"I've been down here since I was three years old.'' With that statement, Ruth (Ma) Pitcher makes it clear that she is, heart and soul, a St. David's Islander.

The fact that the 76-year-old was born on Princess Street in Hamilton is a mere detail in the life of a woman who, like others of her generation in the eastern-most part of the Island, is a real character. She knows everyone and everything about the area, and can reel off stories and anecdotes with the best of them.

Mrs. Pitcher lets her story begin with her student days at Mr. Hilly Richardson's school.

"It was right where the AME Church is now, and we paid sixpence a week,'' she says. "I liked school and all my subjects, and I went there until my mamma got sick, and then I still went there. I had to finish, you know, but in those days you didn't go too high. They only had seven standards, and you couldn't afford to go anywhere else.'' Indeed times were tough for the child who, at age 11, had to look after the family, which included two brothers and a sister, when her mother became ill.

"My mamma said, `I don't know how we're going to make out because the child doesn't know how to cook','' Mrs. Pitcher recalls, "but I'd been watching how she did things, so when she got sick I could do everything.'' With none of today's modern appliances to help her, laundry was an arduous and time-consuming task.

"We scrubbed the clothes on a wash board, and ironed them with a coal iron that you lit with cedar brush,'' she remembers. "We also used to take the cedar brush and rub it on the bottom of the iron 'til it was nice and smooth, and girl, I tell you, that thing could iron beautiful. You had to do all of that by hand you know. You didn't have no electricals in them days.'' Unfortunately, Mrs. Pitcher's mother succumbed to her illness, so the child became a permanent caretaker of the household. It was a tall order for one so young, but with the grit that was typical of her generation, she soldiered on, and her memories are sweet ones.

"Times were good in them days,'' she assures. "Everybody knew one another, and as a child, when you went to play somewhere, you didn't know nothin' about this black and white business. Everybody got along fine -- like one big, happy family.' Despite her onerous household responsibilities, the then Ruth Fox found time to enjoy childhood games: playing house, jacks, hide and seek, hop scotch, and marbles.

"I was always a big tease, and when we used to play marbles I used to take them from a friend. Bye I tell you, she didn't like that. She would cry like I don't know what.'' At school the young girl excelled at running, and used to get "a real prize'' for needle and thread.

"Today they just get a ribbon,'' she notes.

In her mid-teens, Ruth Fox began taking an interest in boys and then, as now, a man in uniform was always attractive, so along with her contemporaries she would "peep out'' the St. David's Island pilots.

Bingo! Ronald (Ronnie) Pitcher set his cap for Ruth, and the couple courted for five years until, at age 21, he steered her to the altar on August 12, 1945.

"They didn't have a priest over here, so we went over by boat to St. Peter's Church,'' Mrs. Pitcher says of her wedding day. "I just wore a regular dress, and my maid of honour was Joan Page. Her husband, Harold, was Ronnie's best man.'' Entertainment in those days consisted of going to the movies, visiting friends, and playing cards.

In her single days she had enjoyed dancing.

"When the base first came here they had the Quarry Restaurant and the Happy Hit and we used to dance away, sure we did, oh yes,'' Mrs. Pitcher says. "I had all my pleasures before I got married.'' As time went on, the couple had three children: Glenn, Diane and Carol, all of whom she proudly declares were raised to cook and wash clothes.

Her confession that she can "cook anything'' she can get her hands on, but is "no Dolly Pitcher'' (a legendary St. David's island cook) is perhaps modest, given that she was one of the stalwarts who prepared the traditional community feast following the annual Seagull races.

Giving a whole new meaning to the term "boat racing'', the tiny four to five horsepower Seagull engines, with a top speed of approximately five knots (roughly six m.p.h.), propelled a variety of craft, including old punts and dinghies, and the spectacle drew flocks of spectators, including "furriners'' from the mainland and visitors.

Daughter Carol was a contestant.

"It was a women-only race, and the route was from St. David's to Somerset,'' she says. "We all had a partner -- one steered, and the other filled up the one-gallon gas tank and bailed. I came second one year and Beulah Foggo came first.'' In addition to trophies for first, second and third place winners, donated prizes were also handed out, and one year the Governor presented them.

Originally, because the club had no home, a post-race barbecue was held on Great Bay Beach to which all were welcome. When it did have a home, first at St. David's Cricket Club and later at The Battery, the tradition was continued, and Mrs. Pitcher was always among those cooking up a storm for the fund-raiser.

"Girl, you name it, we had it,'' she says. "Codfish cakes, curried chicken, peas 'n' rice, and fish caught by the St. David's islanders. Oh my, everybody came -- visitors, everybody -- it was a big thing.'' Apart from race day, the club organised socials, which were popular and fun.

Mrs. Pitcher recalls the time commodore Eloise Millett decided to have a `Christmas in July' party, for which "we sawed off one of them spruce trees and decorated it''.

Incidentally, the club's name was later changed to add "and friends'' so that men could also join. Like her fellow compatriots, the mother of three enjoyed fishing off the rocks around the coastline, with the catch typically cooked on site.

"St. David's Islanders still do that today,'' she says. "They throw everything in the pot. Everybody brings something and they get some beer and stuff and sit right there.'' Mrs. Pitcher also joined friends Polly and Fanshaw Lamb hauling mullets with big nets, principally for their much-prized roe.

"Mullet roe is a big thing round here, girl,'' she assures."People used to say to me, `Bring me a piece of roe, Ma'.'' Preparing it was quite a process.

"You used to salt it and put it in between two pieces of wood with a concrete block on top and press until it was thin and gone brown. Then you took salt and water and washed it, and afterwards you hung it out to dry on the clothes line with a screen around it to keep the flies off.'' "It used to get hard and tasted like soap -- at least to me,'' Diane interjects.

But did she like it? "Whaat?'' she exclaims. "It's like gold!'' "Yeah, you should hear them around here. They go crazy. Talk about good!'' her mother adds.

The mullets were also eaten. According to Mrs. Pitcher they were boiled up with potatoes and onions and "a little bit of `passley' ''.

Mrs. Pitcher walked everywhere, and while raising her family she never travelled abroad. After the birth of her first child in hospital, she vowed never to return, so the other two were born at home.

Today, she is a widow. After 55 years of marriage her beloved Ronnie passed away on May 23 last year at age 75.

Due to ill health, her mobility is now severely restricted. Nevertheless, she remains cheerful and enjoys occasional outings in a wheelchair or by car, and it rankles the former swimmer that crowds from elsewhere in the island flock to Clearwater Beach during the season and on public holidays, making it "almost impossible'' for St. David's Islanders to enjoy the land that once was theirs.

Nonetheless, Mrs. Pitcher enjoys the splendid views over Great Bay from the hilltop home she shares with Carol and Goldie the cat, and between the many television channels and phone calls and visits from friends, the woman they call "Ma'' remains an integral part of the St. David's Island scene, and for that she is thankful.