After 31 years with the Bermuda National Trust, ten of them as a volunteer and 21 as a staffer, Connie Dey has, well, called it a day.

Having worked for most of her life, she decided to opt out of the 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. treadmill last week and devote the future to a looser schedule. But don't call her decision “retirement”, for this bubbly septuagenarian has no intention of curling up in a rocking chair.

“There is no rocking chair in my future,” she declares. “I don't own one and I have no intention of purchasing one.”

Instead, Mrs. Dey talks eagerly not only of pursuing the activities a regular job curtailed but also taking on others.

“I am not quitting life, nor am I leaving behind all of the all the extra-curricular activities I have participated in,” she assures. “I will still be on call for the Trust now and then to do tours of Verdmont Museum and St. George's.

“I have also offered to be a fill-in guide for the museums during vacation schedules, and I will still be on the Trust's museums committee.”

In addition, Mrs. Dey will continue with the Department of Tourism's ‘Fall into Spring' Wednesday morning walking tours of St. George's, which she has been doing “for donkey's years”, and will also be taking over the commentary for the Monday skirling ceremonies at Fort Hamilton following the retirement of her best friend, Elsbeth Gibson.

Unless the Department of Cultural Affairs decides otherwise, she will continue serving on the heritage advisory committee, and also help to judge the Bermuda Day parade floats.

As if all that were not enough, Mrs. Day will continue serving on the board of the National Dance Theatre - a post she has also held since its inception, as well as being a volunteer at the Bermuda National Gallery.

With life memberships in the St. George's Historical Society and the Bermuda Audubon Society, she also hopes to be able to attend meetings at last, something she couldn't do when working.

Mrs. Dey's long association with the National Trust began as a volunteer two years after its inception in 1972, at which time she was the secretary to the public relations committee. Later, she became a permanent staffer who fulfilled a variety of roles, including serving as administrative assistant to then-director William Zuill.

“The Trust operated on a shoestring budget, and there were only three of us in the office, all crowded into one room,” she remembers.

“Money was so tight we used to say the building was held together with paper clips, elastic bands and chewing gum!”

Next she wore what she calls her “environmental hat”, which included writing letters and filing objections to planning applications. In the 1970s Mr. Zuill initiated the Trust's involvement in cultural tourism, and by the time he retired some two decades later, Mrs. Dey was handling the business, which had grown to such an extent that she spent more time working on tours that public relations.

“Something had to give, so in 1992 I moved to a new position of Special Interest Group Coordinator, which could not have been more perfect,” she says.

“I love working with people, and doing tours is a little like being on stage. I really try to make them lively and interesting for all our visitors. I love the look of surprise on a visitor's face when they learn of Bermuda's important role in the American Civil War, or that the Island housed Boer war prisoners.”

Regarding the information she dispenses on the tours, while Mrs. Dey hastens to assure that she is “not an expert” on anything, having lived here for so long she has come to know a lot about her adopted home and loves to share it.

“You can't have worked for the Department of Tourism, the Chamber of Commerce and the National Trust without gleaning a great deal about virtually every aspect of Bermuda's history and culture,” she says, “and I'm always learning.”

Looking back on her long years with the National Trust, Mrs. Dey says there is “no comparison between the early days and today's sophisticated, well-run business operation, with our full-time professional officers and superb support staff. Even so, we couldn't run things without the hundreds of volunteers, including our Council and various committees.”

As devoted as she was to the Trust “family”, however, and as much as her life was immersed in its workings, Mrs. Dey felt that, at 70, it was time to move on to a new chapter in her life.

“My job took so much out of me doing tours, working with people, and with being on my feet so many times during the day, by evening I just didn't have the energy to go out like I used to,” she says. “Now I can reverse myself and go out in the evenings.”

Naturally, she will miss the daily camaraderie of her former colleagues, but says she will always have a host of cherished memories to draw on.

Of course, ‘Connie Dey' is also synonymous with “theatre”, so already this accomplished actress is involved in a newest Bermuda Musical & Dramatic Society production, ‘A Lie of the Mind', which opens on June 23.

Theatre, in fact, is how Mrs. Dey's name first became a familiar household word. Arriving here in the days before television, when radio was actually listened to as entertainment, she joined the Kindley Air Theatre cast which presented plays live on radio, and has never looked back.

In the ensuing years, she has played countless, wide-ranging roles in live theatre, as well as fulfilling mime roles in ballets, doing voice-overs for radio and television commercials, and Bermuda Day parade commentaries.

In 1959 she had her first “real job” helping Mrs. Gibson to organise theatrical events for Bermuda's 350th anniversary, following which she worked in the advertising department of Trimingham's until 1963. Thereafter, she freelanced, working mainly with Mrs. Gibson on special activities and events, including the floral pageants and Tourism's winter season teas at City Hall.

As even this outline of her busy life shows, Mrs. Dey is a naturally vibrant and active individual who has no intention of slowing down yet.

Rather, she is simply looking forward to being in control of her time at last, which will include spending more time with her family, which includes husband Joseph, whom she met here at the US base, and sons Russell and David, as well as her dear friend Mrs. Gibson and others.

“I want to do things because I want to do them, and not because I have to do them,” is how she sums up her decision - and future.