Question: It's 40 years after Harold MacMillan's winds of change speech which signalled the dissolution of the empire. Why hasn't this process affected Bermuda? Answer: We are Britain's oldest colony. We were settled in 1612 and one of the things we must remember -- and some people tend to forget or don't want to know -- is that this was an uninhabited island. We didn't displace anybody, they didn't have to deal with a language problem or a culture problem. They started from scratch. Over the years we have benefited from being a British colony. All the great freedoms of being a British colony were passed on to us, I say Britain but at that time it was England. It was Englishmen who settled this Island. They, for the most part, were tenants.

Q: You mention all the great freedoms, but Bermuda had slavery.

A: Slavery wasn't a great freedom, that's for sure. In a paper I wrote some time ago I say that, unfortunately, like all the other mercantile European countries we had slavery. But in spite of what's said now, I don't believe that our slavery was anything like the colonies where there were plantations.

There was a great empathy between many of the slave owners and the slaves themselves.

Q: Can you give me an example of that? A: They were house servants mostly and many of the families left property to the slaves. Some of them set them free.

Q: Again on your point of "the great freedoms of being associated with Britain'' what about the fact that Bermuda only got universal franchise in 1968. That's 356 years after becoming a British colony? That's an awfully long time.

A: Don't forget that in 1620 we had our first elections and our first House of Assembly and at that time people voted from each tribe as it was then called (each parish) and Britain itself didn't have adult suffrage until the 19th century.

Q: Yes, but full suffrage would have been around the turn of the century in Britain but full adult suffrage in Bermuda with one person, one vote -- that was 356 years after becoming a colony. It seems being part of Britain didn't guarantee anyone here democratic rights which had been common in Britain.

A: We are emphasising the negatives rather than the positives. You can't go through life emphasising the negatives otherwise you become a very miserable people as we seem to have become.

Q: Wouldn't you agree that full democracy is important? I would be miserable if I didn't have it. It's not a frippery is it? A: Well I think they were so busy making a living and trying to develop the place that they didn't necessarily stop to think about whether they voted or whether they didn't. It may very well be they had the full vote the first time around in 1620. They sent representatives to the Assembly. And since they were all tenants it wasn't based on the value of property or anything like that. Q: So you are saying over the years that democracy became diluted? A: No, I didn't say that.

Q: What are you saying then? A: I don't know how they in the very, very early days voted. I think most of them voted. As well as having a representative House of Assembly -- I think that was remarkable on this little Island populated by tenants for the most part. There were very few landowners here because the merchant adventurers had financed the settlement of the Island and then sent these people out. When I say we inherited all the freedoms I am thinking now of the legal side. When the State House was built in the 1620s it was also a law court and we inherited that taken-for-granted thing that a person was considered innocent until proven guilty. I consider that a great freedom. It certainly doesn't occur in many places in the world today. And we had Habeas Corpus. That was passed in England in 1679. We had it right from the very beginning. We enjoy it today. These things have come down to us.

Q: In your writing you make much of a common British heritage. Even if that was the case, hasn't that been diluted over the years? Bermuda has become more independent. The powers of the Governor have become diluted.

A: That's very recent.

Q: I am more interested in where we are now. There is a very strong American influence, most of the television is American...

A: That's the sort of thing ruining Bermuda. Having all these foreign influences.

Q: But you can't stop TV and mass media.

A: No, but it has had an awful effect on us. People don't even speak the proper language any more, they play around with the spelling. Family values have gone out of the window.

Q: If you are a black teenager growing up in the back of town what real link do you have to Britain? A: Unfortunately the people you have been referring to have been so indoctrinated by the politicians that they have no real sense of what their relationship to Britain should be and is. They talk about colonialism and by that they think of someone coming from outside and superimposing their ideas, their will, their economy on a native people. Well that didn't happen in Bermuda. Quite the opposite. People have come from elsewhere and brought their tradition and history and experience and superimposed that upon our young people. This is what agitates me endlessly.

Q: Are you saying there has been a re-writing of history? Can you give examples of that? A: Well very often some true fact will be brought forward but it will be so slanted it betrays the essence of the truth. We hear so much these days about slavery. How do you think emancipation came about. It came about by endless and selfless endeavours of William Wilberforce and people around him and leading politicians in 1832. They worked for the emancipation of slaves but slavery itself some years before that was made illegal. When slaves from elsewhere landed in Britain they were then free. There were instances of ships put into Ireland and other places where slaves were given the opportunity of whether they would stay and be free or get back on the ship and come back to Bermuda. Most of them came back, so it couldn't have been so tempting or they would have taken the opportunity to gain their freedom there and then. I don't think all our history should hinge on slavery. I am not excusing slavery, by any means, but I don't think you can blame England specifically for slavery.

Slavery has been around almost since the world began.

And some people are so bound up by hate that they want to take all the pictures down in the House of Assembly and destroy them -- because they are white. There is a measure of ethnic cleansing, we have to be very aware of this and turn it around as much as possible. Abraham Lincoln was asked how you get rid of your enemies. He said: "By making them into your friends''.

Undoubtedly there has been discrimination and segregation but evolution is not an overnight situation. It comes with time and maybe it's better that way. Not necessarily for the people who are held back but when things evolve slowly they have more strength.

Q: Your paper talked about a common heritage but how can you talk about that when the races were separated? A: Well, regardless of your ethnic background if you live here and enjoy the economy and the legal freedoms you are enjoying things inherited by all of us.

If it hadn't been a British colony we might not have had these developments.

Joyce Hall: `Undoubtedly there has been discrimination and segregation but evolution is not an overnight situation. It comes with time and maybe it's better that way -- not necessarily for the people who are held back but when things evolve slowly they have more strength.'