: People think that we solicited . Nothing could be further from the truth. The Department of Tourism's public relations firm, Lou Hammond Associates in New York, are constantly trying to up Bermuda's profile in North America; they're always trying to get film crews to use Bermuda as a location and they approached to get them to do their winter series in Bermuda.

(Once they'd agreed) it was then a question of deciding what property they'd use. They were conducted about the length and breadth of the island. I believe some 40 properties were scrutinised by their team, and the four they short-listed included Harbour View and Aunt Nea's Inn. A few days after that, they decided they wanted to use Harbour View.

: We had plans to sell it. We had quite a business actually, making the decision (to go ahead with the show). Literally, that week, we were about to close sale. We would have realised as much money as ? and here I'm going to blow another misconception ? or a little less money than we're now actually going to spend on the renovations. It was in the six figures. So we're going downhill. The positives which were slightly in our favour I suppose were very much in Bermuda's favour. The PR people recognised the great oomph it would give to Bermuda in North America and other places in the world. I believe the audience is some 45 million people.

Basically, you have eight half-hour segments of Bermuda on national television. The show's core audience is the very kind of people that the Ministry of Tourism wants to attract to Bermuda; the kind of people who can afford to come to Bermuda, who would like Bermuda.

Even though the project is a house in St. George's, they've been all over Bermuda. So it's a big boost for St. George's. It's a big boost for Bermuda. And when that was all put together, it was very difficult for us to say no. We almost had to say yes. It was just too positive for St. George's, Bermuda, and of course, it was positive for Aunt Nea's Inn.

: Well, the thing that comes top of mind is paying for it. There are donations from sponsors, but it's by no means a freebie. Local contractors and architects have put the package together ? with our input, of course ? and the thing that hits us square in the face is when it's all done, we've got to pay for it.

(But) it is part of Aunt Nea's Inn and I'm hoping very much there will be people who want to use it as tourist accommodation because that's what it's designed as ? a very high-end, luxury accommodation for guests.

: It's very unlike making a decision where, okay we're going to buy a piece of property and build our house or buy a house and renovate it. All things for television take on another dimension. In this case it's squeezed down to the television schedule.

In other words, they have to can these eight episodes. The first is scheduled to air in the middle of February on PBS. That means the project has to have an end very shortly thereafter so they can fit it in the TV schedule. So we're looking at somewhere between the middle of February and the middle of March.

: I guess I was forced into the tourism business by my parents. They converted our house when I was about 13 or 14 into what Bermuda then called a guest house. That coincided with when I went off Bermuda to school but I've been there since really, getting my feet wet, helping my parents with the business and eventually taking over the operation of it with my partner, Andrea Dismont. I was a sort of functionary in the Bermuda Government for a stretch. At some point during my Government days ? sitting at the desk pushing paper from one side to the other ? I decided that I wanted to be at home for my children and that innkeeping would be a great retirement job from Government.

And so I retired ? actually I didn't retire. I resigned from Government because I couldn't wait for retirement. I left and got into the innkeeping thing. Along the way I got married and as often happens with marriage, children came along.

It was actually just about the same time the first child came, that the then-Opposition Leader (Jennifer Smith) strongly encouraged me to run in St. George's as an MP. So I went from the budget office of the Ministry of Finance to business, children, wife, MP and life got really heady.

: We quickly realised the politics thing would have to stop. It really consumes an awful lot of your time ? endless meetings. Oh boy, it's a thankless task. We really ought to be grateful to those politicians who hang in there and do that job for us.

So I resigned again, I guess, (although) I'm still obviously active for the Government and the party. I'm still chairman of the Tourism Board ? I haven't laid down to die or anything. I still have a lot going on. Mainly it's the inn, the children. And now, .

: Well, that's clear, I would have been on the side that won ? and that's the Progressive Labour Party. They were the winning team. (But) I obviously am a firm supporter of the former Premier. I was her running mate and I've worked ceaselessly on her campaign and I'm sure I'll continue, but Alex Scott is my Premier and he's my party leader. So, we're cool.

That's a good word, whole. Here again it's a question of all of us actually getting aboard and doing it together and not stabbing each other in the back; standing on each other's shoulders; climbing up the walls of the bucket ? you know, like the crabs.

I think we have made strides. The Government ? and this started under the United Bermuda Party ? had the Monitor Group in to discover what's wrong with this sick patient, Bermuda. And the Monitor people said you have management and labour fighting; the unions are fighting management; you're using up all of this energy and time and waste when, in fact, the product ? great holidays for tourists ? is something that you all want.

That was just one of the things; to get people together to realise that it's a collective responsibility we have. The Government can't do it all by itself. The private sector can't do it by itself. It takes a collective effort. And so with that, we have the Bermuda Alliance for Tourism (BAT) where we do, in fact, have a coming together of the private sector and the public sector; an umbrella organisation that oversees tourism and they are very much getting it done. So you could say, we have all of Bermuda coming together under this umbrella to advance tourism.

: That's an internal issue. It wouldn't be wise for me to comment on it because I'm not there. I don't work there on a day-to-day basis. I do understand (the civil servants') positions. The civil service is a hard taskmaster when it comes to personnel issues.

But I think Government addressed that. It was clear from the results of the audit conducted by the (United Kingdom Civil Service College) that we had to change and I applaud the Minister (of Tourism, E-Commerce & Telecommunications Ren?e Webb) for taking the stand that she has to take in moving us forward.

(She) has taken a lot of heat recently. I think some of it's misplaced. It's obvious there are things we need to get done. We need to change with the industry otherwise we're dead in the water. I was a civil servant myself. It's sometimes very difficult for a civil servant to see that point of view.

We perhaps need to be more encouraging, more creative in re-deploying our civil servants to fit the changes in the industry. It is clear that we can't go out and do what we've been doing for the last 30 years ? it don't work no more.

I've done a fair bit of travelling. I left university (with a goal) to travel. Friends had dropped out and gone off travelling and were writing back these glowing accounts and I thought, 'Wow. This is great. This is what I want to do next.'

But their letters and postcards were always laced with cries of poverty. So I thought, 'Hmmm, got to go with bucks.' So I came back to Bermuda, I worked for 23 months ? again in the Ministry of Finance ? saved everything.

I think the only purchases I made were a sunfish, tanks, regulators, fins, snorkel and mask. I was able to save a hefty part of my salary. I started out in '74 with about $10,000 in my pocket and off I went.

With my Bermuda sense of values, I thought I might last a year. I realised I couldn't fly very far on that much money so I went down to the Royal Bermuda Yacht Club and they put me on a big boat and I wound up sailing Newport-Bermuda on that big boat. To cut a very long story short, it cost about $1,700 a year for the first three years, which is way less that it would have cost had I stayed in Bermuda.

It took me about a dozen boats to get to Australia. That's not testimony to me being a bad john or anything it's just the way it works. From Australia I went through Southeast Asia. I ran out of money in India. It's a great place to run out of money because it doesn't cost you anything. I think it cost me about 75 cents a day for the last month. Then I flew back via England to Bermuda. We have two ? Myles is two and Kelsey is four.

A: Most definitely. I think it's really good the educational sailing yacht is on its way to Bermuda. We come from a seafaring background. We really need to get our people out on the water. And we certainly need to get our young people to travel.

Bermudians are pretty good, but they could open their eyes a little bit more. We tend to put on our blinkers when we're in Bermuda and come up with some ? in the world scheme of things ? pretty weird ideas.

It's not peculiar to Bermuda, it's (the same) with any small place. But people need to broaden just a little bit because things would run a lot smoother here if people were a little more broad-minded.

That's right. Students pay attention! Most often if you check most people out, they're not doing what they specialised in school. I think it's particularly a case for a place like this ? on an island ? where you have to be a generalist because we wear so many hats. That's one of the things that got me out of Government I guess. What extra time? When I was an MP it was borrowed time. I was taking away my children's time, my family time, my business time and now I'm giving that back again.

Harbour View's renovations premiere on Ton February 12 on PBS and is scheduled to conclude in March. Coverage of the renovations may also be seen online at www.thisoldhouse.com, through four webcams powered by EarthCam, an internet global webcam network and leader in webcam technology. The Bermuda project will also be chronicled each month in magazine, beginning with the April issue and concluding in August.