At a time of life when most women are enjoying the leisurely hobbies of retirement, Muriel Archer has carved out what has virtually become a whole new career. Driven by her deep Christian conviction and insisting that "inside'', she is still only 23, she has dedicated her life to "spreading the gospel'' with an energy that belies her years.

Declaring that "my second life began at 60'', she has spent much of the last few years overseas, helping drug addicts or teaching English, and in Bermuda, as a regular volunteer visitor to the Island's prisons.

Mrs. Archer returned from her third extended stay in China just before the ship-load of illegal Chinese immigrants, captured off Bermuda's coast, were escorted to various US bases for eventual repatriation to China. "I realise this was a dilemma for all concerned,'' she says, "but I would just comment that by returning them to the communists, those people have almost certainly been condemned to death.'' This year, she worked with two other teachers in Guangzhou (better known as Canton) in Guangdong Province, the closest to Hong Kong. Invited back to China by the US's Educational Services Exchange with China, taught for the Summer Institute of Education, helping teachers with intensive courses of English to improve their teaching skills. Her missionary work has to be very low-key, taking the form of practical assistance, or, as she expresses it, "if you can't talk the talk, you have to walk the walk''.

In spite of a heavy schedule, there was a chance to do some sightseeing.

Flying into Beijing, Mrs. Archer and her group climbed the Great Wall of China. "The Chinese say you are not a real person until you've climbed it.

This was my third time, so I must be real. It's one of the great wonders of the world, as it stretches the equivalent distance from London to Moscow and can be clearly seen by astronauts in space. We were supposed to travel south by train which would have taken 34 hours but the authorities sent us by plane and that was only five hours.'' Admitting it was a wonderful experience, she exclaims: "But I was glad to get home. I rushed into my apartment and said, `thank you, God, for running water, electricity, our beautiful beaches, but most of all, our freedom'. We are so blessed here!'' Her overall impression of the Chinese people remains one of overwhelming sadness. "In fact, they wanted to know why I was so happy all the time. I couldn't tell them it was because I am a Christian -- the Chinese have had some bad experiences with missionaries in the past, so they are no longer allowed in. So I just told them `it's all in the mind, and if your mind is up, you will be up!' But one is very aware, all the time, that `Big Brother' is watching them very well indeed for the slightest sign of any deviance, so they all wear this impenetrable mask and it's very hard to get them to express themselves.'' Eventually, however, she found a few answers. "Mao had absolutely no time for academics but since the disasters of the Cultural Revolution when they were thrown back on the land and punished simply for being academics, things have improved. Teachers are respected now, but they don't really want to be teachers -- they would like to be entrepreneurs, and get rich!'' When Mrs. Archer asked them what they would do if they were all-powerful, one replied that she would like China to be the most powerful country in the world. Then, she added, they could fight America. "I asked her to re-think that! In spite of those sentiments, they all want to go to America. Nobody had ever heard of Bermuda, until they finally realised that it was that terrible place, the Bermuda Triangle. I took a big map and millions of postcards of Bermuda, stuck them on the walls, so then they all wanted to come here. One weekend, all the postcards disappeared -- someone had stolen them. I do think,'' she adds with a laugh, "that I was a good ambassadress for Bermuda!'' Another day, she asked them to choose which three books they would take to a desert island and was surprised, in this sternly atheist country, to hear that one girl would take a bible. "She said, `because it is God's revelation to the world' -- that blew my mind, I can tell you.'' Questioned on where she was going next, her Chinese students were astonished to hear that she planned to visit Israel. "I was asked if I had a car, could I drive it anywhere I liked, go to whatever country I fancied. One young man looked at me so sadly and then said, `It's so unfair'. They are not allowed to leave, of course. Most of them have never even been to Hong Kong and it's only an hour's drive away.'' Impressed by one young man's English, Mrs. Archer is trying to arrange for a scholarship through the British Council to enable him to study in the UK.

At the border for Hong Kong, there is a huge board, ticking off the days until the colony reverts back to China. "They're building a connecting subway under the Pearl River due to open on June 30, 1997 -- with great celebration. In Hong Kong, of course, they are all dreading it. When Mao came into power, all the academics charged off to Hong Kong. But China has a very long memory and I think anyone around my age, who left the mainland 40 or 50 years ago, should be very concerned!'' Having struck up close relationships with some of the inmates she visits in Bermuda's prisons, Mrs. Archer was pleasantly surprised to receive a letter from one of them while she was in China. "I took it into the classroom and read parts of it, which described what was going on in Bermuda and then asked them to answer the letter for their English exercise. They thought that was the best thing they had done all summer! They were very sorry for this guy, but I could hardly tell them that they were really in prison, as well. Anyway, several wanted to be his pen-friend, and one of them wants him to go and visit, once he gets out!'' Asked if the freer market economy had visibly improved the standard of life in China, Mrs. Archer says that by Chinese standards, conditions for the teachers were fairly good, but around the country, it was a very different story. "I visited factories, one of them, making ceramics, and you would never get Bermudians working under conditions like that. When we finally arrived at the Institute, we had to do the first few lessons on the bare floor. It was summertime, so they were doing renovations. There was no running water, no electricity for four days, no elevators and we had to run up and down five flights of stairs.'' Impressed by her students' eagerness to learn, Mrs. Archer's lessons continued even on weekends. "They would arrange lovely outings for us, travelling all over the place on a big bus, but we talked English all the time, also every night after classes, they would want to come and talk to us.'' On one occasion Mrs. Archer decided to introduce her class to Shakespeare.

"At the end, we did a skit from The Seven Ages of Man from `As You Like It' and I had them all dressed up -- as the baby, the nurse, the soldier, and so on. They really loved that.'' By the end of her stay, a warm bond had been forged between teachers and students. "I think they could see our concern for them. I had to give a little speech at the closing ceremony, and I managed one Chinese sentence: `We all love you very much'. One student wrote me a card that said, `Your students are as many as the blooming flowers in the world' and when they came to see us off at the airport, they all wept and begged us to come back.'' Archer enjoying her life teaching Paid only the equivalent of $2.50 a day, Mrs. Archer estimates the entire trip cost her about $5,000. Having taught regularly in both Russia and China since 1989, she says it is very draining, physically and emotionally. "But I have been invited back next year. I'm no spring chicken, but I feel that while I have the strength, I should carry on.'' So why does she feel compelled to continue? "I hadn't taught for 30 years -- I had a very good job in the bank -- but my only son died when he was 19 of leukemia, and then my husband died. That's when my second life began, to go wherever I am needed. Since then I have lived out of a suitcase. I went to work in a drug rehabilitation centre in New York and then was asked to go and work with Jackie Pullinger who is very famous for her work with addicts in Hong Kong. They would be kept in bed for ten days, while they withdrew from the drugs and one of them tried to kill me -- sat up in bed, brandishing a knife and shouting, `what do you think you know about drugs?' So I told him, not much, but I wouldn't have travelled all that way to look after him if I hadn't loved him. That shut him up -- and we've been close friends ever since. All of these people live in such misery and poverty. I want people to realise how very blessed we are in Bermuda.'' THE GREAT WALL -- One of the great tourist `wonders of the world', the Great Wall of China, climbed for the third time by Mrs. Archer.