As Mrs. Rosalind Robinson's 100th birthday on May 26 loomed, she made it known to her family that she did not want the big "splash" they might have been inclined to give her.

Instead, she entertained them at a family dinner held at "Seville", her landmark Spanish Point residence. And on the following Sunday, a wider circle of family and friends came along with flowers and best wishes for the future.

Born in 1910, Rosalind was the eldest and is the last survivor of seven children of John Herbert Taylor of Cedar Avenue, Hamilton and his wife Millo Fubler Taylor, a school teacher. John Herbert was a boot maker, shoe merchant and political activist.

His shop across from Magistrates' Court in Hamilton was a main centre for the black intelligentsia of the day to caucus on current events.

Rosalind made her mark early in life, becoming a recipient of one of the first government teacher training scholarships in 1931 to Shortwood College in Jamaica, West Indies.

There she established a life-long friendship with Mrs. Edna Mae Scott and undoubtedly was an influence in Mrs. Scott and her husband Victor Scott coming to Bermuda and leaving indelible imprints on Bermuda's educational system. The old Central School in Pembroke was renamed after him.

Mrs. Robinson's own illustrious career as a teacher began at Central School, before her marriage to Dr. Kenneth E. Robinson, the one-time chief education officer in the Department of Education.

In 1936 she became headmistress of Temperance Hall in Crawl. She pedaled her bicycle there every day along with fellow teacher Inez Kennedy.

Those were the times when free education for children was light years away. Her salary was £30 a year! In the 1940s she taught at Northlands and Harrington Sound Primary Schools, and taught at Frances Patton School in the 1950, becoming Principal in 1959.

Also she parented a daughter, (Mrs. Shirley Pearman and son barrister Kenneth E. Robinson) during her teaching years. She travelled extensively with friends after the death of her husband in 1978.

Mrs. Robinson counted as one of her greatest joys and accomplishments overseeing the publishing of her husbands illuminating book "Heritage." That was a promise she made to her husband when he was ill.

Another of Mrs. Robinson's great joys these days is giving interviews and reflecting on the past.

No longer the swimmer, tennis player or the gardener she was in her youth; and neither is she the avid reader and letter writer of years gone by.

Rather she enjoys the surroundings of her lovely home and observing the community which has been transformed from the one which she and her siblings enjoyed when they walked from Cedar Avenue to the Pontoons for a swim from Spanish Point to the Channel and back.

With that type of lifestyle, its no wonder she has lived to be such a sparkling 100 years plus.