As the daughter of labour hero Dr. E.F. Gordon, it could be argued Pamela Gordon had the world at her feet when she took over the helm of her party and her country in spring, 1997.

As she finished the last of the packing at her Front Street base yesterday after stepping down as United Bermuda Party leader she said that being her father's daughter was more hindrance than help.Asked why she had resigned she said: "I saw that I could be a liability more than I am an asset based on the views of people who believed I should have been with the other party. Thus it's appropriate I should step aside.

"Simply because I am a Gordon, I believe it took longer than I had for people to get over the baggage they have about me."

They will come and say to me 'You know what, if you were PLP we would support you'."

She denied any regrets that she chose the UBP. She said: "We are products of what you learn and what you see. "I have a lot of memories about how my mother was treated when we were growing up. The choice was made. Done. I stand by it."She noted the irony of her name being held against her when her father had fought for the right for people to choose what they wanted to be.

Asked if her successor, Dr. Grant Gibbons, would also be judged because of his baggage, she said black people were sometimes harder on their own than on others.

She hoped voters would look at the team around Dr. Gibbons.Asked how the new UBP leader could transcend the race barrier, Ms Gordon said Bermudians, who had come to enjoy a high standard of living, would forget issues of race and appreciate Dr. Gibbons' financial acumen in hard times.

She said: "We are still in a society where many of our people believe that if your employer thinks a certain way then it must be so." Asked if that could be seen as a paternalistic, backward way of thinking, Ms Gordon said: "It could also be argued that we have come far enough for people to have the choice to accept or reject their leaders based on their ability as opposed to who their father was. So if that aspect hasn't changed, then maybe the rest hasn't."

Asked if Maxwell Burgess might have stood a better chance of transcending the racial divide Ms. Gordon said: "Every candidate has a drawback. In Max's case he might appeal very strongly to the black community but he has the opposite affect with the white community."

The race issue marred her brief stewardship of the country, believes Ms. Gordon."I couldn't get the confidence of the black community and I lost the confidence of the white community because of the Colin Coxall affair."The furore over the removal of the Police Commissioner after the service examined Cabinet Minister John Irving Pearman is still a sore point.

She says: "The affair made it very evident to me how far we had not come as a society in terms of the racial divide when you look how people took sides."When we tried to clarify they didn't want to believe it."

Despite the hassles Ms Gordon had very mixed emotions yesterday.She is touched by well-wishers with opposing political backgrounds who had penned personal messages of appreciation or approached her on the street. One kind card had reduced her to floods of tears."

They say: 'My God, we are going to miss you. What are you doing? Why are you leaving? We never voted UBP, but we trusted you'. "

A clearly moved Ms Gordon says: "It's kind of mind-boggling. It's a weird dilemma. You try to do what's in the best interests of everybody. It's heart-warming to see that you have touched people you didn't realise you had." She will now spend time on family matters as well as getting down to some serious book bashing as she studies to become a lawyer. "Part of me says 'Yeah, now I can be a granny and do all kinds of other things'."

"There's another side of me which knows that my heart is still there. You do what you can until you can't do anymore."

After promising ten years of community service but doing 12, Ms Gordon believes she has overstayed her welcome. She says: "I don't believe in career politicians."Would I have liked to stayed on longer? Probably. Would I have liked to have taken the party on to the next election and win it? That's anybody's guess."

There's nothing to say that I won't, at one point, want to come back rearing to go."