broadcaster Susan White-Bowden credits Bermuda for the "important'' role it has played in her life.

Mrs. White-Bowden and husband Jack, who is ABC affiliate's Channel 7 news anchorman in Washington, have been regular visitors to the Island since 1979, and for the past seven years have made their Cambridge Beaches vacation an annual affair.

"We have been to a lot of islands,'' Mr. Bowden enthused during their latest visit here last week, "but none of them are as beautiful as Bermuda. Bermuda is like our second home!'' Acutely aware of the increasing violence in Washington -- on which he regularly reports in the course of his job -- Mr. Bowden said he and his wife had been trying to analyse why violent crime was relatively rare here.

"There's far less crime in Bermuda than the other islands. I was talking to someone in Maryland the other day and he asked me what does this Island have that America doesn't have? And I told him that people here still care, the children are still cherished. The Island is clean and no graffiti and everyone takes the time to say good morning. People are still polite to one another.'' They said they were particularly struck by the sense of community on the Island.

"We saw it on a bus ride, for example. There were a couple of little white boys, playing about a bit and a black man on the other side of the bus told them to settle down -- and they did! And there was another little boy who had fallen asleep on the shoulder of a rather rebellious-looking teenager. And he woke him up when it was time for him to get off. It's this sense of caring and of being a community that makes Bermuda different. What is wrong with American society is that we no longer look after our kids. America used to be like Bermuda,'' said Mr. Bowden.

What really surprised this couple was the fact that children got off the bus and walked home on their own. "In the States, parents are waiting for their kids at the bus stops because it's no longer safe for them to make their own way home.'' For the Bowdens, Bermuda has what they call magical, rejuvenating powers. "We came here for the first time on our honeymoon, just two years after my son died,'' she explained. "It's such a magical place, it was of enormous help in the healing process.'' So much so, that Susan White-Bowden eventually wrote a book -- her first -- chronicling the life and death of her 17-year-old son. It was called "Everything to Live For'' and in 1985, was voted by the American Library Association as one of the best new books of the year. It has since been translated into German.

Since the publication of that book, Mrs. White-Bowden has become a nationally known lecturer on the prevention of youth suicide.

She went on to write "From a Healing Heart'', a handsome volume of stories, poems and photographs designed to provide guidance and comfort for those suffering devastating personal loss.

The title of her most recent book, "Moonbeams Come at Dark Times'', was dreamed up by her five-year old granddaughter, Emily, as a name for a picture she had drawn.

For Mrs. White-Bowden, there was a double poignancy in Emily's innocent observation. She realised that her granddaughter had herself been such a moonbeam, having been born in the dark times following her son's suicide.

Her latest volume is a far more light-hearted affair -- humorous but wise reflections on turning 50 in the '90s.

Sun-tanned and blond, the `just-turned 50' author is not the sort of person most would instinctively think of as having endured not one, but several tragedies in her life.

But the nightmare began for Susan White-Bowden in November 1974, when her first husband, from whom she was already divorced, shot himself at their Maryland farm home. Two-and-a-half years later, her son, Jody, shot himself, also at home. Then, just two months after she had married Jack, the house was struck by lightning in a freak storm and burned to the ground. Then, in 1990, she herself came close to death when she was found to be suffering from vasculitis, a type of arthritis of the brain.

She believes that the act of writing that first book had a cathartic effect in helping her to deal with her grief.

"I really wrote it for myself. It enabled me to get on with my life. And I hoped it would help other parents avoid the terrible pain of losing a child to suicide.'' Mrs. White-Bowden was very surprised to learn that teen suicide is extremely rare in Bermuda.

In other countries, the problem is on the increase. A recent World Health Organisation report found that Australia has the highest rate of suicide in the developed world, followed by Norway, Canada, Switzerland and the US.

At a conference held in Britain last week, psychiatrists called for screening of youths between the ages of 15 to 18, in an effort to pick up early signs of depression.

This is the very point that Mrs. White-Bowden emphasised in "Everything to Live For.'' "All the signs were there, I just didn't pick up on them,'' she said. "One of the most important things is that you have to take a person seriously when they start talking about suicide. It is really a call for help.'' After her son's death, Mrs. White-Bowden learned that her son had talked to his girlfriend about killing himself.

"The grieving process is an essential part of recovery. This can take a long time. I was very fortunate to have Jack, who would just sit and listen when I needed to talk and never told me that I should be over all that stuff.'' The tragic events in her life have helped Susan White-Bowden put the priorities of life in a different perspective.

For several years, they co-anchored the news on Channel 2 in Baltimore, an affiliate of NBC. When her husband lost that job, she resigned in protest. Now he works out of Washington and Mrs. White-Bowden concentrates on her writing and making national tours as a lecturer on youth suicide and loss survival.

"We have made a point of coming to Bermuda even when we couldn't really afford it,'' she said with a laugh.

As she writes in "Moonbeams Come at Dark Times'', "The romance and the magic of that island once again enveloped us and freed us from the problems we were facing in the day-to-day existence of the real world.'' There is an advert for beer in Maryland, explained Susan White-Bowden, that sums up their attitude to holidays in Bermuda: "Expensive yes, extravagant no.'' Mrs. White-Bowden's three books are currently on sale in the gift shop at Cambridge Beaches, the Craft Market at Dockyard, and will be available shortly from The Bookmart and other bookstores in Hamilton.

LEARNING TO LIVE AGAIN -- TV anchorman Jack Bowden and his wife, author Susan White-Bowden, pose with her three books on coping with personal loss and life in the '90s.