from On the move with Earl Dowdy “The Sunday News”
CASTRIES, St Lucia –His smiling, suntanned face and ample girth offer abundant proof that Peter Elliott has tried to enjoy life since surviving the flak-filled skies over Germany in World War II.
But even after 30 years, he still finds it difficult to drown that old “Each Dawn I Die” devil which once drove a 20 year old bomber pilot back to duty on innumerable missions for king and empire.
“Ah, well, we were all somewhat mad then, to use the marvellous airplane for an instrument of destruction,” said Elliott in a philosphical mood at the bar of the Vigie Beach Hotel there.
He often falls into such moods – usually about 5 pm daily – but somehow rebounds, bright and eager the next dawn to do his duty, sober and serious, as a senior captain of Wings Limited, an air taxi line serving St Lucia and surrounding Caribbean isles.
(It isn’t far to rebound: the hotel bar is only 100 convenient yards from the runway down a lane brimming with bougainvillea blossoms. But you’d better reconfirm any reservations made the night before; Capt Elliott has an odd habit of jotting them on his hand in ink – which turns a purple blur after he wraps it around a tumbler of scotch.)
Using a nine-passenger, twin-prop Britten Norman Islander, he offers a scenic 15-minute flight between St Lucia’s capital, Castries and Hewanorra International Airport for only $10. The alternative is a two-hour, $25 ordeal by automobile of the most erratic trail this side of the Burma Road.
SUCH A DRIVE is a weary way to wind up here after a day-long journey from Detroit, even in the plush, wide-body comfort of an Eastern Airlines’ Whisperjet which stops a Miami, San Juan, St Thomas, and Antigua en route. You might, however, enjoy the trip more y pausing at one of those ports a night or two before continuing onto Castries.
“Now, this is a better way to see St Lucia in its full perspective,” Elliott observed as we flew slowly along the rocky, palm-lined coast at 1 500 feet.” And carrying tourists seems a much more sensible idea than toting bombs, though both must be handled with care.”
Especially Americans, whose wartime presence in England caused some intramural pub battles when he described them as 4-0’s.
“Over-fed, over-paid, over-sexed and over-here.”
A recent passenger was his war-time Royal Airforce wing commander, who was amazed to find Elliott still at the controls of a plane 3 decades after being shipped home to Australia for demobilization.
“Neither the Nazis or the Yanks managed to clip my wings,” he said proudly. “But Commander Cheshire had frequently threatened to with a court matial for unbecoming conduct toward an ally.
“WELL, MY COUNTRY had no work for bomber pilots in 1945 and I’d never been trained for much else, so I left to fly freight or whatever I could get throughout Asia and the Middle East – from Hong Kong to Abu Dhabi on the Arabian Gulf,”recalled Elliott, who at 54 closely resembles conductor Leonard Bernstein.
“Then I wandered to the West Indies five years ago, found some friendly people, a pleasant climate, and a steady job. And here I am, leading a life of genteel contentment under the palm trees when I’m not up in a plane over some of the world’s most beautiful scenery.”
He’d be happy to take you flightseeing above it, but if you care to drive around St Lucia there are 238 square miles of spectacular topography to admire close-up: volcanic peaks rising 3,117 feet from the sea, deep green valleys, dotted with banana plantations, pink villas clinging to craggy cliffs, blue waves turning white as they shatter on coral reefs, calm bays rimmed with wide beaches of velvet sand.
And then there’s Castries, where a quarter of St Lucia’s 140 000 people live, while most tourists stay at the Vigie Beach Hotel, The Holiday Inn, La Toq Village, or a half-dozen other coastal resorts within a half-hour drive of the capital.
ALMOST TOTALLY destroyed by a 1948 fire, the town remains something less than a Caribbean showplace even yet, though its stores and banks appear prosperous and the harbour often is lined with cruise ships.
Most tourists visit Bagshaw’s boutique, where Madame may pick out bright local prints for a $40 evening gown and sip tea on a sea-side terrace to await her fitting.
The in-spot to go for hamburgers and banana daiquiris is a far-out, funky kind of saloon called “Rain” which is decorated with Hollywood posters of Joan Crawford (circa 1932) portraying Somerset Maugham’s unhappy hooker, Sadie Thompson. It resembles the original location out in Samoa, down to the beaded curtains.
Too bad Maugham never met Peter Elliott, who was the late author’s kind of robust, footloose character. St Lucia might now be better known to travellers seeking off-beat ports, for any island he lands on is likely to be a colourful place.