THERE can't be many people in Bermuda with a busier life than Dr. Yvette Swan.

During her working day as an optometrist at the Bermuda Optical Company, she makes sure her clients enjoy clear vision.

And she has a vision of her own - to help as many disadvantaged people in the community as she possibly can.

Raised in Jamaica where she attended boarding school, and educated at Paddington Technical College and the University of Aston, in England, Dr. Swan settled on the island more than three decades ago after marrying Bermudian Malcolm Swan.

She has made her mark here in politics - she was the Minister of Community & Culture in the last UBP Government - and is also a past president of the Business and Professional Women's Association.

She is a lay preacher at the Wesley Methodist Church and a teacher, singer and board member at the Bermuda School of Music.

But first and foremost she is a family person who loves to spend time with her three sons, daughter-in-law and grandson.

Photographer TONY CORDEIRO and reporter JONATHAN KENT paid a visit to Dr. Swan.

Q: How long have you been in Bermuda?

A: I've been here since 1971.

Q: Has Bermuda changed much in that time?

A: It's changed a whole lot. Crime, housing, prices, schools, education, everything's changed.

Q: For the better, do you think?

A: In some cases, for the better, in many cases, for the worse. In the days when I arrived I used to live in Pembroke, off Parsons Road, at the family homestead, and we used to be able to leave the door open. Now you can't do that. You're afraid of sleeping at night if you haven't locked up properly.

Q: What measures would you like to see to combat crime?

A: I think we may have lost some of our people completely to drugs. Work ethics have changed tremendously. There are a few - a very small percentage - who just don't want to work any more, or they just want to work two days a week. I think we need to start going to church more and our young people to Sunday school. I'm not saying it has to be my denomination, I'm just saying there's an absence of belief in God.

Q: So you think we may be getting the basics wrong?

A: Yes, I think we are losing our foundation. There was a time when if a child behaved badly in school, he would not dare tell his parents because he would be punished again at home. Now, in many cases when a child comes home and says, 'I've been punished', the parents go off to school and start attacking the teachers. So there's a complete breakdown in the whole basic structure.

But you don't hear a lot about the good kids, you hear more about the bad kids. The other day, a young lady, 16 years old, said to me, 'Dr. Swan, why don't you hear much about the female sports, when you hear a lot about the male sports?'

She'd played for her school in a competition, which they won. In The Royal Gazette, there was just one line about it and then they went off into a spiel about the boys' competition. We have to learn to recognise everybody.

Q: Do you think the attitudes of parents have changed?

A: There are some good parents - including single parents - in our community. But there are some parents who have forgotten what it's like to be young. Many children have come into the world, already disadvantaged, because their parents have nowhere to live and their income is very low.

We have to find housing for our people. We have to have more day care available. And we have to get education right. We have to remember that each child is different. And each child must be brought up according to their needs. You may have a child who can sit in a classroom and do extremely well. And then you may have another child, who with a little TLC and a little one-on-one can do really well, but not so well in the classroom.

Q: Why do you want to be involved in politics?

A: Because I love people, particularly young people. I believe some young people have not been given a fair chance. I can see that some people have a difficult time. I would like to have a chance to help people. That's me.

I was speaking to a man the other day and he said that when you get knocked down you get two choices. One choice is to lie there, the second choice is to stand up. And I said to him, I chose to get up, because I believe I can do it.

Q: Is this desire to help the disadvantaged inspired by your own life?

A: I've always tried to help the disadvantaged. I grew up in a family where both my parents were teachers. They would help people who were not as well off as we were.

I went to boarding school in Jamaica. My head teacher there told me that physics was not lady-like, but I needed physics for my profession. I set about making sure that physics was taught in the school. And it's still taught in the school, which is Wolmer's High School for Girls. And it's noted for physics. Ninety per cent of students who take physics get As.

Q: So you have Jamaican roots?

A: Well, my parents were Jamaican and they're now dead. My brother is Dr. Tony Lewis, the Chief Dental Officer for Jamaica, and I have another brother who is a physician. Most of my family have gone into medicine. We have two nurses, a physician, a dentist and an optometrist.

Q: There has been tension between the Jamaican community and Bermudians lately. What do you feel about that?

A: I don't have any feelings about it really. Government is doing what the Government believes it should do. I'm not here to judge whether they're doing the right thing.

I would say it's embarrassing when I see a young person of Jamaican heritage in prison over here or hearing that another one has been charged.

But I do feel there is a sense of discrimination. For instance, last week a Dutch national was given ten years and the story was stuck on page six or seven of the newspaper. If that had been a Jamaican it would have been on the front page. I think that sort of thing should go out of the window.

I've been here 32 years now and we've had this happen before. You have to make sure you steer clear of it and concentrate on your vision and your goal.

But yes, it upsets me and I say to them, 'When you go back, tell people that we are very strict on drugs'. Some of them say, 'We didn't know we were going to get caught'. But the chances of getting caught are something like one out of two. They say, 'But this person told me I'd be all right'. And I say, 'And you believed them'? They think they're going to be the one to get away. It's just human nature, I guess, wanting to make a quick buck.

I don't approve of it at all, not drugs, nor drink. I don't drink and I don't smoke. I used to smoke, but when I was studying I found that buying cigarettes and your allowance just don't gel!

Q: Have you had a happy life on the island?

A: Yes. I have one of the best husbands on the island, Malcolm. I have three sons, all doing well. Malcolm Brian, who teaches at Warwick Academy. And I have twins, Dane and Dean, who are at university. My husband has a very good and loving family who have taken me on and I've taken them on. So I'm happy.

Q: Bermuda is thought of as a prosperous place, but with high salaries enjoyed by some and not others, is there a danger of an economic underclass developing here? Are there people getting left behind?

A: It's not just a danger - it has happened. It's getting worse. Sometimes I wonder if we didn't do too good a job in the 1970s when we had International Women's Year and we were trying to persuade women to go back to school, to night classes to try and upgrade themselves.

I'm a past president of the Business and Professional Women's Association here and I'm a past international president of the International Federation for Business and Professional Women and we have organisations in 110 countries.

We encouraged women to study and I was one of the founders of the Warwick Community School. We used to stand at the gate at the then-Warwick Secondary and watch this phenomenon develop. The young men would drop their ladies off at school and pick them up later.

I think we should have encouraged both sexes to go back to school. Because what do you find now? It's that the women who were secretaries and clerks went back and upgraded their skills and then they used to go to places like the University of Maryland that used to be on the old base. They kept going, sometimes for five or six years, but they got their degrees. Then they went into the exempt companies. So the women became very self-sufficient.

If I had to point out one mistake in my life, that I was a part of, that would be it. We should have encouraged the men to study with the women. I think the men are now very frustrated because they see their women all dressed up in suits and going off to work.

Construction is a very good job, but some of them just can't find jobs. Sometimes I think about that. But in those days, we were looking to help the second-class citizens, who, in those days, were women.

Q: How long have you been working at the Bermuda Optical Company?

A: I've been here 30 years now. I'm part of the furniture now. My colleague, Douglas Gilfether, and I have both been here for 30 years. In fact, I think he came here two years before me.

Q: What does your work entail?

A: I'm an optometrist, so I test eyes, diagnose contact lenses, adjust frames, everything.

Q: Are people keener on contacts than glasses?

A: I think about 30 to 40 per cent of the younger people will go for contact lenses. The older people tend to stick to their glasses. Everybody, when they get to 40 or 45, will need something, even if it's only reading glasses.

Q: What do you do for fun?

A: Fun? You mean, apart from politics. That's a lot of fun! I sing and do singing lessons at the School of Music, where I am also a member of the board. I'm a lay preacher at the Wesley Methodist Church.

A lot of my little friends keep me busy. I have two little friends to whom I teach music. I sit them at the piano and they play on a Sunday afternoon.

Then there is my grandson Elliot, who takes up a lot of time. Then there is my daughter-in-law Nicola, a Yorkshire lass, who's a wonderful person. I'm a family person. And I also love to read.

Q: Do you like to travel?

A: Well, when I was world president of the International Federation for Business and Professional Women, I travelled to 40 countries and that really knocked the wind out of me. I only travel now if I really have to.

I sometimes go down to Mexico because I started a School of Nursing in La Paz, on the Baja Peninsula. I went to its tenth anniversary last year. It brought tears to my eyes. I never thought anything I started could last so long.

Q: How did you get involved with that?

A: It was when I was world president of the IFBPW that we found there was no tertiary education in La Paz. So, as an organisation, we decided to build the school. It was fun. But my Spanish is very bad. When I walked into the library there and saw my picture on the wall, it brought tears to my eyes. It takes about 90 students every year, nurses and health inspectors.

You walk into the school and the students talk to you and want to hug you and thank you. And I didn't think I did anything special. It was just a need and I happened to be there.

Q: You seem to be a very busy person. Have you got any ambitions left in life?

A: I've done so many things. I want to write a book that I've started. I started writing it for my kids, so they would know more about the Jamaican part of the family.

I just want to help people. I started these tutorial sessions that I run on Mondays, Thursdays and Saturdays, which we run at the Wesley Methodist Church Hall. We want to help more young people make the grade. I've seen what one-on-one tutoring can do, if they can take the principles they learn at the tutorials into the classroom.

Last year, we had six of our students, who were named most improved students in their classes. We had one that was most improved in school! That's tremendous. These were kids who had literally been written off.

I'm working now with a young lady, who when she came to me 18 months ago, could not read. Now I marvel at her capability of reading, understanding and spelling. She's ten.

Q: Do you have much spare time?

A: No. I just had a caller this morning who said you must make sure you get eight hours' sleep! I'm happy with what I do.

Q: I heard that one of your ancestors was hanged for being involved in a mixed-race relationship. Is that true?

A: Yes, it's true. It happened in Jamaica towards the end of slavery. My great grandmother was Jewish and white and my great grandfather, who was black, had a relationship with her and the authorities didn't like it. They were living in a free slave area. From that relationship came my grandfather and his sister and brother.

Q: Do you think much about that?

A: No. I think about it to the extent that when people are crying about black and white, I think well which side do I side with? I'm completely mixed. My great grandfather was black and he had a relationship with a white person.

But so what? That was those days. My grandfather was brought up by a black aunt, because my great grandmother didn't want them to do anything to her child.

That's life. Like Bob Marley said: "Free yourself from mental slavery." You have things happen to you, you don't dwell on it. You move onto the next thing. Never look back.