then.

Anyway…  as you also know it was here  I met my husband to be who was skipper of his first boat having worked his way up from scrubbing the decks. When I finished my year as a nanny, I moved on board with my now fiancé. Trouble was – I could neither sail nor cook to charter standard!!!

We went home to meet each other’s families in a grand tour taking in Scotland, Wales & Somerset. Roddy flew back to Antigua & I had booked myself into a week’s cookery school which was a TOTAL DISASTER & I ended up in tears.

I returned to Antigua & we had a few day charters which I managed OK.  One day Roddy was asked to Temo Sports to meet some people who wanted to charter the boat for a day. Their only request provision wise was that they did not need any booze - which was unheard of for a charter.

We provisioned the food and waited for the guests to arrive… and waited and waited.  Finally we got a call from Temo Sports to go ashore please.

A rather embarrassed club owner explained that the guests had been deported for possession of drugs having spent the night in goal. We realised rather naively later that they were a band & requesting no alcohol meant only one thing. I can’t say who they were but they were a white reggae band from Birmingham & their name was something to do with being unemployed and their famous single is something I like to drink!!!

I’ve just read this out to Roddy & he said put them on speakers from his iPod for memories! Ha!  It was a tad unfair considering the blatant selling of drugs on a beach while we sizzled our sausages.  That’s Antigua for you. If caught with drugs on board, it would have been Roddy gone to prison.

So, my last famous person story does not involve me.  I stayed back in the UK doing this ridiculous cookery course & crying knowing that I just didn’t have it in me to be a cook on a charter yacht. I stayed with my Auntie Mia in London & she would find me in floods of tears at five am when she got up for her newsagents shop. Bless her – she gave me loads of cookery magazines to try to help.

While I was in London enduring my cooking torment, my fiancé returned to Antigua & spent his evenings playing pool in a new bar.  He played on & off with the same man, Eric all week & saw him again out on a boat his friend skippered – the beautiful yacht Errol Flynn had once owned.  Having being with him on the boat, over pool that night Roddy said to the stranger, “So what do you do?”  Eric answered… “I play the guitar.  “Roddy said, “What, in a band?”  Eric answered, “No just on my own- In fact this is one of mine playing now “Roddy said, “This is familiar…what’s your last name?”

The man named Eric answered, “Clapton “

Eric Clapton’s house. He also owns & finances a drug rehabilitation centre here in Antigua. He's been known to turn up in a bar for an impromptu jamming session too ! 

 

Needless to say, this story has been told many many times over! We have a photo of Roddy & Eric on that lovely sailboat too.