At the age of 73, most seniors would be focused solely on enjoying their retirement. Not so Louise Jackson, who instead found herself entering a brand new career as an MP.

She became the oldest member of the House of Assembly when she won the seat of Pembroke South West for the United Bermuda Party in the 2003 general election.

Mrs. Jackson, now 75, holds the broad-spanning Shadow Ministry of Health and Family Services, Community, Cultural Affairs and Seniors.

Politics is just the latest in a long line of careers, including dancing, teaching, running her own dance school and writing. Despite her advancing years she has no plans to give up any time soon.

?I?m not going anywhere. I live, eat and breathe politics and after all the different areas of my life, this feels like dessert after a good dinner. I love it. I often say that probably I am enjoying this more than anything else. It gives me an opportunity to really help to make a difference,? she said.

Nonetheless, she admitted: ?I felt like a grandmother when I walked into the House of Assembly for the first time. I had taught half of the people sitting there. I watched them grow up. I have learned so much from all of my Parliamentary colleagues in Government and my own party. I get along with everybody and people I have had differences of political views with are still very good friends of mine. I must say all the Members of Parliament are very respectful to me.?

Originally from Philadelphia, Mrs. Jackson moved to Bermuda in 1952 after completing her studies at Howard University, Washington DC, to teach health and physical education at the Berkeley Institute.

?Bermuda chose me in that the job offer was given to the head of physical education at University and she said the person who came top of the class got the job. I did, and everyone was very envious of me. I came on a one-year contract and 54 years later, I?m still here.?

This came about because she met her husband Albert shortly after arriving. They married three years later and have two daughters, Deborah and Susan, and two grandchildren, Scott and Samantha.

The couple live in an ocean-front apartment in Southampton crammed with artwork, photos and memorabilia from their careers.

Mrs. Jackson taught at Berkeley for around ten years, introducing field hockey, fencing and archery into the curriculum for the first time before moving on to other schools.

She had already pursued a career prior to this as a professional dancer in the US with the Cosmopolitan Opera Company. She specialised in a variety of styles including ballet, tap, and modern. When she arrived in Bermuda, she realised there was no dance school ? so she started one of her own. The organisation now known as the Jackson School of Performing Arts has flourished for 52 years. It has more than 700 students and hands out between $80,000 and $100,000 in scholarships every year.

Mrs. Jackson charged a minimal sum for lessons when she started out, in order to make them accessible to all. Schools were segregated the time and she is proud of the fact that her dance school was one of the first organisations to integrate blacks and whites in the 1960s, before segregation in public schools was outlawed by the Government.

In addition to running the dance school, she has also devoted many years of her life to researching Bermuda?s unique Gombey dancers.

?When I first moved to Bermuda I saw these Gombeys. They were almost a rag-tag group dancing ?back of town? and people didn?t seem interested in them. Bermudians just didn?t want them on their property. It was very strange to me. I found it a very exciting dance and thought it was such a rich part of the Bermuda culture, so I began to research them,? she said.

She subsequently discovered just how unique the Bermuda Gombeys are, with influences as diverse as West Indian and Native American cultures and the Mummers folk tradition.

She went on to write two books on the subject during the 1970s: which is now on its third reprint and a children?s book called . Her efforts led to her being awarded the MBE by the Queen in 1979.

?The books caused a revival. They caused Bermudians to understand how important this dance culture is,? she said. She still holds lectures for visitors every Tuesday evening from November through to March on the history of the Gombeys.

In addition, she was the co-founder of the National Dance Theatre, has held chairmanships of the National Gallery, the Broadcast Commission, the Library and the Telecommunications Board. She spent a stint as a director at the Bank of Bermuda, and has worked with the National Trust. She also found time to work as a distributor for Tupperware, which she introduced to the Island.

She retired in 1998, when she gave up the school of dance and spent several years travelling the world with her husband. She said she was ?stunned? when the then United Bermuda Party leader Grant Gibbons invited her in 2003 to become a candidate for election.

However, she decided to take the plunge after encouragement from her family.

?There are only so many countries you can go to. I?ve been around the world at least three times,? she said.

Although she had never held political office before 2003, she said she had always been ?a political person? as a long-term member of the UBP. Her husband was president of the Senate as an independent member for 13 years. His great grandfather was the second black member of the House of Assembly.

Mrs. Jackson comes from a working class background. Her father became the second black master plumber in the city of Philadelphia in the 1930s and was a strong union man and socialist. However, she said she was not interested in joining the Progressive Labour Party.

?I?m a firm believer in people working together and I have never been comfortable with a party that?s predominantly one race,? she said.

One of her first high-profile moves after being elected was highlighting the plight of Winifred Dodd, an 84-year-old status Bermudian who said she was being driven from the Island by soaring rents.

?This was a terrible situation. She had no-one to help her,? said Mrs. Jackson.

She has since made it her mission to do all she can to highlight the plight of suffering seniors.

?Too many of them are living alone on a pension that is not enough to keep them going. Usually, most of them are suffering from a chronic illness and are in dire straits. Winifred Dodd had no place to go and I think that it was the first time that Bermuda became aware of the fact that there was this underclass of seniors who are out there silently suffering. That opened a lot of eyes, and from there I was besieged by calls from other seniors who were also in difficulty,? she said.

Among the steps she advocates are clinics for seniors with registered geriatricians, more day care centres, plus free eyeglasses and prescriptions for the needy. She has also pushed for an agency or ?senior?s advocate? to advise those in need on topics such as qualified care-givers because ?the National Office for Seniors just direct you to some place else.?

She also believes that the retirement age should be pushed up to 70 for those who wish to continue working and that the pension and Hospital Insurance Plan (HIP) schemes should undergo a thorough review.

?I love my portfolio. It?s something I was made to do. My degree is in health and physical education and I?ve been a senior myself for 11 years. When I was given this portfolio I knew seniors had problems but I had no idea the depth of the problem.

?I want the seniors of Bermuda to be able to live with dignity and I want the people of Bermuda to have a healthcare system that?s not discriminatory on the basis of who much money you have,? she said.

Top of her list of priorities when the House resumes business in November will be fighting to have the hospital re-built on its current site instead of the Botanical Gardens.

?I will fight and battle. I will be lying down in front of the tractors. I feel very strongly about this ? it?s so unnecessary,? she said.