the owners are trying to sell off inventory of all product lines, including a selection of medical support items.

Contours, which neighbours Hamilton Police Station, became as much a mecca for people requiring medical items as those in the market for women's underwear.

The firm has been the distributor for other items that include prosthesis, the lumbosacral support for the lumbar region of the back, neck collars, tennis elbow supports, wrist splints, knee braces and surgical stockings.

In fact that part of the business is so important to principals, Mrs. Anne Smith Gordon, and American Mrs. Margaret Tricker, that they have `given' the business to People's Pharmacy on Victoria Street. Mrs. Smith Gordon has already begun the several training sessions which are required for staff there in fitting the clients.

Surprisingly, after buying Contours as a going concern a quarter century ago, they are not selling, but closing down altogether. The businesswomen had to form a 60-40 limited liability company, Contours of Bermuda Ltd., when they took over the business.

They have provisionally arranged to have someone else take over occupancy of the premises until the lease expires next year.

Mrs. Smith Gordon is the chairman of PALS, the support group for cancer patients, and Mrs. Tricker is an active PALS volunteer. Having both been involved in the charity for about a dozen years, they now wish to devote more time to that cause.

It has increasingly consumed more and more of their time, and even the Hamilton store has become what Mrs. Smith Gordon called "a PALS annex''.

"We have patients in here and members of PALS management in here for one reason or another, and the nurses are calling here all the time and it has become impossible to do that and run the business.

"In all honesty, I don't consider myself to be a merchant at heart. My heart is with the cancer patients.'' She is about to assume the job as the first executive director of PALS, doing essentially on a formal basis what she has already been doing as a virtual full-time volunteer for some time.

Contours is expected to be closed and vacated from the Parliament Street premises by the end of March.

"I'm hoping that other shops will take our lines off our hands. We have been catering to a lot of local clients for a long time. We spent a lot of time with customers, emphasising service, really trying to make sure they were happy.

"I mean we would spend an hour with a customer for a $19 sale. There isn't any money in that. We would go to the hospital for medical fittings, and go there sometimes with bras, nursing bras. No other shop is going to do that without charging.'' The firm has lingerie lines from Austria, France, the UK and the US. "We will certainly have a sale on those items we can't pass out to other shops,'' she said.

CLOSING UP SHOP -- Mrs. Anne Smith Gordon who owns Contours with American Mrs.

Margaret Tricker.