A force for change this lady, by name and nature

Lady Sylvia Hermon couldn't hide her delight on Monday night as people spilled out from an Ulster Unionist Association meeting at a hotel in north Down. SDLP leader Mark Durkan's unprecedented address to the potentially hostile audience had gone more smoothly than the MP could have dreamed. Middle-aged women wearing silk scarves pronounced him "wonderful". Their husbands complimented Durkan's honesty and were happy to sip tea with him afterwards.

A smiling Hermon, chairwoman of the association, was asked by a journalist if she could envisage a time when Martin McGuinness might address the group. Her reply, that once decommissioning was completed she could see how such an invitation could be extended, has caused consternation among anti-agreement party members.

Hermon's husband, Sir Jack, is a highly respected former chief constable and the No brigade are incensed that the wife of such a senior RUC figure should be seen making overtures to Sinn FΘin. "It has been greeted with deep concern by some of the party," said a man in the UUP No camp who didn't want to be named.

Since her election last June she had impressed even her anti-agreement colleagues with her networking abilities, securing several useful contacts for the party at Westminster. But while most people describe her as warm, pleasant and approachable, some have reservations about her political abilities. "She is wishy-washy," one critic in her party said. "The lady is not a politician. Her mouth will be her downfall, she has a naivete which appears to know no bounds."

What some call political naivete, others call progress. In the wake of the Durkan address, UUP leader David Trimble is already making plans for a reciprocal visit to an SDLP constituency. There is further speculation that Hermon's conditionally extended hand of friendship could have been Trimble approved, paving the way for a carefully choreographed meeting between grass roots unionists and the Sinn FΘin leadership at some point in the future.

Recent developments have been received positively by Sinn FΘin. "It is a validation of my long-held view that unionist and republican politicians, if they want to consolidate peace, will have to meet in private and in public," said Sinn FΘin chairman Mitchell McLaughlin.

Michelle Gildernew, elected as Sinn FΘin MP for Fermanagh/South Tyrone on the same day as Hermon, was less enthusiastic. "It's a matter of whether it would be safe for you to go to such a meeting, you would have to consider if you would be accepted by unionists," she said.

Gildernew was complimentary about Hermon herself, recalling an incident where the former law lecturer saved the Sinn FΘin woman embarrassment by telling her three of her shirt buttons were undone. "She seems a very pleasant person," she said. "It has not taken her as long as it is taking other unionists to get used to the fact that we are here and here to stay."

Hermon is an attractive woman with a trim figure honed by swimming and a rowing machine. Expensive looking but understated jewellery set off her delicate features and shiny blonde bob. The Hermon sense of style could be described as a ladylike brand of safe sophistication, perfectly co-ordinated dress suits revealing a modest amount of what one commentator said were regarded as the best legs in Westminster. She squirms and giggles when she hears this, saying: "I do hope you are joking."

While she has the bearing and look of a "Lady", the gender roles were skewed when she was growing up on a farm in east Tyrone. Her mother died in an accident when she was just four years old. Her father, now 85, did household chores and cooked meals while his daughters drove tractors and worked the farm.

"As a result I never thought there was such a thing as men's work or women's work, I just got on with things," she said.

She studied law in Wales gaining a first-class honours degree and worked as a law lecturer in Queens University where she was a contemporary of David Trimble.

Her romance with Sir Jack, who is 28 years her senior, began when she was 32. She had written a paper about discrimination against women in the RUC - they were not allowed to carry firearms.

After sending him a copy, she was invited to discuss the findings in his office. Sir Jack's first wife had died the year before and Hermon was struck by the "intense loneliness" that surrounded him.

Afterwards, she sent him a theatre ticket on a whim and when he turned up in plain clothes, their relationship began.

Hermon admits the intense security surrounding him, and the fact that he lived above the RUC headquarters, made the courtship more complicated but an intense bond developed quickly. Sir Jack proposed three months after they met on Valentines Day 1987.

They have two young boys Thomas (9) and Robert (12). Hermon gave up her job to stay at home and look after them.

"Perhaps I was overcompensating for not having a mother when I was growing up but I wanted to be with them."

When not at Westminster or working in her constituency, Hermon enjoys walking her dogs on the beach, spending time in their seaside home in Donaghadee, near Bangor, going birdwatching and listening to music: "Van Morrison, Nana Mouskouri and Eminem." She is a vegetarian and she rarely watches television.

A keen advocate of women in politics, her rise within the UUP has been rapid; she joined in 1998 and become an MP just three years later.

Her nomination as an election candidate was slightly marred by the fact that former UUP member Peter Weir was selected first but had to be stood down after being suspended from the party.

Because of her success and lack of political experience, there is said to be some jealousy of her within the party, particularly from women.

Despite accusations of "fur coat unionism" by her then rival, former North Down MP Robert McCartney of the UKUP, she enjoyed canvassing. "The main issue on the doorsteps was not decommissioning or David Trimble's resignation, it was police. I took criticism of Jack on the doorsteps, but he was supportive of the agreement. He had seen too many coffins of too many of his colleagues not to want peace," she said.

Hermon voted for the agreement despite some reservations about the document ("I read it as a constitutional lawyer would"). These included doubts about policing issues - she is currently on the Criminal Justice Review Group.

What also troubled her was the fact that a Yes vote would mean she was electing two members of Sinn FΘin to the Executive.

That issue has been resolved in her mind and she could find herself welcoming either Gerry Adams or Martin McGuinness to tea with her constituency colleagues when decommissioning is completed. "I have to say that I do believe in the capacity of people to change in this life, in forgiveness and in the grace of God. People have to be given the opportunity to change," she says.

"I am very much a person of this day," she says. A succession of family bereavements has made her acutely aware of the fragility of life. "I live in the present and try to pack as much in as I can. There is no point in thinking about tomorrow."