When Bermudian Suzette Hollis left for Great Britain at the age of 17 it was with the intention of becoming a veterinary nurse. By the age of 18 however, she had changed her mind and joined the Royal Air Force as a professional musician.

Although she had studied piano and clarinet growing up, she was assigned to a brass band which included neither instrument, so she played the flugelhorn and tuba instead.

Stationed in Britain for four and a half years, her career flourished. She also fell in love with a fellow RAF musician, and resigned to marry him. The couple were posted to Germany, where they had two children, Jason and Beverley-Jane.

But Mrs. Matson, as she now is, always knew that being a stay-at-home wife and mother could never be the sum total of her life, for she has always been an individual who is goal-oriented, loves challenges, and has not only an unquenchable thirst for knowledge but also a deep-seated desire to help others. So, on the family's return to Lincolnshire, in addition to her domestic responsibilities, she took the first steps on a new career path which has taken her from caring for the elderly in a nursing home to a specially created position working with people with special challenges.

Initially, Mrs. Matson trained as a bereavement counsellor for the support group Cruse, rising to become regional supervision trainer, a special course for supervisors. She also worked as a drug and alcohol counsellor before moving on to caring for adults with learning difficulties and behavioural problems. There she began as an arts and crafts instructor, but in her own time also involved her clients in athletics - something that opened yet another career door.

"It was through the athletics that we discovered there was a great need in the Lincolnshire area for sporting activity to be adapted so that all people, including those with disabilities, could participate. You have to have your stepping stones, and out of this came the offer of a job going into sports, so I trained as an athletics coach," she says.

Fulfilling her personal desire to further her basic education at Mount St. Agnes Academy, Mrs. Matson also embarked on an Open University programme from which she successfully gained her Diploma in Health and Social Welfare. Next, her involvement in adaptive sports led her to train in sports psychology, ultimately gaining her diploma in that subject.

"I was in full time employment and I studied at night," she says of these achievements. "I decided I was going to educate myself and go further than my high school education."

Adaptive sport, Mrs. Matson explains, is all about motivating and enabling individuals to "find their potential, wherever or whatever that might be", and is something she achieves through combining various techniques, such as visualisation and a relaxation programme, with actual sports.

"That was the beginning of a new position created especially for me," she says. "My job is with the charitable trust, Linkage Community Trust, as a sports, health and fitness instructor, and I work with people with learning difficulties and behavioural problems."

The group she works with are aged 19-38, and their problems include autism, Down's Syndrome and cerebral palsy, but Mrs. Matson says patience is the key.

"You take it one small step at a time, and you keep within each athlete's own movement because you have to be where he or she is," she says.

Her position includes coaching athletics and basketball, and teaching general fitness exercises, and she also opens up other adaptive sporting activities - "anything from cricket to football and sailing, where they can participate in the community", and she is currently learning about football and coaching.

"It is all about independent living, and having people work towards that goal, as well as accessing sporting activities " she says. Last July she took 12 athletes to Cardiff, Wales to compete in the Special Olympics

As if her official job wasn't taxing enough, this go-getter Bermudian also works privately with youngsters aged 11-18 from disadvantaged backgrounds. These, too, present their own problems and challenges.

"I've been cursed, punched, and had stones hit me in the head while I am coaching, and I have often had to ring the Police to attend," she says. However, as a no-nonsense woman who strikes a balance between firmness and kindness, she is not discouraged. Instead, she says children often approach her individually to request rowing instruction. She never says no, but makes it clear she won't stand for any nonsense or swearing, and has often had the pleasure of seeing them change their attitudes and progress well on all fronts.

A former marathon runner who regularly ran 80 miles a week and whose best time was three and one half hours, Mrs. Matson still runs but her main personal sport now is rowing. While she is an experienced and competitive on-the-water rower, indoor rowing is a speciality. Lincolnshire is on the eastern side of Great Britain in what is known as The Fens. Flat and exposed to the icy winds off the North Sea, its temperatures would make the average Bermudian blanch - but not this lady.

"I have my own little racing boat, and I train all year," she says. "I also coach year-round in the cold, and umpire even when it's freezing."

While in the RAF she pioneered ladies' competitive rowing teams - the only ones in that service at the time. Years later she revisited the sport, and her enthusiasm blossomed, particularly for indoor rowing, and even now she travels to the US as a member of the Great Britain team to compete in Crash B (2000 metres) events. Indoor rowing, she explains, is done on special machines.

But her involvement with this sport doesn't end there.

"I am a member of the Boston (Lincolnshire) Rowing Club, and I run its junior club, which has all forms of rowing, and I also coach and umpire," she says. "In addition, I am on the UK Adaptive Rowing Committee, which is open to rowers of all sorts, including those with disabilities.

"If someone without legs, for example, comes to me, I never tell them no. I do a functional assessment as to what they can do and what is feasible, and what needs to be done to adapt the boat so that individual can row, and I also have to know what sort of boat to put them in.You treat an able adult exactly the same way. They all begin in a training boat."

So successful is Mrs. Matson's new adaptive rowing programme, in fact, that she is once more on the pioneer trail, organising the 'Adaptive Head of the River Race', which will take place in Boston (Lincs) next March.

"It will be the first in the world," she says proudly. "Adaptive rowing is actually taking off now and we also have a big syndicate coming up at the Commonwealth Games."

Meanwhile, her prodigious efforts in connection with this sporting genre have not gone unnoticed in higher places. In November she was named East Midlands Adaptive Rowing Coach of the Year.

Relaxation is relative, and Mrs. Matson says rowing is a panacea to the stresses of her work.

"Working with people with learning difficulties and behavioural problems is emotionally draining and takes a lot out of you, so I use my rowing training as a release," she says.

Other forms of relaxation include weaving - "I use it as an art form and have my own loom" - and she also paints. Her newest interest is learning how to spin wool on her spinning wheel, and music is another outlet. Somehow, she also finds time to take long walks through the countryside with her dog; visit her daughter in Nottinghamshire; enjoy her husband Ray's company; and occasionally visit her parents, Kimball and Jane Hollis, in Bermuda.

Asked what made her choose the work she does, Mrs. Matson says: "I have always felt that I was good at being a catalyst and enabling other people to reach their potential, or the place where they needed to be at any time in their lives."

Describing herself as a spiritual person, the UK resident says this is a side of her that she constantly works on.

"Even in people with learning disabilities I take their spirituality into consideration as well as my own. It doesn't matter where we come from, we are all spiritual beings."

Despite her impressive track record in the service of others, this charming, can-do woman who has achieved so much in life already, is no glory seeker. Quite the opposite, in fact. In agreeing to be interviewed, she stressed that her decision was based on the hope that her story would inspire other Bermudians to consider careers working with people with special challenges, and also open up new avenues for everyone in this community through adaptive sports programmes.