For someone who doesn’t like the limelight, courtroom lawyer and new Senator Kim Wilson might seem like someone in the wrong job.

But the 43-year-old mother-of-two is thrilled to have been given the chance to sit in the Upper Chamber — even though she is still getting used to being elevated into the public consciousness as she prepares to make her debut in the Senate next week.

“I don’t really consider I have entered into politics when people say I am now a politician. I was just asked to sit in the Senate,” she said.

“I don’t particularly like a lot of public attention. I don’t even enjoy public speaking.”

She has learned to tune out the presence of the public when she is addressing the court during legal hearings.

But no one could accuse her of being slow to make a point.

Ms Wilson was on her feet arguing firmly during the row over which Senators could vote in the crunch delegates conference which chose challenger Ewart Brown over incumbent and sitting Premier Alex Scott.

And it was that tumultuous weekend which has altered the course of her life. In the early hours of that Saturday morning, she had been at the Hamilton Princess celebrating Dr. Brown’s selection as party leader.

“It’s funny. I was talking to a couple of other women saying I hope he appoints some women to the Senate, I had been disappointed in 2003 they didn’t, never believing within two days I would get a call.”

A Member of Parliament asked to put her name forward. “I said yes, I didn’t hesitate.”

On the Sunday afternoon her phone kept ringing but she chose to ignore it as she was napping with her daughter and didn’t recognise the number.

“It rang a lot. My cell phone was ringing also so I finally picked up. There was a message to call Premier Brown who said he had a job for me in the Senate.”

She doesn’t yet know what to expect of the Upper Chamber.

“I am looking forward to that as the springboard to my involvement politically.”

And she hopes the fact the Senate chamber has a roundtable will symbolise a spirit of working together — even in the adversarial nature of Westminster-style politics.

“I hope that environment is a little bit more conducive to frank open debate without hostilities.”

Pressed on why she joined the PLP, she said: “I consider myself to be a citizen who was asked to provide her time and talents towards community service.

“Being a member of the Senate is simply an extension of my interest and commitment in service to my community.”

A lawyer for more than ten years, she was a counsellor at Whitney Institute before that. Both vocations were childhood ambitions. “Fortunately I did both,” she said.

She had been partly inspired to go the legal route by TV shows such as Perry Mason.

“It seem like a very rewarding career in providing a voice for persons who might not have been able to articulate a voice on their own.

“When you start, you are quite idealistic about the law. I still believe in the justice system but I am not so idealistic.”

Not surprisingly Dame Lois Browne Evans is one of her biggest heroines — for both her work in leading the PLP and as the first woman called to the Bermuda bar.

Ms Wilson got involved in the Smith’s branch of the PLP and then in the Somerset Branch when she moved there after getting married to Dr. Kent Simmons, whom she credits with a lot of support for her career.

Her grandfather Robert Austin Wilson was one of the founding members of the Bermuda Workers Association which later became the BIU.

“My grandfather was also one of the founding members of the Bermuda Progressive Labour Party,” she added.

But her own family life was disrupted when she was young when her parents divorced and she grew up with her mother in Illinois before moving back when she was 22.

The time away from Bermuda, getting another perspective, has enriched her, she believes.

Ms Wilson, who has children aged four and two-and-a-half, is now Junior Minister for Finance, Education, Sport and Recreation.

And she is also interested in the environment and affordable child care. “We need to explore other options for child care.”

She said there is a gap in state care for children between the ages of two-and-a-half and four in the Government system while private nurseries are expensive. “Child care in those ages is very important,” she said.