Mrs. Sybil Ione McLaughlin, MBE, JP, nee Bush was declared a National Hero by the Government of the Cayman Islands in 1996. She was the second individual, the first living person and the first woman to be so honoured.

Raised largely by her maiden aunts in South Sound, this unassuming, hard-working woman who began her career with the Government in 1945 as a clerk-typist - and whose duties sometimes included counting dead rabbit and parrot heads (on which a bounty was paid at that time) - had been awarded the highest honour that the Cayman Islands Government could bestow.

This is her story.