turning point is finally reached, a society unknowingly or subconsciously defined.

Years from now, historians may look on the 12 months that are currently drawing to a close as just such a time for Bermuda, which in 1994 saw a divisive battle over gay rights, the attempt by the Premier to decide on Independence and an increase in crime and violence that has sullied the Island's image -- both locally and abroad -- as a safe and unique environment.

Of course, 1994 did have its share of triumphs and successes, though it generally raised more questions than it provided answers. As it now stands, Bermudians find themselves on a path that has no foreseeable end to it, that is fraught with as many pitfalls as opportunities. The following, a summing up of the major stories of 1994, is The Royal Gazette 's look at the events that brought them to that point.

HIGHLIGHTS The issue that without a doubt was on the minds of most Bermudians this year was the increase in crime of almost every type.

In August, Police reported that the number of break-ins, for example, had gone up by 50 percent over 1993. At the same time, they urged Bermudians to invest in high-tech bike alarm systems after cycle thefts were said to have reached "epidemic'' proportions.

The most disturbing crime trend in terms of the Island's economy, however, was the rise in attacks on tourists. "I wish,'' said Tourism Minister the Hon.

C.V. (Jim) Woolridge, "that the people who are purse-snatching and breaking into hotels would come to understand what they're actually doing, how disadvantaged people would become if tourism is hurt.'' By the end of the year, politicians on both sides of the House of Assembly were calling crime the most pressing problem on the Island today.

Closely related to the issue of crime in `94 was the proliferation in Bermuda of drugs and guns. In the case of the latter, authorities took various steps to clamp down on the problem after a spate of armed robberies and assaults, including the October 30 shooting of two teenagers at the Spinning Wheel nightclub in Hamilton. Shortly after that incident, Government put a gun amnesty into effect and proposed mandatory life sentences for gun importers.

To show the Island's resolve, a German ship engineer was also sentenced to three months in prison for possession of a single bullet.

In the area of narcotics, however, Bermudian authorities both made and lost ground in their efforts to control the drug trade, seizing more cannabis in 1994 than in the previous five years combined but losing some 50 pounds of marijuana in a "preventable'' robbery at a Customs dock in November. Even so, Human Affairs Minister the Hon. Jerome Dill claimed in March that Bermuda was "streets ahead'' of the Caribbean in addressing the problem.

Ironically, it was from the Caribbean that the Island's under-23 soccer squad was returning when seven of its members were arrested in December on charges of importing drugs. Having just secured a place in next year's Pan American Games at a series of qualifying matches in Jamaica, the players were expected to receive an ecstatic welcome when they returned to Bermuda.

Instead, they spent the days before Christmas in a Florida jail. They are to be arraigned today.

In political news, the biggest story of the year was undoubtedly the Government's relentless if ineffectual drive to pave the way for a referendum on separation from Britain.

In January, Premier the Hon. Sir John Swan pushed ahead with plans he had announced in late 1993 to draft a bill on the matter, a move that prompted Delegated Affairs Minister the Hon. Ann Cartwright DeCouto to resign in protest. Said the rebel MP at the time: "To have remained in Cabinet at this point would have been personally and politically unconscionable...for me.'' Former senator and key United Bermuda Party member Mr. Wendell Hollis went a step further and resigned from the party a week later.

Undaunted, the Premier pressed on with his goal, defending the pertinence of bringing the issue to Bermudians and rejecting suggestions that he had no mandate to do so. In March, however, Sir John's plan to hold the referendum by the end of the year was virtually doomed when his Independence Referendum Bill was thrown back to the House of Assembly by dissenting Senators. On May 6, the Bill was killed outright when MPs on both sides of the House supported a motion by Opposition Leader Mr. Frederick Wade to reject Government's call for a Commission of Inquiry on the issue.

"It has totally killed it,'' Mrs. DeCouto said of the vote. "I would say that that Bill is history.'' A controversial bill that did get passed in 1994, however, was the private member's initiative of Dr. John Stubbs MP to decriminalise sex between men.

Despite vehement opposition from local Christians and a threat to boycott the Island from various church groups in the US, the Bill was approved in May by a vote of 22 to 16.

"I'm very pleased,'' Dr. Stubbs said afterward. "It was close, as we knew it would be.'' Some two months after the Stubbs Bill was approved, Bermuda's attention was turned from homosexual rights to disease on the high seas as Government scrambled to make it clear that a breakout of Legionnaire's disease among passengers on the cruise ship Horizon was not locally grown.

At the height of the drama, which made international headlines, hoteliers scurried to accommodate the more than 1,200 passengers who had been evacuated so the Horizon 's water system could be purified some 15 miles offshore. In the end, one male visitor on a July 9 cruise died from the disease, which the Atlanta-based US Centres for Disease Control eventually traced to the ship's hot tubs.

In March, meanwhile, Bermuda was at the centre of a more positive media frenzy when the Queen and Prince Philip arrived on the Island after wrapping up a tour of the Caribbean. Although their visit was regarded as highly successful, the Premier caused a stir when he allegedly pushed his bid for Independence during a dinner speech to Her Majesty.

"The Queen heard a speech from the Island's Premier which surprised many with its blunt call for Independence,'' the BBC informed radio listeners in Britain. Echoing the sentiments of many people at home, Mr. Wade characterised the Premier's remarks as rude and distasteful.

Equally distasteful to some on the Island was a Government tourist brochure which referred to the "relatively benign system of slavery'' that had once existed in Bermuda. Released in January, the brochure was designed to draw a comparison between slavery on the Island and slavery in such places as the United States. About 30,000 copies of the pamphlet were eventually withdrawn.

The brochure incident was simply one of many in a year in which race and racism were elevated to the fore of public discussion.

In January, a Police probe was launched into the radical student magazine "The Nationalist'' after it caused a sensation by urging blacks to mount a bloody freedom fight against whites.

US-Bermudian negotiations into the American Navy's withdrawal from the Island next year hit a few snags in '94.

In September, Management and Technology Minister the Hon. Grant Gibbons said there was no chance that Bermuda would pay $140 million for the return of the bases after a US Navy document suggested that figure as the total value of base assets.

The Minister said Bermuda would be taking the position that the US owes it money.

And in February, the reality of the US base closures was reflected in the Government's Valentine's Day budget, which saw an increase in taxes on payroll, land, alcohol and tobacco.

UNDER FIRE During the course of the past year, a number of prominent Bermudians found themselves in the hot seat for one reason or another.

In May, for example, Bermuda's Anglican Bishop the Rt. Rev. William Down came under fire from his own senior clergy over his choice of the Rev. Ewen Ratteray as Archdeacon.

Although they claimed to have nothing against Mr. Ratteray personally, the clergymen objected to the suddenness of the announcement and the lack of consultation with senior priests.

Said Canon Thomas Nisbett of the Bishop: "We wonder what criteria he used.'' Mr. Ratteray was installed as Archdeacon in September, becoming the first black Bermudian to serve in the role.

In July, meanwhile, Government House was forced to do some damage control after black Bermudian butler Mr. Andre Nisbett cited racism as the reason he was fired from his job.

"I think it's racism,'' he said at the time. "I think it's because I'm a black Bermudian.'' Governor Lord Waddington, who denied the charge, claimed that a number of "serious lapses'' had resulted in Mr. Nisbett's sacking, especially during the Queen's visit.

After reviewing the case, the Bermuda Public Services Association declined to pursue the matter. Another black Bermudian has since replaced Mr. Nisbett.

In the meantime, Works and Engineering Minister the Hon. Leonard Gibbons was forced to fend off attacks on two fronts.

In August, the Prospect secondary school project set off a bitter public row between the Works Ministry and the construction industry after a Canadian company was awarded a $2.7-million contract to manage the project.

Mr. Gibbons, who faced demands for his resignation, defended his decision -- and shrugged off attacks on his competence -- by arguing that the work would be better distributed under a management company.

The Minister was somewhat vindicated in September when the Toronto-based Buttcon Development Corporation was flooded with applications from sub-contractors and suppliers.

Around the same time as the Prospect row, however, the Minister also had to deal with the matter of the Tynes Bay incinerator, which provoked a barrage of protests over the summer from people who lived in its vicinity.

In May, for instance, residents around the $70-million North Shore burner complained about the noise and vibrations during its various testing periods.

By the fall, they had added cracked walls and ceilings, declining property values and a strong unpleasant odour to their list of outrages.

In October, Mr. Gibbons finally called a neighbourhood meeting to address the concerns of the residents, many of whom seemed placated by the gesture.

Said one woman: "That's all we really wanted -- somebody to talk to, to answer our questions.'' The incinerator opened officially on October 27.

Of course, institutions were just as likely to come under fire during the past year -- and none more so than the Island's two hospitals.

Beginning a year of discontent for the facilities, the Bermuda Hospitals Board was sued in January by a couple whose four-year-old son had died in 1992.

According to the parents, the boy went into cardiac arrest after routine surgery at King Edward VII Hospital.

In November, meanwhile, St. Brendan's Hospital found itself fending off accusations of mismanagement and incompetence after two different women were reportedly assaulted by patients in its community-based rehabilitation programme.

By the end of the year, it was also facing the threat of a lawsuit over the serious injury of a 30-year-old German man who had allegedly broken his neck while in the hospital's care.

The patient, a former chef at Once Upon A Table, is currently languishing in a hospital near Munich.

A look back at what happened in 1994 WINNERS AND LOSERS As in past years, 1994 saw both the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat in a number of Island venues.

On April 19, 57-year-old shoe store owner Mr. William Boyle clearly savoured victory when Hamilton residents voted overwhelmingly to elect him as Mayor of the city.

In St. George's, meanwhile, incumbent Mayor the Rt. Wor. Henry Hayward began a third term in May after beating Mr. Gladstone Trott for the third time.

In the case of Senator-turned-Cabinet Minister the Hon. Grant Gibbons, the sweetness of victory was tempered with a pinch of acrimony when charges of "dirty politics'' were levelled in the days before the United Bermuda Party's Paget East primary in June.

Feeling "shafted'' by their exclusion from the voting process by a timing rule in the UBP's constitution, many prospective voters charged that both the primary and the subsequent by-election to fill the seat of the late Dr. John Stubbs had been orchestrated by the party brass to favour Dr. Gibbons, who was widely regarded as the Premier's anointed choice.

A month later, Dr. Gibbons won the election handily, picking up 605 of the 730 ballots cast.

Less successful in his battle to be relieved of his obligations to the Bermuda Regiment on the grounds that he was a pacifist was lawyer Mr. Rod Attride-Stirling.

In August, Chief Justice the Hon. Mr. Justice Ward dismissed his claims that the lawyer's constitutional rights had been violated, saying the demands on him had not been "unnecessarily harsh or arbitrary''.

In June, the Public Service Commission was likely second-guessing itself after a firestorm of protest erupted over its rejection of popular acting principal Mr. Warren Jones as full-time head of Northlands Secondary School.

The PSC, which chose Mrs. Carol Bassett instead, was lambasted for sending the wrong message to young black men.

Mr. Jones left teaching in the fall.

And in one of the more prominent real estate stories of the year, wealthy American heiress Mrs. Marion MacMillan succeeded in keeping her Perot's Island home after striking a deal with Canadian millionaire Mr. Michael DeGroote.

Mr. DeGroote had taken her to court in 1993 after Mrs. MacMillan backed out of an agreement to sell him the property for $8.5 million.

PARTIAL VICTORIES In 1994, a number of partial victories were witnessed on the Island after various Bermudians -- both here and abroad -- fell just short of the proverbial brass ring.

Lawyer Mr. Julian Hall, for example, started out the year with a triumph when Chief Justice the Hon. Mr. Justice Ward declared two search warrants that the Police had used to raid his offices last year to be illegal.

By the end of the year, however, the Court of Appeal had overturned the Justice's decisions and denied Mr. Hall the leave to take the matter to the Privy Council.

At the height of last spring's debate over the Stubbs gay sex bill, a tactical victory turned into a defeat for the anti-gay Christian Coalition.

While the Coalition had managed to get the backing of a number of US churches in its crusade against the bill, it alienated many ordinary Bermudians when it attacked the AIDS-fighting Allan Vincent Smith Foundation for its perceived links to pro-homosexual groups.

A week later, the House of Assembly passed the bill.

COMINGS AND GOINGS In 1994, Bermuda saw a number of new faces emerge on the scene as well as a number of departures.

On January 18, Management and Technology Minister the Hon. Michael Winfield resigned from his Cabinet post after citing business and family obligations.

Sen. Grant Gibbons replaced him.

High-ranking American diplomat Mr. Joseph Patrick O'Neill arrived on the Island to assume the role of acting US Consul General.

He stayed on until US President Bill Clinton appointed top Democratic fundraiser Mr. Bob Farmer to the post.

On March 31, Mr. Donald Lines retired as the president of the Bank of Bermuda.

He was succeeded by Briton Mr. Charles Vaughn Johnson.

And at the end of April, Deputy Governor Mr. John Kelly left the Island to resume his duties at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in London. Mr. Kelly was replaced by Mr. Peter Willis, a 30-year veteran of British foreign affairs.

In May, Canadian Mr. Hume Martin stepped down as the Bermuda Hospitals Board's executive director to return to his native country. He was replaced by Bermudian Mrs. Sheila Manderson.

In June, meanwhile, Bermuda Football Association chief Mr. Charles Marshall cited a lack of support from the executive committee as the reason he was leaving the post. Mr. Marshall was succeeded by Mr. Richard Thompson.

In July, Attorney General Mr. Walter Maddocks, whose three-and-a-half-year tenure as the Island's top lawyer was marked by the departure of at 12 members of his legal staff, retired from the post for personal reasons. He was replaced by Barbadian Mr. Elliott Mottley.

During the same month, Mr. Alastair Macdonald quit as chairman of the National Drugs Commission and was replaced by Mr. Mansfield Brock.

In October, lawyer Mrs. Lynda Milligan-Whyte was appointed to fill the Senate seat that had been vacated by Management and Technology Minister the Hon.

Grant Gibbons. Sen. Milligan-Whyte had previously served in the Upper House from 1987 to 1990.

In late December, meanwhile, a political storm erupted after it was announced that a British Police officer had been hired to replace outgoing Police Commissioner Mr. Lennett Edwards, who was stepping down because of illness.

At the same time, former Chief Justice Sir James Astwood was appointed to the presidency of the Court of Appeal.

In September, the new $40-million Westgate Correctional Facility opened to much fanfare. "Too nice'' was how many of the more than 2,000 Bermudians who later toured the prison felt about it.

In July, the long-running comic strip "Tarzan'' was pulled from the pages of The Royal Gazette after complaints that it was sexist and racist.

On July 1, meanwhile, Northwest Airlines pulled out of the local market. It had provided service between Bermuda and Boston.

PASSINGS Some of the departures from Bermudian public life in 1994 were permanent ones.

On June 7 -- just a few weeks after he pushed through his private member's bill to decriminalise sex between males -- Dr. John Stubbs MP died from cancer at the age of 61.

A towering figure in the United Bermuda Party, Dr. Stubbs was first elected to the House in 1968 as an MP for Hamilton West and in 1980 for Paget East. On January 6, one of Bermuda's most colourful characters, 95-year-old Captain Bobbie Burcher, also died.

In late January, a Pembroke neighbourhood mourned the death of sailor, soccer player and gombey drummer Mr. Lawrence (Stickers) Hendrickson, who died at 31 after collapsing in his workplace.

In February, the "Voice of St. George's,'' Major Donald Henry (Bob) Burns, died after a long illness. He was 73.

In March, former ZBM radio and television announcer Mr. Trevor Critchley died in Toronto after suffering a heart attack. He was 62.

On April 12, Sir James Pearman, a former politician and one of the Island's most respected lawyers, died of cardiac arrest at the age of 89.

On May 17, top Bermudian footballer Mr. Lance Brown died of a heart attack at 36. Mr. Brown had been a star player in the 1970s and '80s for both the national team and the Somerset Trojans.

In the same month, a Bermudian who received one of Britain's highest awards for bravery died at the age of 79. Mr. Ross Doe, who rescued an American pilot after his plane crashed into Hamilton Harbour, was awarded the rare George Medal in 1953.

On June 7, Mr. George Bascome, the last surviving Bermudian to serve overseas during the First World War, died at 96.

In late July, it was reported that Lady Leather, the wife of former Governor Sir Edwin Leather, had died in Canada after undergoing surgery. She was 75.

A month later, Mr. Russell Levi Pearman MBE, a sportsman, orator, top furniture restorer and former Parliamentarian, died at the age of 87.

Another colurful figure who passed away last summer was Newfoundland-born Mr.

Douglas (Dougie) Little, the peg-legged Maritime Museum caretaker who was a hit with all who visited the facility.

In September, the Island's sporting community was shocked at the death of top sports official Mr. Clifford Stanley Roberts, who was found hanging at PHC Stadium.

On September 21, the Hon. Ernest Vesey, a politician and lawyer who seved as Bermuda's Education Minister from 1972 to 1981, died at the age of 68.

On November 18, Lady Madree Elizabeth Richards, widow of Bermuda's first black Premier, died at 76 after suffering a heart attack.

In the same month, former Police Insp. Noel Hebberd died at the age of 68. In December, former Royal Gazette arts critic and parliamentary reporter Miss Marion Robb died at the age of 89.

A few weeks later, 61-year-old Mr. Elystan Reynold Aubrey died in his sleep in New Hampshire on Christmas Eve. Mr. Aubrey had founded E.R. Aubrey Jewellers on Front Street more than 40 years ago.

DEVELOPMENT In development news, two stories dominated during 1994, both of them involving the Bermuda National Trust.

In the summer, preservationists led by the Trust won a heated public battle over the future of Bermuda's green space when they compelled MPs to exclude the pristine Catchment Hill area of Tucker's Town from the 1992 Bermuda Plan.

The Plan, which imposed development zonings on all Island property, passed by a vote of 20 to 16.

In the other major story of the year, the Trust and other opponents failed to repeat their success when they proved unable to slow down plans for the proposed Bermuda Underwater Exploration Centre at the foot of Hamilton harbour.

Late in `94, the Trust dropped a Supreme Court challenge it had launched against the project.

Meanwhile, the Development Applications Board approved plans this year for a new three-storey car park at Bull's Head in Hamilton.

And despite protests that it would tower over the entrance to the city and mar harbour views, Seon Place, a massive eight-storey office and shopping complex, was approved by the DAB for a site next to Dismont Robinson's liquor store on Front Street.

STRIKING A CHORD Labour news was dominated by a string of layoffs, strikes and industrial actions this year, beginning in the first week of January.

As the 1994 school term began, primary and secondary school teachers refused to oversee extracurricular activities after an earlier decision by Government to scrap pay for such duties.

Government reversed its decision in the February budget.

On January 7, meanwhile, 43 employees of the Glencoe Harbour Club were told that they would lose their jobs after the Salt Kettle property was sold to an investment company that planned to turn it into condos.

In March, more than 100 workers at the Southampton Princess walked off the job to protest cutbacks and mismanagement.

They returned to work the same day after management and the Bermuda Industrial Union hammered out a tentative truce.

At the start of the US Memorial Day weekend in May, hotel workers across the Island went on strike over withheld tips and the lack of a collective bargaining agreement between the BIU and the Hotel Employers of Bermuda.

Although short-lived -- a Supreme Court ruling that the strike was unlawful forced workers back to work by Sunday -- the work stoppage resulted in cancelled bookings and visitors who demanded to leave early.

A collective bargaining agreement has yet to be signed.

In August, the Bermuda Telephone Company obtained a court injunction to quash an overtime ban that its employees were using to exert pressure on the utility as it underwent contract mediations with the BIU.

The dispute was eventually sent to binding arbitration.

THRILLS AND SPILLS In addition to two significant oil spills this year, 1994 saw occurrences that were likely to send a shiver down the spine or get the pulse racing.

In February, for example, The New York Times reported that a Soviet nuclear submarine that sank 500 miles east of Bermuda in 1986 was leaking radioactive material.

While Russian and American scientists agreed that the site should be monitored, local marine experts said the chance of any harmful affect on the Island was "about zero.'' During the summer, a spate of shark sightings in local waters, including Mill Creek, kept swimmers on their toes.

Although one English boy came within feet of one, no-one was reported injured.

For five weeks last winter, Bermudians received a thrill of a different sort as they followed the progress of the Island's national cricket team at the ICC Trophy tournament in Kenya.

Though it failed to qualify for the 1996 World Cup, the team came tantalisingly close -- fourth in a contest that advanced the top three.

On August 11, meanwhile, Bermudians had spills on their minds as the Royal Navy led a nine-hour clean-up operation at Dockyard after oil poured out of a visiting Egyptian warship.

And in late October, a shift in wind saved the Island from a major environmental crisis after hundreds of gallons of oil seeped out of a ruptured Esso pipeline off Coney Island.

The wind shift moved the eight-mile-long slick away from the Somerset shoreline and out to the open sea.

PROGRESS? In a year that saw Bermuda get a direct air link to continental Europe, the court system get a fourth Magistrate and the Speaker of the House get a new wig, no-one could say that Bermudians hadn't progressed in 1994.

Even so, the year did bring a number of events that raised the question of whether the Island wasn't also taking a step back.

On the other hand, in June, Police officials put a temporary block on women recruits in an effort to attract more Bermudian men to the Force.

By the end of the summer, however, a dearth of qualified male applicants forced Police Commissioner Mr. Lennett Edwards to relax physical fitness requirements and modify the age limit for recruits from 35 to 40.

In August, moreover, work began on the exterior of the 177-year-old Sessions House to give it the same "brighter'' look as the nearby Cabinet Building.

In the same month, the recycling programme that had been hailed as a success in the early part of the year came under suspicion after it was revealed that bottles and cans that had been collected for recycling were being dumped into a pit at the Ocean View Golf Club.

Although there were subsequent pleas by such organisations as Keep Bermuda Beautiful to continue recycling, Works Minister the Hon. Leonard Gibbons hinted at a UBP conference in November that the programme might be scrapped.

In September, meanwhile, Bermuda's power supply fell into fewer hands as the Bermuda Electric Company announced that it had purchased Bermuda Gas and Utility for an undisclosed amount.

And in August, it was revealed that the number of cars on Bermuda's roads had climbed to more than 20,000 in 1993.

Despite stepped-up education and prevention programmes, the Health Department reported during the summer that AIDS cases in Bermuda had been occurring at a faster rate in '94.

BERMUDA AND THE WORLD Despite its legendary isolation, Bermuda had a number of international encounters this year -- not all of them positive.

In early March, Government refused a request by Canadian authorities to stop Bermuda-licensed longliners from that country from catching swordfish and tuna in local waters.

The Canadians, who did not want the catches off Bermuda to be subtracted from their quota as members of the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tuna, later took steps of their own, seizing the Halifax-based Stephen B in late March and thereby ending an experiment that Government estimated had pumped nearly $200,000 into the local economy.

In June, the Governor hit out at a top British journalist for writing an "infantile, insulting and almost certainly libellous'' article in the London Observer's Life magazine.

In October, the Ontario Government ordered an investigation into the controversial remarks of Bermudian-born Mr. Arnold Minors after the Toronto Police Services Board member allegedly referred to the city's Police as "occupying forces'' and said the Holocaust wasn't a racist act.

Mr. Minors, who has lived in Canada since 1964, claimed he was quoted out of context.

Of course, not all of Bermuda's experiences abroad were negative.

At the end of the summer, triple jumper Mr. Brian Wellman did Bermuda proud when he secured the Island's only medal -- a bronze -- at the 15th Commonwealth Games in Canada.

And on November 13, the Merrill Lynch golf shootout that took place in September showed off Bermuda's beauty to an estimated North American audience of about 200 million people.

EMPTY SHIP -- The Horizon sails past Spanish Point with no passengers during the Legionnaire's disease scare.