The Island Queen is a fascinating true tale of an unprecedented pleasure excursion that occurred in the Caribbean during World War 2. The story centres on the period, lifestyles and how warfare impacted on an island nation. The August Bank Holiday weekend of 1944 guaranteed a much needed diversion from the mundane norms of everyday survival routines. And the majority looked forward to engaging in various sporting and merrymaking activities. The publicised voyage of partying on the schooner Island Queen scheduled to begin on 5th August 1944 promised to be the most pleasurable event of the...

For a young woman raised in a disadvantaged community where everyone lived in basic straw huts and the majority earned a meagre existence by labouring on the land, Albertha Sylvester was convinced that her life had taken a turn for the better when she received the -prestigious- position of live-in housekeeper at the home of a relatively wealthy English man who held a Senior position at a large and reputable retail Company on the Caribbean island of Grenada.

But the envisaged bright future would be short-lived and destined to evaporate into disappointment and bewilderment. Albertha...