Video: Vintage “Bermuda Holiday” Footage
A short Bermuda tourism promotional film — probably shot in the immediate post-World Two era — shows visitors making their way around the island on rented push-bikes as well as rented horses.
Bermuda’s longstanding ban on private cars and motor vehicles was lifted in 1946 and while a handful of automobiles can be glimpsed in “Bermuda Holiday”, horse-drawn carriages, horses and bicycles remain the chief modes of transportation. The film features footage of Front Street, Hamilton Harbour and St. George’s as well as highlighting such Bermuda landmarks as Gates Fort and the Natural Arches in Tucker’s Town.
During its early tourism zenith which lasted from the 1920s through the 1940s, Bermuda’s continuing reliance on horse-drawn transportation in the motorised age was a continuing source of interest and amusement around the world.
In fact, legendary Bermuda calypsonians The Talbot Brothers first found fame beyond the island’s shores with their 1942 recording “Bermuda Buggy Ride”
According to the essay “Gombeys, Bands and Troubadours” on Bermuda’s official website, “Bermuda Buggy Ride” brought them “wide recognition in the USA, and made them the group tourists most wanted to see.
“The song was a swing ballad and was actually written… in a buggy en route to Tom Moore’s Tavern. A young student from Yale was in the buggy, and he seems to have had a hand in the evolution of the song. On arriving at their destination, the musicians rehearsed the song until it was ready for performance that very day. It’s been riding along ever since.”
“Bermuda Holiday” travel film
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Was that a lion fish around 2:30 minutes?? Apparently they’ve been in Bermuda for quite some time then.
It was a very “produced” film (don’t get me wrong, I liked it). My guess is that the lion fish was in a holding tank and not in the wild.
They had lion fish here way back then too!