Barbara Jones' long and varied involvement with theatre stretches back to her days at Cambridge University, when she answered an appeal for someone to help with costumes for a production of Shakespeare's 'Measure for Measure,' which was to tour Europe at Christmastime in 1969.

"I loved sewing from the time I got my first toy sewing machine at age three, so I turned up and was immediately and absolutely hooked," she says.

"Since the company was small I was also given a little part in the chorus. So there I was, touring Europe when it was freezing cold in this really skimpy costume, but I just loved it, and from then on I did a considerable amount of theatre whilst at Cambridge."

In fact, that involvement included the university's famed Footlights Review, with whom Dr. Jones went to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, and she also did many plays, as well as continuing to sew costumes.

"I learned a huge amount about all the aspects of theatre at Cambridge," she says.

"In fact, I almost didn't do enough work for my final degree because I was costuming a production of 'Cabaret,' which was hard work, but in the end I did squeak through."

When she moved on to London to study medicine, the then Miss Jones often returned to Cambridge to assist with shows, and when the Footlights Review had a month-long professional run in the British capital's famed West End she wound up as costume mistress - another invaluable experience because, like the students, she worked alongside the theatre's professional crew.

"That's where I also learned to drink pints of beer," she says. "You had to drink with the guys - no wimping out!"

The whole experience so deepened her love of theatre that Dr. Jones seriously contemplated dropping medicine altogether.

"I was so tempted to go into the professional theatre," she says.

"It was a life I loved and definitely an addiction, but then I found out how much they earned so I carried on with my medical career, which I thoroughly enjoyed even though, as a junior doctor, I was working ridiculous hours."

Then came an unexpected opportunity to work in Bermuda. Sharing a shift with a colleague in her native England, she learned of a vacancy at the King Edward Hospital for a specialist anaesthetist.

Her application was successful and she arrived in 1978 intending to stay for six months. That was 23 years ago, and she has never looked back.

Once she had settled in to her new job and home, it didn't take Dr. Jones to gravitate to local theatre.

She began attending BMDS productions at Daylesford Theatre, liked the setting and what she saw there, and did not hesitate when she saw an advertisement in the local press for technical crew.

"I thought it was time to get involved in theatre again, and 'Jesus Christ Superstar' sounded really interesting, so I made some of the costumes for that in 1980," she says.

"In fact, for the first year after I started out with BMDS I did costuming."

But the gifted Dr. Jones has never been one to settle into a groove. She thrives on new challenges and experiences, which she embarks upon with characteristic boldness and no half measures.

Thus her first move away from costuming was as stage manager for the BMDS/Bermuda Festival production of 'Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat' at City Hall.

"I have to thank Bruce Hallett for propping me up there, but it opened up whole new vistas, and then I became steadily more active in BMDS and dabbled in pretty well everything - set design and building, lighting, acting, backstage crew," she says.

As Dr. Jones' skills grew, so too did the challenges. At one point she was simultaneously directing the big Christmas pantomime at City Hall and stage managing 'Not the Um Um Show', all the while keeping up with her demanding professional career.

As in plays, the "plot" of Dr. Jones' theatrical life has been filled with interesting twists and turns, all of which have added to her considerable skills and experience.

There was, for example, the time when she was supposed to be stage manager for John Zuill's production of 'The Physicist' but wound up being cast in the lead role instead.

Today, having worked in so many facets of theatre over the years, all of which she has enjoyed, she now wants to concentrate on acting and directing because these are her "passions."

Since retiring from medicine, she has been involved in most BMDS shows, and in June this year acted in one of the Japanese Noh plays directed by John Zuill.

"It is always a pleasure to work with John, he is a wonderful director," she says.

"In fact, my only sorrow about directing my current play ('Frozen') is that it clashed with his production of Julius Caesar.

Originally I was going to play Brutus, but the date was changed. I would have loved that."

She also liked the way Mr. Zuill cast women in the lead roles of the Shakespeare classic.

"If colour has been irrelevant in casting for years, cross-gender casting is something that should be considered a great deal more because it is the words of the play rather than the gender of the person saying them that is important," she says.

"It is something I certainly intend to explore more."In fact, Dr. Jones says that her fort? is "pushing the envelope, and doing plays that are more difficult and more challenging".

Recently she directed 'The Trojan Wars' and 'Death and the Maiden,' both of which she describes as "difficult plays to be comfortable with".

While she does enjoy comedy, her preference is to work on something "more biting".

Just how active the theatrical all-rounder has been since first she did the costumes for 'Jesus Christ Superstar' in 1980 is best demonstrated by the fact that it takes four closely-printed pages to list them all.

By any standard, that reflects a very deep commitment, particularly when one considers that most of this activity was woven around a full-time medical career.

When asked to list her theatrical highlights, she cites her role as P.c. Ding in last year's panto as the most fun", and Liz in 'Our Country's Good' as her favourite role.

As a director, her favourite play was 'Death and the Maiden,' while 'Toad of Toad Hall' was both her favourite and most difficult as stage manager.

Her most challenging role came in last year's Bermuda Festival production, 'Mummies, Mystery and Mayhem' because the olde English dialogue was "almost incomprehensible" and it was her task to make it comprehensible to her audience.

"I love it all," is how she sums up theatre in general. "My only regret is that I can't do all the jobs on a show. I just want to do it all."

Certainly she has no regrets about giving up her demanding medical career. Rather, she is revelling in her new life.

"I thoroughly enjoyed my career, but the job was getting very stressful towards the end. It covered anaesthesia in the operating rooms, critical care medicals in Intensive Care as well as resuscitation in the Emergency Department.

In fact, at one point in my career I ended up for some years as Chief of Anaesthesia and Chief of Surgery at King Edward, even though I didn't have any great strength in administration," Dr. Jones says.

"It is not good for one's health to be working those hours under that stress, and in fact my health was suffering, so that was part of the reason I got out."

Dr. Jones remembers very clearly her last night on duty which was extremely traumatic in the Emergency ward, and what relief she felt when she awoke on April 1 to a new life. Today she says she has never felt better. "Since quitting work I gave up smoking, I walk a lot, and I have lost 60 pounds," she says proudly. "There is no magic to it. I did it by having the time to eat properly and also to exercise. I was critically exhausted at work, but now I feel I am alive again and starting a whole new life. I am thrilled and grateful that I am young enough to be able to do things with such vigour and enthusiasm."