Interesting is a good word to use! It's certainly been a very stressful couple of weeks. I've been involved in some things that were not part of my grand plan. But sometimes things come along that you have to be involved in. And in this instance it involves my family and my children.

Someone threw a hot potato in the air and I just happened to be the one who caught it.

There were 27 parents whose children were rejected by the school and I think it's fair to say that all 27 were like-minded in not accepting the decision to remove our choice by removing the class that we were applying for. Someone had to pick up the banner and run with it. It's just evolved this way, it wasn't planned. It's a very simple issue and it's about the law, the Education Act and it's about what we as parents who elected to use the public school system are allowed under the law. One of the criteria of the Act is choice. It's a simple thing. You can choose between two or more options. When someone removes the very option that is one of your choices, you're not left with a choice. You're left with: Take it or leave it.

If someone had said to the 27 parents, prior to the application process, there will only be one primary one class at St. George's Prep, then we could have made very different choices. At least we would have known the shape of the playing field. But what happened was that someone moved the goal-posts three weeks after our applications went in. Therefore we are only left with one option and one option is not a choice.

Minister Lister's main argument seems to be in this academic year, September of 2004, St. George's Prep is going to need two primary four streams. The 'ideal' size for the P4 stream is 25 students, no more. Historically, the Prep School has had an intake of two P1 classes of 15, so 30 students. By the time those 30 filter through to P4, statistics show there is an attrition of typically five or more. So historically St. George's Prep has been going into P4 with 25 students or less.

The reason it's a problem this year is because, three years ago, the Ministry of Education went to St. George's Prep and said: "We want you to increase your P1 intake from two classes of 15 to two classes of 18." So it went from 30 students to 36. And because the attrition rate was not as much as normal, it means they have more than 25 P4 students, so they need two P4 classes.

Who caused that problem? Quite obviously the Ministry. Add to that, the fact that the P2 and P3 classes are already small enough that this won't happen again. All the Minister has to do to solve this problem is to fund one P4 teacher for this class for two years. And the problem will filter out of the school.

At other schools he is putting in place P1s of 18 ? two at East End Primary ? and I think, as a response to what the parents have been doing, he's done something at Harrington Sound that flies in the face of the point he's been arguing against us. There, at enrolment this year, they had three P1s of 15. And he's now told them they have to move to three P1s of 18. So the supposed P4 problem, which is supposed to be the issue, is going to be created at other schools by making this move.

It's not just what it's done to me, it's what it's done to me, my wife and my family. It has created huge amounts of stress in what is one of the most important decisions that any parent makes in life ? that is the beginning of their child's formal education.

We had been actively taking my five-year-old son Raven to St. George's Prep to familiarise him with 'big school'. It was something he was becoming comfortable with and all of that is now in a state of chaos.

I have met every single one of these parents and I have talked to them as part of putting the appeal together. I think there's a perception, from some people, that these parents who are making this fuss are a group of privileged and, in many cases, a group of singularly white parents.

I'll be the first to admit that this school has a history and it has some baggage. All of that is bad.

But people who think this is still the case, I challenge them to go at lunchtime on any day of the week and look at the children. You will not see a white school. You will not see a predominantly white school. What you will see is a predominantly black school.

The other part of the challenge is to go to the school when the parents are picking up their children at 3 p.m. or 3.30 p.m. Look at the parents and then tell me if these people are from one demographic group. The answer is, they are not.

The times have changed. Yes, the school has a history, but we should be applauding the fact that people who could not go to this school in the past are the majority today.

As far as representing other people goes, I'm just like the others ? I'm a parent whose child cannot get into his school of choice.

I've worked on this, almost exclusively, since March 5, when we officially got the word when there was not an intake of two P1s. It has consumed a vast amount of my time. It may sound very simplistic to go out and get 26 parents to lodge an appeal, but there are many steps you have to take before you get to that point. The appeal is now lodged and sent to the chairman of the appeals board.St. George's Prep is special because it is recognised as having very high academic standards. I'm a parent who wants to send my child to a school with very high academic standards.

Also, I am white, my wife Cathy is black. We are an inter-racial couple, we have an inter-racial child. St. George's Prep is probably the most racially balanced school in Bermuda, demographically.

In 1999, when the Ministry tried to do the same thing, we heard the old adage that this was a white school. They undertook a racial demographic survey of the school. When they did that and compared it to Bermuda's racial demographics, it was almost an exact match.

If I have an inter-racial child, why is it wrong for me to want to send him to a school where he will gain an understanding of the racial demographics of this island? I want my children to grow up to understand the concept of mixed race.

That comes down to the philosophy that says: Let's look on the bright side, things can't get any worse. This proved that perhaps you shouldn't say things like that!

That really came out of left field. I'm in the tourist business. We have four weeks before the season begins and now I have a ship with large, charred areas that needs fixing.

To put it in perspective though, that issue is nowhere near as important as St. George's Prep. When you compare the education of my child with something in my business life that can be fixed with a few nails and bits of wood, then the education is much more important.

I don't know yet. Not yet. I've only just got the go-ahead from the insurance company. The only thing I do know is the fire did not start accidentally. Who and why, I don't know.

I have asked the police and I'm awaiting their call. They said they were not aware of any arrests being made yet.

I can't say I'm upbeat. The only healthy sector in tourism is the cruise ship industry, which is vibrant. The cruise lines like Bermuda.

Most of my business is dealing with cruise ship passengers, probably 99 per cent. But tourism in general, no, I'm not upbeat.

Theis my office ? I view it as a national monument, even though it's privately owned ? but the other side of what I do is that I have a tour boat and I take out tourists around the East End of the island and the is my land-based attraction.The tour boat trades under the name of Argo Adventures.Absolutely.My wife is Cathy. She's well known to many. She had a very senior position in the insurance industry, she worked for XL and went on to Star and ended up as the senior vice-president of Zurich Global Energy. She set up their office in Bermuda.

She used to write a column in the , which was a spiritually based, self-help column. And she also wrote a column for on topical things in the insurance industry.

We have two children. My son Raven has just had his fifth birthday. And we have a daughter, whose name is Sedona-Sky, who is nine months old.

My wife and two children are the three most important things in my life.

I get very little time to relax, but family time is as good as it gets for me. We try to make the time at the weekends to give ourselves half a day or a day to go out for a walk or a picnic. That's the best relaxation anyone can have.

We have also made a conscious decision not to have television.

My wife and I believe that people tend to use the television as a babysitter. Watching television is a passive activity with a one-way flow. The child sits there watching it, because there are bright colours and things that move.

But there's no challenge for the child. If you take the television away, something remarkable happens. The child has to communicate and remarkable things start to happen.

For example ? and I know every parent brags about their child ? my son has a vocabulary that's probably as good as some adults. The thing is, he has to talk because he can't just sit in front of a television. That's something we totally believe in.

I'm realistic enough to know that we can't stop him watching TV for good. But at this formative time when he's learning speech, interaction, very basic social skills, it's good that he's learning it from his parents rather than the television.

If you go back to when there were two TV stations in Bermuda and compare it with now when we have cable and satellite and 250 channels, and if you track the problems we are seeing today against the proliferation of the expanded media, I think you can tell the effects just by looking at the children and in the changing of the culture.

You see it in simple things, like good manners. Bermuda used to be one of the best-mannered places in the world and that is fading.

We are losing our values because we are being bombarded by other people's values. When we didn't have so much TV, that didn't happen.