Photographer Ann Smith Gordon has braved wind, freezing rain and crashing waves to bring Bermudians her latest slide show presentation to raise money for cancer support charity PALS.

Ms Gordon will give a slideshow entitled ?Scotland ? Her Magical Highland? exploring Scotland from the borders to the far flung Shetland Islands.

?PALS is 25 years old this year,? said Ms Gordon, ?and I have been there 24 years and this is my 19th show for PALS.?

Each year Ms Gordon gives a slideshow presentation on her visits to different countries. The presentations are popular and sometimes have more than 300 people in attendance.

?My holiday is always one big trip and then I make a documentary-like slideshow,? she said. ?I think we may have raised around $50,000 over the years. The tickets are only $10 so that is a lot of people contributing.?

In the past, the money raised from the slideshow went towards the building of the new PALS building on Point Finger Road, but with that project completed all the money will now go to patient care. Ms Gordon talked with Lifestyle reporter Jessie Moniz about her visit to Scotland. ?It was May and we almost died of the cold,? she said. ?It was beautiful and it was cold and it rained.?

She said while the Bermudians on the trip wore their winter woolies, people in Edinburgh were stripped down and lying in the park as though at the beach.

Weather like this was not only uncomfortable, but posed special challenges to Ms Gordon as a photographer. ?What I was really worried about was whether I would actually have any slides,? she said. ?No matter how I braced myself, I could see the camera moving with the wind.?

She began with a house party on the island of Mull and then took a driving trip to the very tip of the Scottish mainland and beyond. ?All along the way were beautiful sights: romantic castles, glorious cathedrals, sparkling lochs, classic white stone houses, kilts and bagpipes and ancient monuments that prove man?s presence in this land dating back over 5,000 years,? she said.

She was driven by an old friend, Sir Robert Green-Price, who was ADC in Bermuda to Lord Martonmere 30 some years ago. ?When he heard we were going to Orkney from the Shetlands, he said if you are going can I come with you,? she said. ?He said, ?You can come in my car and I will drive you?. I couldn?t say no to that.?

Ms Gordon photographed a number of Scottish islands on the trip including Orkney, Skye, Harris & Tweed, Iona and Staffa.

?We had quite an adventure going to Iona,? she said. ?It is a tiny treeless island. That day there was freezing rain. It is the island where St. Columba, a sixth century Irish Monk brought Christianity to what was then pagan Scotland. He and his 12 disciples settled on the island it has become Scotland?s holiest shrine. They built a wooden monastery in 1203 AD. The tiny island of Staffa, home of the famed Fingal?s Cave, was not far from Iona.

?On that island there is a sign that says ?beware, you go at your own risk?. I tell you it is no joke,? said the intrepid photographer. ?Most of the time the boats can?t even land because the weather is so terrible.

?It is usually heaving crashing seas. We were lucky, but there are still a swell. The boat that went the day before and the day after couldn?t land. It takes about three or four people to get you off the boat and on to land. The island has been uninhabited for 175 years now, but the cave has been a lure for centuries. You go there to see Fingal?s Cave that inspired Felix Mendelssohn to compose the Hebrides Overture.?

In 1830 Mendelssohn was inspired by the deep, rhythmic, sounds the waves made as they entered the cave then cascaded down the geometric rock formations. The cave stretches back into the island for a distance of 227 feet and has a ceiling of around 66 feet.

?It is the only formation known in the world with basalt columns,? said Ms Gordon. ?They have been eroded over the centuries by the sea. Turner has painted it, Keats and Wadsworth praised it in their poetry, but to get to it it is really dangerous. There are all these slippery rocks and nothing to hold on to for most of the way. It is really amazing.?

Ms Gordon?s mother was from the village of Prestwick in Scotland.

?It has all changed,? said Ms Gordon. ?Prestwick is all gone.?

Other sites that will be seen in the slideshow will be Loch Lomond, Glasgow, The Standing Stones of Callanish, Cape Wrath and the Castle of Mey.

The charming Castle of Mey was saved from destruction by the Queen the Queen Mother following the death of her beloved King George VI,? said Ms Gordon. ?When you go there the Corgi?s water bowls are still laid out, her walking canes are still there and her mackintosh and wellies waiting by the door. You almost expect her to come down the stairs at any moment. It has only recently opened to visitors and we were among the first tourists to visit it.? Ms Gordon said over the years she has built up relationships with the people she meets in different countries.

?Particularly in Egypt,? she said. ?Not so much in Europe. But in Egypt we made friends with a family. When I went to visit them, I went to the Salvation Army shop here and bought clothes. We took a duffel bag, and took it to that family.?

Despite the many places she has given talks on countries such as Syria, Jordan, Morocco, Galapagos Islands, Czech Republic, Hungary, France, Italy, and the Czech Republic among many others. ?No, I am not worried that I might run out of places to photograph,? she said. ?I am only worried about that in Bermuda. I put out two calendars a year.?

The slideshow will be on March 9 in the Mount St. Agnes Auditorium at 8 p.m. Tickets are available from PALS at 236-7257.