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| Waiting For You continued on page 39 |
YOUNG SUCCESS
The sparkling stories of girls with glamorous jobs by RHONA CHURCHILL
Chasing a story , Margret boards a taxi. People she interviews respond readily to her easy, cheerful personality
MARGARET'S BACKGROUND
Age: Twenty-three. Home: Has flat in Manchester spends weekends in Leeds, where father is a local government official. School: Roundhay Girls' Grammar School. till fifteen. Leeds College of Commerce (secretarial training) for a year. Failed to obtain newspaper job; so returned school till eighteen, thence to Leeds University, reading for degree in History, Geography and English, till twenty-one. Hobbies: Swimming, tennis, theatre-going and growing cacti.
Stepping stones: 1st job: Junior reporter, Yorkshire Post. Bradford. first at £4. (about $11.20)? then at £8 10s. (about $23.80)? Stayed ten months. 2nd job: Reporter, Manchester Evening News. at £12 16s. (about $35.84)?, then," after seven months, promoted to her 3rd job: Woman's page feature writer and columnist, on same newspaper, at £14 4s. (about $39.76)?
Margaret has a nose for news
THE joy of Margaret Robinson's job is its endless, unpredictable variety. She rarely knows in the morning where she will be in the afternoon. .
One of its hazards is finding the right thing 'to say on the spur of the moment.
Take the day the editor of her paper, The Manchester Evening News, sent her to a press cocktail party after the opening of Peter Ustinov’s play Romanoff And Juliet.
The young writer of the "Miss Manchester"column was introduced to Ustinov himself, and, to get the conversation ball rolling she asked him where he was for his his summer holiday? Unconventional Ustinov didn't react according to the book. He looked hurt and said : " Is my play so bad that you think I'11 be taking a holiday?"
"I wanted to sink through the floor," Margaret told me.
Then there was the day she visited a famous hairdresser to report on what a new hairstyle can do for a woman’s morale. Her own took a plunge when she was seated next to young actress Sally Ann Howes.
"As Sally Ann grew more beautiful, so I grew less so," Margaret recalled ruefully. "I emerged with an extraordinary sausage across the top my head. Back at the office, my features editor said : ‘Maggie, you don’t look yourself’, and sent me next day to a Teddy Boys' barber!"
Margaret must produce three articles a week on any subject of interest to women and teenagers.
"One day, I may be covering a Royal visit to the North; the next, helping to judge a beauty contest or planning a bedroom scheme for a teenager."
Margaret attends trade and theatrical parties, fashion shows and important social events she sees all the new clothes and fabrics reaching the big Manchester stores, visits girls in factories and clubs and happily pokes her nose into numerous other newsworthy activities.
She has her own town flat, contact with the famous and interesting and the stimulating feeling of being part of a big city.
But first she had to learn her job the hard way.
On her first paper, the news editor sent her to the police courts, to cover crime. As a reporter no her present paper, she had to go to the fish and vegetable markets daily at 8:30 am., to note vegetable prices.
These were kill or cure methods of discovering whether she had the stamina and character to become a big-city journalist.
"The police courts taught me a lot about people. The markets gave me corns and a sense of humour. But I was relieved when I was promoted to feature writing," Margaret admitted.
That new job completed the transformation of Margaret, the simply-dressed graduate of Leeds University, into. Maggie, the elegant, fashionable career girl of today.
Buyers soon started phoning her: "I’ve a new collection of hats, and one your readers will love."
Now she finds fashion as fascinating as, in the old days she found the study of Roman England.
NEXT WEEK: Norma and partner "stormed" America
The sparkling stories of girls with glamorous jobs by RHONA CHURCHILL
Chasing a story , Margret boards a taxi. People she interviews respond readily to her easy, cheerful personality
MARGARET'S BACKGROUND
Age: Twenty-three. Home: Has flat in Manchester spends weekends in Leeds, where father is a local government official. School: Roundhay Girls' Grammar School. till fifteen. Leeds College of Commerce (secretarial training) for a year. Failed to obtain newspaper job; so returned school till eighteen, thence to Leeds University, reading for degree in History, Geography and English, till twenty-one. Hobbies: Swimming, tennis, theatre-going and growing cacti.
Stepping stones: 1st job: Junior reporter, Yorkshire Post. Bradford. first at £4. (about $11.20)? then at £8 10s. (about $23.80)? Stayed ten months. 2nd job: Reporter, Manchester Evening News. at £12 16s. (about $35.84)?, then," after seven months, promoted to her 3rd job: Woman's page feature writer and columnist, on same newspaper, at £14 4s. (about $39.76)?
Margaret has a nose for news
THE joy of Margaret Robinson's job is its endless, unpredictable variety. She rarely knows in the morning where she will be in the afternoon. .
One of its hazards is finding the right thing 'to say on the spur of the moment.
Take the day the editor of her paper, The Manchester Evening News, sent her to a press cocktail party after the opening of Peter Ustinov’s play Romanoff And Juliet.
The young writer of the "Miss Manchester"column was introduced to Ustinov himself, and, to get the conversation ball rolling she asked him where he was for his his summer holiday? Unconventional Ustinov didn't react according to the book. He looked hurt and said : " Is my play so bad that you think I'11 be taking a holiday?"
"I wanted to sink through the floor," Margaret told me.
Then there was the day she visited a famous hairdresser to report on what a new hairstyle can do for a woman’s morale. Her own took a plunge when she was seated next to young actress Sally Ann Howes.
"As Sally Ann grew more beautiful, so I grew less so," Margaret recalled ruefully. "I emerged with an extraordinary sausage across the top my head. Back at the office, my features editor said : ‘Maggie, you don’t look yourself’, and sent me next day to a Teddy Boys' barber!"
Margaret must produce three articles a week on any subject of interest to women and teenagers.
"One day, I may be covering a Royal visit to the North; the next, helping to judge a beauty contest or planning a bedroom scheme for a teenager."
Margaret attends trade and theatrical parties, fashion shows and important social events she sees all the new clothes and fabrics reaching the big Manchester stores, visits girls in factories and clubs and happily pokes her nose into numerous other newsworthy activities.
She has her own town flat, contact with the famous and interesting and the stimulating feeling of being part of a big city.
But first she had to learn her job the hard way.
On her first paper, the news editor sent her to the police courts, to cover crime. As a reporter no her present paper, she had to go to the fish and vegetable markets daily at 8:30 am., to note vegetable prices.
These were kill or cure methods of discovering whether she had the stamina and character to become a big-city journalist.
"The police courts taught me a lot about people. The markets gave me corns and a sense of humour. But I was relieved when I was promoted to feature writing," Margaret admitted.
That new job completed the transformation of Margaret, the simply-dressed graduate of Leeds University, into. Maggie, the elegant, fashionable career girl of today.
Buyers soon started phoning her: "I’ve a new collection of hats, and one your readers will love."
Now she finds fashion as fascinating as, in the old days she found the study of Roman England.
NEXT WEEK: Norma and partner "stormed" America
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(?about)
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The average price of a new home then was $11700 2.63 times your yearly average wage of $4450. Which was about 2.17 times the price of a new car $2050. And the future was progressive not regressive
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