After 55-years in the Algarve, Dorothy Boulter celebrates her 100th birthday on May 9th. Her daughter, BJ Boulter, looks at her mother's experiences in Malta, Ismalia, Bombay, the UK, Tanganyika and in Portugal where Dorothy and Royston Boulter bought and ran Praia da Rocha's 'Solar Penguin' with its famous 'public bar'.Dorothy Lucy Lockley was born at the end of WWl in Malta to Frederick Lockley, a serving naval officer and his lovely wife Vincentia Sperandeo.
Second child of a family of 7 children, Dorothy spent her first 14 years in Valetta and still has contact with her family there. The Lockleys returned to England in 1932, settling in Haslemere in Surrey.
With 3 brothers and a father in the Navy, in 1942 Dorothy joined the Wrens, trained on board HMS Dolphin in Portsmouth, served on HMS Pheonix in Ismailia and in 1943 was billeted in Bombay on HMS Braganza. Dorothy met Royal Engineer Royston Boulter at Aldershot in 1942, they subsequently married in 1944 when they met again in Bombay.
During WW2 Royston fell under the spell of Africa, when rescued from a ship carrying him was bombed in the Med he was taken to Alexandria, afterwards serving on the railways in Eritrea. At the end of the war Royston returned to Africa, to Tanganyika, at that time a British Territory. Dorothy joined him in 1946 and spent the next years moving around East Africa on various engineering jobs.
RB built the docks at Mtwara in Tanganyika for the fated groundnut scheme disaster, he built the rail-bed of the famous Lunatic Express in Uganda from Fort Portal to the Ruwenzories, brought water from Kilimanjaro to Nairobi with the Kenya pipeline, this apart from private enterprise … houses in Lushoto and Dar es Salaam and even a convent in Bukoba. Dorothy ran the business, Royston did the building.
Seven children and sixteen years later the territory was handed over to Julius Nyerere and the Boulters set sail for Europe, leaving behind, and eventually losing all their property. The children are: Barbara Jane, Robert, Christina, Jerome, Margaret, Valerie, Patricia.
Arriving in Portugal they fell in love with the Algarve, so similar to East Africa. They discovered the Solar Penguin run by an eccentric Englishman, Stuart Deas in Praia da Rocha, bought the little hotel and settled in running a pub with full board.
A delightful old fashioned Pensão serving the usual 4 course meals. A comment from my mother’s memoirs :
“Having never run a guest house I was a bit nervous of the idea. However I consoled myself with the thought that having been quite accustomed to catering for a large family of nine it would be a small adjustment to extend those numbers to about twenty; and so I became enthusiastic and we bought the place".
The building as it is now was only built in 1919, the original a small castle-like edifice that crumbled in around 1911.
The Solar Penguin was rebuilt as a home in 1919 by Dr Luís Sepulveda Mascarenhas, later run as a pension by scotsman Stuart Deas. In the cellar used for stacking the beachguard equipment in the winter, Royston built the first public bar in Praia da Rocha. Dorothy ran the bar and the 15 room Pension for the next 45 years. In 2007 she retired and settled in Estombar near her daughter BJ.
Life in the Algarve has changed a great deal in 55 years, Dorothy goes with the flow, doesn’t let much bother her.
Dorothy is profoundly deaf, but being quick witted and humorous, Dorothy overcomes her deafness by offering pen and paper to visitors. She lives in her own home, manages all her affairs and celebrates her hundredth birthday on May 9th with all the family and many friends in the Algarve.
On behalf of the readers of algarvedailynews.com - Happy Birthday!
Early days at the Solar Penguin
