Woman’s MIRROR
Anne may write fifty letters to help one refugee. Her “staff” are husband Bill, and Janos, a Hungarian
ANNE is job-hunting for 170 friends. BY TONI WEBBER
ANNE NORMAN made a hundred and seventy friends on holiday this year. Now she is trying to find jobs for all of them.
"They are Hungarian and Yugoslav refugees, living in camps in Austria." Annetold me as we strolled in the rambling garden of her home. in Shootersway Lane, Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire.
"They can't come to England unless there is work waiting for them. And while in the camps they can't possibly find the jobs that will help to set them free. "
Anne's pet gander hissed in sympathy. Her black Labrador, Sheba, stopped chasing flies and pushed her damp nose into Anne's hand. Even the sound of children's voices drifting down to us from an upstairs window, where Anne's son and daughter were playing cowboys, seemed to hush for a moment. It was as though the entire household knew that Anne was remembering her refugees.
Depend on her
"It's shattering to think how much those men and women depend on me," said Anne. "My husband, Bill, and I had only ten days in which to visit five camps. There wasn't time to give much notice of our arrival, but there were still queues of people waiting to se us. We did our best to get as much information as possible, what sort of jobs they had had in their own country, what work they would be willing to do, and so on. Then we took a photograph of each one."
Back at home, Anne placed each refugee’s particulars in a separate file. She worked out her own cross index system. "Which is so complicated I think that only I can understand it. But it does mean that whatever an employer wants I can find with very little delay.
Garage office
" My worst difficulty was finding somewhere to put the files. I used to work in the dining room, but that meant moving the papers off the table whenever it was time for a meal. Our house just isn't big enough to be an office as well."
Then one day Anne found her husband in the garage measuring the walls. "It shouldn't be difficult to turn part of this into an office," he said.
" And that's what we did," said Anne, as with characteristic energy she flung open the door to show me a tiny room piled high with books and papers. "NOW, when the family see me vanishing towards the garage, they know I'm not going to clean the car!"
Anne pointed to a typewriter on a table by the window. " If that typewriter could talk it would tell you far better than I can just how much work goes into placing even one man." She tapped one of the files. " This belongs to a young man called Tibor. He really deserves to have a settled future. But it's taken me two months to get him to England and a job. I've had to write over fifty letters to employers, to the refugee organizations who make traveling arrangements, to government officials for work permits and visas just for him.
"Multiply that by one hundred and seventy and you'll' realize that my holiday in Austria has given me enough work to keep me occupied for many months.
Boy prisoner
" I often grumble about everything else I have to do, the housework, the garden, looking after the animals. But then I realize how lucky I am to have them at all. The refugees have nothing. That's why I am doing what I can to give them the chance of homes, gardens and animals of their own." Sometimes the refugees write to Anne themselves. "Trying to understand Hungarian used to give me a terrible headache. But now I've a willing helper in Janos, a Hungarian boy who has come to live with us.
"When Janos arrived in England three years ago he had already been through far more than any English boy of his age. He had taken part. in the October Revolution and been imprisoned by the Russians.
" Now Janos is seventeen, works as a laboratory assistant and is just one of the family. It was he who made me realize just how difficult it is for a man to settle down in a foreign country, and how much he needs friends around him.
"Austria and the refugee camps can seem very far away at times. Janos helps me to remember them."
----------------------------------------------------------
SYLVIA WATCHES FASHION in Teddy bears!
WHEN the boss sees a rabbit munching lettuce on Sylvia Wilgoss's desk, or a puppy chewing paper in Ann Wood's waste basket, he knows the girls are hard at work.
The animals are artists models: Sylvia and Ann are toy designers.
" But we can't bring all our models to work," Sylvia told me with a smile. "Sometimes we have to visit" them-at the London Zoo. And then we have to treat them with tact.
" Ever, since I was licked by a cheetah and chased by a bear. I'm careful not to approach my subjects too closely."
Ann and Sylvia are probably the only designers in the country of soft toys which are exact replicas of wild animals. Their studio is a converted chapel behind the factory in the picturesque town of Rye, Sussex.
" I started designing toys . eight years ago," quiet, fair haired Sylvia, who's twenty nine told me. "At that time the factory was in London, and I used to spend a lot of time in the Zoo, particularly when I was working on chimpanzees.
" That was when I designed Bimbo, the chimp we started manufacturing five years ago. Since then we've sold ten thousand of him.
FIERCE MUM
"It was at that time that I had my adventures with the cheetah and the bear. With the cheetah, I was just too near the cage. With the bear, I had got special permission to go along the tunnel at the back to study the cubs. Their mother didn’t like the interest I as taking and I had to back out fast."
Both Sylvia and Ann have been drawing animals ever since they were old enough to hold a pencil. Sylvia, a Londoner, used to draw her pet kitten.
Both of them enjoyed visits to the Zoo when they were small. " But I never thought I'd be spending days there as part of my job," Ann told me.
Sylvia and Ann work on about one hundred designs a year each. Sometimes it is a completely new idea; sometimes it is the modification of a toy.
"You'd be surprised how fashions change in Teddy bears, for instance," Sylvia said. "They used to have quite pointed faces:now they are much flatter, with widely set eyes."
CHRISTMAS
With designs for this Christmas completed, the girls are now working on toys for Christmas, 1960. White rabbits, kittens of all kinds, dogs, Teddies, gollies, they sketch and stitch to help fill stockings in thousands of homes.
"I love to see a child playing with a toy which I've designed," Ann told me. "Even when, like one small boy I saw sitting up in his pram, he may be trying to remove the stuffing! " VERONICA SNOBEL
Usherette Brenda gets her big chance in films. See next page of Woman’s Mirror
Anne may write fifty letters to help one refugee. Her “staff” are husband Bill, and Janos, a Hungarian
ANNE is job-hunting for 170 friends. BY TONI WEBBER
ANNE NORMAN made a hundred and seventy friends on holiday this year. Now she is trying to find jobs for all of them.
"They are Hungarian and Yugoslav refugees, living in camps in Austria." Annetold me as we strolled in the rambling garden of her home. in Shootersway Lane, Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire.
"They can't come to England unless there is work waiting for them. And while in the camps they can't possibly find the jobs that will help to set them free. "
Anne's pet gander hissed in sympathy. Her black Labrador, Sheba, stopped chasing flies and pushed her damp nose into Anne's hand. Even the sound of children's voices drifting down to us from an upstairs window, where Anne's son and daughter were playing cowboys, seemed to hush for a moment. It was as though the entire household knew that Anne was remembering her refugees.
Depend on her
"It's shattering to think how much those men and women depend on me," said Anne. "My husband, Bill, and I had only ten days in which to visit five camps. There wasn't time to give much notice of our arrival, but there were still queues of people waiting to se us. We did our best to get as much information as possible, what sort of jobs they had had in their own country, what work they would be willing to do, and so on. Then we took a photograph of each one."
Back at home, Anne placed each refugee’s particulars in a separate file. She worked out her own cross index system. "Which is so complicated I think that only I can understand it. But it does mean that whatever an employer wants I can find with very little delay.
Garage office
" My worst difficulty was finding somewhere to put the files. I used to work in the dining room, but that meant moving the papers off the table whenever it was time for a meal. Our house just isn't big enough to be an office as well."
Then one day Anne found her husband in the garage measuring the walls. "It shouldn't be difficult to turn part of this into an office," he said.
" And that's what we did," said Anne, as with characteristic energy she flung open the door to show me a tiny room piled high with books and papers. "NOW, when the family see me vanishing towards the garage, they know I'm not going to clean the car!"
Anne pointed to a typewriter on a table by the window. " If that typewriter could talk it would tell you far better than I can just how much work goes into placing even one man." She tapped one of the files. " This belongs to a young man called Tibor. He really deserves to have a settled future. But it's taken me two months to get him to England and a job. I've had to write over fifty letters to employers, to the refugee organizations who make traveling arrangements, to government officials for work permits and visas just for him.
"Multiply that by one hundred and seventy and you'll' realize that my holiday in Austria has given me enough work to keep me occupied for many months.
Boy prisoner
" I often grumble about everything else I have to do, the housework, the garden, looking after the animals. But then I realize how lucky I am to have them at all. The refugees have nothing. That's why I am doing what I can to give them the chance of homes, gardens and animals of their own." Sometimes the refugees write to Anne themselves. "Trying to understand Hungarian used to give me a terrible headache. But now I've a willing helper in Janos, a Hungarian boy who has come to live with us.
"When Janos arrived in England three years ago he had already been through far more than any English boy of his age. He had taken part. in the October Revolution and been imprisoned by the Russians.
" Now Janos is seventeen, works as a laboratory assistant and is just one of the family. It was he who made me realize just how difficult it is for a man to settle down in a foreign country, and how much he needs friends around him.
"Austria and the refugee camps can seem very far away at times. Janos helps me to remember them."
----------------------------------------------------------
SYLVIA WATCHES FASHION in Teddy bears!
WHEN the boss sees a rabbit munching lettuce on Sylvia Wilgoss's desk, or a puppy chewing paper in Ann Wood's waste basket, he knows the girls are hard at work.
The animals are artists models: Sylvia and Ann are toy designers.
" But we can't bring all our models to work," Sylvia told me with a smile. "Sometimes we have to visit" them-at the London Zoo. And then we have to treat them with tact.
" Ever, since I was licked by a cheetah and chased by a bear. I'm careful not to approach my subjects too closely."
Ann and Sylvia are probably the only designers in the country of soft toys which are exact replicas of wild animals. Their studio is a converted chapel behind the factory in the picturesque town of Rye, Sussex.
" I started designing toys . eight years ago," quiet, fair haired Sylvia, who's twenty nine told me. "At that time the factory was in London, and I used to spend a lot of time in the Zoo, particularly when I was working on chimpanzees.
" That was when I designed Bimbo, the chimp we started manufacturing five years ago. Since then we've sold ten thousand of him.
FIERCE MUM
"It was at that time that I had my adventures with the cheetah and the bear. With the cheetah, I was just too near the cage. With the bear, I had got special permission to go along the tunnel at the back to study the cubs. Their mother didn’t like the interest I as taking and I had to back out fast."
Both Sylvia and Ann have been drawing animals ever since they were old enough to hold a pencil. Sylvia, a Londoner, used to draw her pet kitten.
Gay, vivacious Ann, who is twenty-one, was brought up in the country.Her models were the sheep, lambs and geese on the family smallholding.
Both of them enjoyed visits to the Zoo when they were small. " But I never thought I'd be spending days there as part of my job," Ann told me.
Sylvia and Ann work on about one hundred designs a year each. Sometimes it is a completely new idea; sometimes it is the modification of a toy.
"You'd be surprised how fashions change in Teddy bears, for instance," Sylvia said. "They used to have quite pointed faces:now they are much flatter, with widely set eyes."
CHRISTMAS
With designs for this Christmas completed, the girls are now working on toys for Christmas, 1960. White rabbits, kittens of all kinds, dogs, Teddies, gollies, they sketch and stitch to help fill stockings in thousands of homes.
"I love to see a child playing with a toy which I've designed," Ann told me. "Even when, like one small boy I saw sitting up in his pram, he may be trying to remove the stuffing! " VERONICA SNOBEL
Sylvia (left) and Ann find, toy designing fun When their model is a restless monkey-----------------------------------------------------------
Usherette Brenda gets her big chance in films. See next page of Woman’s Mirror
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