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Her death notice said she was 107. Mrs. Esther Allen Bentley was probably the last Bermudian who knew genuine hard times.

Born in 1904, she would have experienced pre-1919 Bermuda, when folk were short of money and without major industries providing good incomes.

There were no U.S. bases, no international business. Bermuda had three hotels, no airlines, no cruise ships. We had real poverty.

An American visitor from Maine describing the island in March 1910, said: "(They) lived largely on fish and the few vegetables grown. They produced some potatoes, onions, bananas and arrow-root but no hay or fodder."

Bermuda's first post-World War I economic boom started in 1920, beginning with the unpleasantness of the Tucker's Town land swap. This brought in Furness Withy, created Castle Harbour Hotel, turned Bermuda into a golfer's paradise and heralded the dawn of large-scale tourism.

The rest of the world suffered through the Great Depression of 1929 to 1933... but not Bermuda.

Our tourism industry was bolstered by the U.S.'s prohibition era. Semi-piratical Bermudians ran booze, legal in Bermuda, into the U.S. where it was illegal. This was our second boom.

In 1939, Hitler started the Second World War. From September 1939 to February 1941, tourism vanished and hard times loomed.

In a stimulus package, Government created a Service Corps that soaked up newly unemployed Bermudian labour and began civic projects. Bernard's Park was the biggest of these.

In March 1941 came the two U.S. bases and there was a scramble for labour.

Hundreds of Bermudians were sucked into the vortex of a massive construction programme.

Eighteen months of hard times were replaced by years of plenty as World War II created and sustained our third boom.

The war ended in August 1945 and in January 1946 the first tourist-filled commercial airlines began landing at Kindley Field and Bermuda's post-war tourist boom kicked-off, lasting until 1987.

We enjoyed 41 years of plenty of tourists, our fourth and longest boom.

Tourism peaked in 1981 but the high economic plateau Bermuda had reached meant the slight contraction in tourism was hardly noticeable.

This was due to the arrival of various new businesses - at the time called exempt companies.

In 1994, there was a shift from reliance on tourism to a dependence on exempt companies, now called international business.

This shift started a different economic expansion, caused a social change and initiated a fresh - and fifth - boom. This latest boom is the one we are still in.

From 1920 to 2010, Bermuda has had five consecutive economic booms with each new one beginning before the previous ended.

This makes Bermuda economically unique and has had a cultural impact.

In 2010, only Bermuda centenarians would be able to honestly recall a distant time when Bermuda was a poor country saddled with real unemployment and no good economic future.

That economic uniqueness creates today's unique socio-economic problem.

Tell a 90, 80, 70, 60, 50, 40, or 30 year-old Bermudian that hard times can come and that Bermudian's eyes will glaze over, producing a look of complete non-understanding.

That Bermudian has no personal memory, no family memory, no community memory, and no national memory of hard times.

The worst hard times any Bermudian can recall will be the aftermath of Hurricane Fabian in 2003.

Then, some Bermudians had up to three weeks of discomfort due to 'leckalight and air-conditioning failures.

Even Fabian produced a mini-boom as we used our insurance money to repair hurricane damage.

Today, when Bermuda's financial situation, operating within a troubled global economy, indicates we will soon suffer hard times, no Bermudian finds it easy to understand.

It is a unique economic, individual, community and Government problem.

For 90 consecutive years, except in 1940, a freshly filled bucket of new gold has appeared on Bermuda's doorstep.

In 2010, it seems that many Bermudians believe this will not change.

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