A RETIREMENT party that can best be described as simply grand marked the beginning of a new life for Alfred (Nick) Swan and his wife Lorraine of Stowe Court, Pembroke West.

The couple managed to retire in the same time-frame, after having spent their entire working lives in the postal service of Bermuda, amassing between them a total of 73 years. It all revolved around the General Post Office (GPO) in Hamilton. They worked together for 35 years and have been husband and wife for 31 years.

Some 200 relatives, friends and colleagues joined the Swans at the Pembroke Community Centre for dinner, dancing and rounds of accolades marked with wit, humour and even poetry highlighting their exemplary roles on the job, as parents and their dedicated service to their church and community at large.

The GPO was located in the building now housing Hamilton Magistrates' Court when Nick began there as a clerk. By the time he retired a few weeks ago he had worked his way up to the position of Assistant Postmaster General with responsibility for the airmail facility at the airport as well as being responsible for all sub-post offices from Devonshire to St. George's.

Lorraine, likewise, started at the bottom rung and graduated to the highly specialised area as a philatelic clerk with responsibility for bulk sales and first-day stamp covers. Nick Swan was fresh out of the Berkeley Institute when he started at the post office in 1966. Three years later Lorraine, having graduated from Howard Academy under the late Eddie DeJean, began her career.

"I only knew her by sight," Nick said. She was then Lorraine Bell from Happy Valley. They became attached to each other; she accepted his invitation to football games, and in turn invited him to her home on Christmas Day in 1970 to meet her mother. On Boxing Day the following year they got married. They are now parents of four children and grandparents of three.

The Swans worked hard and sacrificed much to give each of their children a university education. Their children are Nique Swan, an architect practising in Cincinnati, Ohio; Tanisheka Swan is a teacher at Francis Patton School; Quito Swan is pursuing his doctorate in African Studies at Howard University in Washington, DC and Kashima Swan, who earned a master's degree in Marketing, is pursuing her career in Atlanta, Georgia.

Nick was evidently a precocious young fellow who idolised his father, the late and lamented calypsonian Kingsley Swan, Sr. The father worked in the post office by day and entertained in clubs at night.

He secured a job there for young Nick, and later left Bermuda to study at the Berklee School of Music. Nick and his older bother, Kingsley Swan, Jr., were evidently natural musicians like their father. At age 15 Nick was a drummer in his brother's band, playing at the El Matador nightclub. It was situated on Queen's Street, Hamilton.

Kingsley, Jr., now makes his home in Columbus, Georgia, where he is a career musician and entertainer with his Bermudian-born wife, the former Suzanne Darrell, a trained singer.

Nick amused his guests relating how for the first ten years of his marriage he would leave the post office, rushed home, changed and went to his second job as a nightclub entertainer and drummer. But that changed 21 years ago when he and his wife were converted as Christians, becoming members of the West Pembroke Pentecostal Assembly. He abandoned the nightclub scene, and now is the drummer on the church's music staff, helps with the choir and is a Sunday School teacher.

The Swans served under nine different Postmasters General. They thoroughly enjoyed their service to the public. He is the second Assistant Postmaster General to retire in recent weeks. The last was Mrs. Velda Smith, who together with her husband Beldwin Smith went into joint retirement after nearly 70 years in Government service.

The Smiths were among the guests welcoming Nick and Lorraine to the 'new retirees' club. Another retiree was Marion Swan. She and Lorraine entered the postal service at the same time 35 years ago. She joked: "How interesting it was for the post office to lose all its Swans in one fell swoop."

Another retiree, Mrs. Betty Christopher, a long-serving president of the Bermuda Public Service Union, commented on Mr. Swan's efforts for more than 20 years as chief steward for the GPO in the BPSU or BPSA as it was originally.