?I?m very uneasy about Bermuda at the moment,? says Kathleen Bell, in a quiet voice. ?It?s the first time in my life that I have felt the way I feel.

?The real dispiriting part of it is that the electorate hides until an election and democracy is a fragile thing. There are countries that are democratic one day and the next day they are not...?

Her voice trails off and she looks away, visibly upset. Half an hour earlier, Mrs. Bell had been explaining, in animated tones, why she first joined the Progressive Labour Party (PLP), back in the early 1980s.

At that time, she was fired up with anger about the injustices still happening in her country and believed that the PLP was the party to change the face of Bermuda.

But now, when asked to talk about the Government and party for whom she once stood as a parliamentary candidate, the focus for her anger has changed. ?I feel betrayed,? she says. ?I feel ashamed and I feel very sad. It just is such a shame because it would have been easy to get it right.?

Mrs. Bell, 63, didn?t join the PLP until 1981 but her political roots stretch back to the 1960s when she left the Island to live abroad for the first time at college.

Being away from Bermuda ? where desegregation was not yet a decade old ? provided her with what can only be described as an intellectual awakening.

?When I got off Bermuda and I was able to look at Bermuda from afar, the whole racial situation in Bermuda, the segregation of Bermudians based on colour, was a subject that I really focused on because I had been brought up in a white Bermuda,? she explains.

?I went to a white school. I sat in the white part of the church. And yet the majority of Bermudians are black. It?s a ridiculous situation to find oneself in.

?I needed to find out what was in my head. I needed to find out who put it there and why. I was quite angry because I felt that I had had a number done on me. This was my country. Why didn?t I know more about my country and why had I been brought up in such an isolated way??

She adds: ?I wanted to find out more about the real Bermuda and the more I found out the angrier I became. I had never been educated to think politically. It didn?t happen at home and it didn?t happen in school. I found it very exciting. I met some wonderful people who took the time and trouble to help in my education.?

When she returned to the Island, other events helped to crystallise her personal political ideology. She remembers the profound effect upon her of the hangings of Erskine (Buck) Burrows and Larry Tacklyn in 1977, the subsequent riots and the Pitt Commission the following year.

She attended as many of the Pitt sessions as she could and submitted her own views about what it was like to be brought up in Bermuda. ?I would say that that was when I became politicised,? she says.

She also became involved in the Race Relations Commission and this brought her into contact with PLP members. That interaction, plus the strike of 1981 ? which she felt was badly handled by the UBP ? and a letter from PLP member Dale Butler to galvanised her into action.

She recalls Mr. Butler ? now Community Affairs and Sport Minister ? writing that he didn?t feel free as a Bermudian to air his opinions in his own country.

?That absolutely outraged me,? she says. ?I started writing letters to the editor and then within a very short period of time I became known as a political activist.?

She stops for a minute and laughs. ?It doesn?t take much to become known as a political activist in Bermuda. ?I was critical of the Government. I think large numbers of Bermudians didn?t feel free. I don?t think they feel free today either. I did say what I thought.?

The next inevitable step was to join the PLP and the enthusiasm that Mrs. Bell felt for the party?s cause is still palpable as she talks.

She was quickly elevated to deputy editor of the PLP newspaper and says the paper?s then-editor, David Allen, later the first PLP Tourism Minister, was the only other white person she knew in the party. But she was immediately welcomed and never felt marginalised. ?I never felt white,? she says. ?I would be asked questions by friends that I made in the PLP for a white perspective, which I could give, which made sense, but I never felt white.?

She says friends within the party told her she ?thought black?.

?I found my niche,? she says. ?One of the absolute pleasures for me was that I found people who I could get to know who were very interesting to discuss Bermuda?s issues with.

?I felt we were on the same page and it was then that I started to think that I could be of service within the PLP.

?They didn?t have closed minds. They were far more politically educated than I was; naturally, because they had a much greater reason to make sure they were politically educated.?

Outside the confines of the party, the reaction of her family ? and other whites ? was as depressing as it was predictable.

She remembers her parents being ?appalled? by her decision to join the PLP. ?But I was a grown up. I would have been 40. I knew my own mind. My father never said anything but then my father never said much to me anyway. My mother just said she was ashamed of me. I think she thought that the people who mattered to her would think badly of her because of me and that made her cross. ?It was just not done.?

Did she ever have any threats made to her, as another white PLP member told ? She shakes her head.

Then she remembers a telephone call from ?one of the more reactionary? UBP members of parliament. ?He asked me whether I would like to wear a pair of concrete shoes,? she recalls. ?So my answer to that was to document it and send it to the editor of and it appeared.

?He wasn?t serious about concrete boots but he was serious about trying to intimidate me. I knew why. I shouldn?t be saying what I was saying.?

So committed to the PLP was Mrs. Bell that she stood ? unsuccessfully ? for the party in Pembroke West Central. But the love affair was not too last.

In 1985, four PLP MPs who had publicly criticised the party were charged with bringing it into disrepute and expelled.

Mrs. Bell remembers the disciplinary committee as ?horrendous?. ?It was like a movie on some third world country,? she says.

?The PLP then, as the PLP now, seriously disliked public dissension amongst its ranks. There were a number of us that felt that constructive criticism was healthy for a political party.?

After that meeting, she left the PLP and helped the ousted members form the now-defunct National Liberal Party under the leadership of Gilbert Darrell.

But her affinity with the party remained. In 1998, she voted for the PLP, believing its manifesto to be sincere. ?I would not vote for the PLP again,? she says now.

Recent events ? what she calls a ?cumulative effect of pointers? ? have contributed to her growing unease with the Government.

She was alarmed that Colonel David Burch could become a member of Cabinet after apparently calling black members of the UBP ?house niggers? on his radio show.

And she found PLP spokesman Scott Simmons? comment about Julian Hall facing ?no reprisal? after publicly criticising the party equally disturbing.

She claims the Government refuses to accept criticism, does not consult and is set on a ?get even? policy with the UBP for the oppression of the past.

?It?s not representative government,? she says. ?There is no way that it is participatory democracy. It?s more Soviet bloc.

?If I ask myself what the political philosophy of the Government is I can?t come up with an answer.?

In recent years, personal matters have meant Kath has had little time or appetite for politics. But recently her interest has been sparked again from an unexpected source. The philosophy of new UBP leader Wayne Furbert has excited her and she is now seriously contemplating voting for a party which never ?felt like me? in the past. ?Hopefully his philosophy will gain momentum. I?m interested in watching what Mr. Wayne Furbert does and I have a tremendous amount of time for Jamahl Simmons,? she says. ?It?s early days yet with what Mr. Furbert is talking about but I like his beginnings. He is prepared to use the political brains, be they UBP or PLP, to further Bermuda?s interests. I think that?s really good.?

She no longer supports Independence and says she is glad to have a British Governor as overseer of a Government of which she is suspicious.

The expression on her face falls when asked about the future of the PLP. She is not optimistic.

?The PLP leadership has always operated in the way it?s operating today,? she concludes. ?That?s how it operated in the early 80s. It?s how it operated when it first formed. I thought it was going to change. I was gullible.?