she started her School of Dance she could not have foreseen her love of the art would develop into the well-rounded and respected cultural organisation that it is today.

Her Philadelphia childhood was filled with music and dance. She studied ballet, tap, took piano and ice-skating lessons and later tackled acrobatics, gymnastics and fencing. Classical music also played a great part in her life -- "it was all we heard at home'' she remembers, and it is an appreciation which she has instilled in her students in every discipline of dance.

She arrived in Bermuda in 1952 as a gym teacher at Berkeley Institute. A year later, she began a dance studio. "There was no dance school here at the time and I felt there was an urgent need for one'', she says.

She began with 40 students, initially teaching only classical ballet. Now, almost 40 years later, it has blossomed into the Jackson School of Performing Arts, boasting 1,000 students, making it the largest educational facility on the Island.

Classical and pointe ballet has long been joined by tap, modern and jazz. In 1978, the school expanded into instrumental and vocal music, gymnastics and theatre. The most recent addition is Jazz, a store designed by Mrs. Jackson's son-in-law Tucker Hall. Located on the school's Burnaby Street premises, "it sells dance and aerobic wear'', says Mrs. Jackson, adding that it is the most lucrative part of the organisation.

Through it all has been her husband Albert, whom she married two years after starting the school. "He's been an incredible emotional support as well as keeping us financially on keel,'' she says proudly of the Senator whose official title is business manager.

With daughters Deborah Jackson Hall and Susan Jackson Nearon as directors and sister-in-law Sally Swan as office administrator, the Jackson School of Performing Arts is now more of a family-run business than ever before.