WHILE his body might show the telltale signs of age, there is nothing old about Colin Benbow's spirit, his sense of humour or his memory. In fact as he recalls various incidents from the past 52 years as a teacher, politician, historian and author, he finds it hard not to laugh. The 76-year-old author opened his home to The Mid-Ocean News recently to talk about the new edition of his classic book Boer Prisoners of War in Bermuda and how life in Bermuda has changed since he arrived here in 1955.The fourth edition of Boer Prisoners of War in Bermuda was published last year as a tribute to the man considered by many as one of Bermuda's leading historians, but Colin Benbow is the last person to think of himself as such.

History, he says with a laugh, is something he "fell into" and the book simply evolved from an entry in a historical essay competition in 1959 to commemorate the 350th anniversary of the founding of Bermuda.

He says when he saw the challenge he leap at the chance: "As a history teacher I thought I had better respond and I thought I'd find something short and brief that fit in with my daily duties as a teacher and that I could possibly finish in the allotted time."

However he soon discovered that finding a topic not previously covered was the challenge, until he overheard some elderly Bermudians talk about the prisoners who had been here from South Africa.

"But scarcely a word or paragraph had been written," he recalls. "Luckily I was in time to catch up with a few of the men who had been here and that interested me even more."

Mr. Benbow says he ended up putting together "a sort of long essay" and shudders today at what eventually turned out to be Volume One: "The text only reached half way, the rest was pictures."

He adds that over the next 35 years, the first volume evolved to include even more photographs, letters and correspondents.

It's hard to refute the fact that his book highlights a previously neglected part of Bermuda's history and even today families in South Africa contact him enquire about family members who lived in the camps during the period 1901-1902.

As for Mr. Benbow's personal history, he grew up in England and before attending Oxford University, enrolled in the army: "I thought, at least you know if I have my wits about me I'll be sent somewhere exotic, but I never got further than Colchester."

When his 18 month period was extended for two years, he admits he was foolish enough to volunteer for Korea.

"Luckily my Commanding Officer, who got the Victoria Cross in the end, said 'Don't be a bloody idiot, you have a place set aside for you at Oxford, leave the fighting to the professionals and get on with your education', so I took his advice and very sensibly too because I would have been six feet under. The whole Gloucester Regiment was wiped out," he explains. However, his wish to end up somewhere "exotic" was realised in 1955 when he came to Bermuda as a teacher at Warwick Academy. He also taught history at the Bermuda Technical Institute and was instrumental in starting the Sixth Form Centre for A-level students - which was eventually amalgamated into the Bermuda College.

But Mr. Benbow gave up teaching when politics came knocking in 1968 when he ran for office as an Independent, and in 1976 when he won a seat as a candidate for the ruling United Bermuda Party.

"Constituencies were double-seated in those days and I had to win a primary, beating the other fellow who held the seat," he explains. "I worked damn hard. There is a general misconception that parliamentarians are a bunch of freaks who do nothing and I found it totally different."

With a laugh he adds that he always felt the UBP didn't really want him there, but he fought his "one-man battle" to get elected and remained in Government until 1980 when William Cox, the incumbent MP he originally defeated in a 1976 primary election, defeated him in a rematch.

"It's all very well to get elected to Parliament, but in those days you weren't paid," he says, adding that besides a cheque from the Ministry of Education for the last few months of work, he needed to find a way to make money.

"Luckily I had one or two friends around here who organised a job for me so that gave me something full-time to do and the government kept me even more involved," he says. "When you're chairman of the Board of Public Works, Agriculture and Fisheries - just about the second largest department in the government - you were being called to meetings all the time, but I found it exhilarating and interesting and I stayed with it until about 1983 when the civil servants told me I'd been bounced because the new Premier coming in was making his own selection. So fair enough I more or less retired into the background."

Until September last year Mr. Benbow continued to work part-time at the Bermuda Historical Society Museum in Par-la-Ville, where he had previously been curator for almost 10 years.

During this time he also published several more books including >A Century of Progress: The History of the Bermuda Telephone Co. Ltd,Commentary a collection of essays anI>Gladys Morrell and the Women's Suffrage Movement in Bermuda.

When asked if he still writes, he replies that he is "getting too old" but did complete the second century of Hamilton as a city.

The best part of retirement? "There is no big party, you spend a lot of time sitting around thinking. I do anyhow," Mr. Benbow says with a laugh.

But he did take time out from "sitting around thinking" in 1991 when he travelled to South Africa.

Besides the various Boer War battlefields, he also visited the Boer War Museum in Bloemfontein and says it was here that he realised how little Bermuda had to show for the two years the Boer prisoners of war were kept here.

"There were thousands of bits and pieces of artefacts, the wooden things created by the prisoners which they in turn took back home with them after the war. While here in Bermuda there are only two decent collections, of which one belongs to Andy Bermingham," he says. Mr. Benbow believes he might have "sparked"

Mr. Bermingham's interest in Boer War history: "He has really replaced me as the expert and is trying to broaden his outlook into all of the Prisoners of War who were kept here during the First and Second World War, as well as the South Africans."

Mr. Bermingham spearheaded the printing of the fourth edition of Boer Prisoners of War in Bermuda last year and referred to his long-time friend in the preface as a "great historian" to which Mr. Benbow responds: "I'm just an ordinary individual who has done his bit for the community in which he live