Todd war diary, 3 August 1914-29 February 1916 / Arthur Todd - Page 65
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[Page 65]
Bermuda before Lord Fishers regime [Admiral Fisher was a British naval reformer] had been an important Naval station with a cruiser fleet based thereon, but in the process of economy which set in Bermuda gradually fell into disuse.
Still there was a large floating dock, and when we arrived the place had been recommissioned and had become the Headquarters of the North American and West Indies Squadron.
Bermuda is one of the few places, one imagines, where the motor car is not. By law no motor propellor vehicle is allowed to be landed and everybody from Governors and post captains down propels himself sedately on a bicycle. The roads are good tho' narrow and are made of harsh white coral so cycling is by no means unpleasant tho' it is a hard blow at first to have to pull ones socks up and push wherever one wants to go.
There are six large American hotels three of which at any rate are larger than the Hotel Australia in sydney and as they are only open for the winter Season to cater for tourists one can imagine the tariff.
Everything comes from New York. At the beginning of the Season ships are chartered and cooks waiters in fact all the staff and stores are imported in bulk and at the end everything goes back whence it came. For three months in the year Bermuda is as gay as Paris. There are dances every night and parties every day, for the rest of the year Bermuda is just a group of sleepy isles in the Atlantic.
Everything is American the coinage is American the accent American and the prices distinctly American. Except for the flag which floats over Government House we would never suspect that one was in a British Colony.