Bermuda's most famous daughter nearly left her homeland for good because of the racial and gender prejudice she feared she would encounter on return from studying in Britain.

Young Lois Brown had been studying law in London and thought seriously about going to Nigeria to practice rather than return to face an uphill task practising in Bermuda.

But Attorney General Dame Lois Browne-Evans told a gathering at a meeting of Women in International Trade, Bermuda, the wise voice of her friends helped her decide to come home and force home changes here.

Dame Lois Browne-Evans was addressing business women and members of WIT at a series of seminars entitled Women of Influence in Bermuda in a talk on women in the legal profession.

In it she described her meteoric rise and her catalogues of firsts as a black woman practising in Bermuda.

Dame Lois, in a witty speech to the gathered women, also said that she could not have done as much in her long life without the support of her husband.

Dame Lois is a household name in Bermuda.

She is not only the first politically appointed Attorney General on the Island but was the first woman lawyer in Bermuda, the first black woman in to be elected as an MP and the first woman to be chosen as opposition leader under Bermuda's Constitution.

In front of around 70 women in a packed-to-capacity meeting, Dame Lois told of her uphill struggle to become a lawyer.

"My parents were terrified, they said women can't be lawyers.

"At that time women couldn't even vote or even sit on a jury. They thought I should be a teacher or a secretary.'' She buckled to her parents demands, and the young Dame Lois took a job as a bookkeeper - but the business folded before she could even start.

Then began her short career as a teacher.

"I should never have been a teacher against my will,'' she said laughing.

"Every time the head teacher would pass by as she patrolled the corridors, she would find me sitting down. In those days you were supposed to stand, and walk around the class. But not me.

"One day she asked if I wanted to be a teacher, and I said no, I want to be a lawyer.'' She heard nothing for a while, but was relieved when the right person got to hear about her ambitions.

"A while later a message came back from Edward T Richards, and he moulded me and shaped me, and guided me.'' Dame Lois then brought out a clipping of the announcement in The Times, in which her results of her final exams were published under the name L. M.

Browne.

"It was 1953, but she did not want to come home.

"After four and a half years in London I did not want to come back to Bermuda and face discrimination both in gender and race.

"I was hot to go to Africa and practice with two Nigerian girls when it went for independence.

"But they told me there was no point getting called to the bar if I did that, and I must go back to my own country so it too could be like Nigeria.'' So Dame Lois returned home, and became the first woman Barrister in Bermuda.

Dame Lois pointed out that in the room was herself, the first woman barrister on the Island, and the latest female recruit, the 90th.

And she urged business people in Bermuda to encourage women more and recognise their achievements more often.

She told the gathered business women: "I hope I have inspired people to go forward and use their God-given talents in law.'' Women of Influence: Attorney General Dame Lois Browne-Evans (right) was the guest speaker at a meeting of Women in International Trade. She was invited by the society's president Jeanne Atherden (left) and committee member Edwina Lambert (centre).

BUSINESS BUC