Rick Spurling was the United Bermuda Party Member of parliament for St David’s for six years back in the 1990s.

But the 76-year-old admits he never really liked politics.

“I did it out of duty,” Mr Spurling said. “I was convinced by David Saul and John Swan. My family were all politicians, going back four generations, including my father, Dudley Spurling who also represented St Georges. That is something I am proud of.”

But he did not like all the games involved in politics, and was frustrated by the way most constructive debate seemed to happen in Cabinet, rather than the House of Assembly.

But, he says there was one good thing that came out of the experience: St David’s.

“When I represented St David’s I would go through the neighbourhood talking to people,” he said. “I came to know St David’s pretty well, and its history, to some extent.

“I became very interested in it. I lost the election in 1998, but it did not change my love for St David’s, at all. My exposure to St David’s was the best thing to come out of my time as an MP.”

It was while working as an MP that he first became involved in Carter House, an historic farmhouse at Southside, St David’s that is approximately 320-years-old.

In 1995, the US military left the US Naval Air Station in St David’s and the land was given back to Bermuda. That left the fate of Carter House up in the air.

The Bermuda National Trust declined to take over the building so it was turned over to the Bermuda Land Development Company Ltd.

Local historian and environmental activist, Joyce Hall, asked for Mr Spurling’s help as the MP for the area.

“She said we have to do something,” Mr Spurling said.

He suggested they form an organisation to take it over. The St David’s Historical Society was born.

“I got the lease from the BLDC for a lily bulb in 1998,” he said. “Then we took over the place and had to completely restore it, renovate it and replace the electricity.”

When the $150,000-renovation project was over, the next task was to create a museum from nothing. The community donated pots and pans from the early 1800s, harpoon guns and other items.

One of the most unusual items donated was a metal object from the St David’s Lighthouse.

“A man who had visited the island 40 years ago, brought it in one day when he returned to the island,” Mr Spurling said. “He told a docent he had stolen this item from the St David’s Lighthouse, and had had it for most of his life.

“He said it has been on his conscience for all that time. He said I am back in Bermuda now, and I don’t just want to leave it in the lighthouse because it is not manned any more. He thought Carter House would be a perfect place for it.”

Nobody knows for sure what the item is, but Mr Spurling thinks it might be a device for switching kerosene gas on and off.

“The St David’s Lighthouse was run on kerosene oil originally,” Mr Spurling said. “There were no roads or trucks, so the oil had to be carried up to St David’s Lighthouse on the backs of donkeys. It was about a mile up hill. Then it had to be carried up to the light.”

The St David’s Lighthouse switched to electricity in the 1960s. The stolen curio now has pride of place at Carter House.

Now Mr Spurling spends a good deal of time at the museum, arranging exhibitions, writing text, researching, and checking for water leaks in the ancient roof.

One night, he was working late there, with his dog, Tigger, for company.

“He was sitting next to me while I worked at the table,” Mr Spurling said.

Then the Portuguese cattle dog began to act strangely.

“Tigger walked to the other side of the room, looked at me, sat down and started barking at me,” Mr Spurling said.

Mr Spurling opened the door of the old building, and the dog bolted outside. He had a struggle to catch him again, and then Tigger would not come back into the museum.

Now, Mr Spurling wonders if his dog sensed something supernatural. Several people who have spent time at Carter House have reported hearing mysterious humming, and feeling ghostly hair touching and shoulder tapping.

“We have ghosts at Carter House, but they are friendly ghosts,” Mr Spurling stressed.

Mr Spurling said he was born with a love of history.

Growing up in Wellington, St George’s, Mr Spurling would walk up and down a ploughed field near his home, collecting old military buttons that popped out of the soil.

He theorises that military uniforms from the various military garrisons and regiments stationed in Bermuda over the years, may have been burnt their uniforms there after outbreaks of infectious diseases such as Yellow Fever.

“They were from the 1700s through to the 1800s,” he said. “I would find clay pipes and shards of pottery and military buttons, or something really good like an old marble or a badge.”

He still has those buttons. In his early 20s, he studied business at William & Mary University in Williamsburg, Virginia. “I wanted to do something practical,” he said.

It was there that he met his wife Jane. They have been married 53 years.

After studying law in London, he returned to Bermuda in 1976 to work as an attorney at what is now Appleby Global.

While in practice, he offered free legal advice to people in St George’s and St David’s who could not afford legal representation.

He also sat on a number of boards such as the Race Relations Council, the Rent Control Advisory Panel and the Chamber of Commerce, among others. He was also chairman of the St George’s Foundation.

He was a senior partner when he retired in 2005.

“I did enjoy it,” he said. “But, I am enjoying my life much better now. Law could be a rat race and stressful. The good part was that I met a lot of people from around the world.”

He has no regrets. He and his wife, Jane, have three children, Lucinda Spurling, Anna Laura Hocking and Giles Spurling, three grandchildren and another expected shortly.

In December 2014, Mr and Mrs Spurling, were named in the Queen’s New Year’s Honours List 2015 for their service to the community.

• Lifestyle profiles the island’s senior citizens each week. Contact Jessie Moniz Hardy on 278-0150 or jmhardy@royalgazette.com with the full name and contact details and the reason you are suggesting them