FOR WOMEN HIGH POSITIONS

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 42, 19 February 1943, Page 5

FOR WOMEN HIGH POSITIONS

WOMEN MAKE NEWS

PROM DAXCE MUSIC TO COAL Four women and their jobs made news in London recently. They are Britain's dictator of dance music; a housewife from London's East End, and a Shropshire farmer's daughter, who now join the National Coal Board; and Britain's first woman income tax collector-in-charge. The 8.8.C. created a new post of dance music supervisor , and appointed red-haired, business-like Mrs. D. H. Neilson, called "Tawny" by her friends. • One of her most thorny problems will be the interpretation of the 8.8.C.'s ban on "slushy" music. It has been worrying music publishers for weeks. Two new songs, which are hits in America, will come up immediately for her attention. One is "Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition," which, despite its grand tune, has been passed over so far by 8.8.C. bands. The other is "Der Fuhrer's Face," in which there are "raspberry" noises, which some 8.8.C. listeners do not think funny. Plump, jolly-faced Mrs. M. G. Burton was the most surprised woman in England when she opened a letter asking her to be one of the two women representing domestic consumers on the new board, which will plan the whole production and distribution of the nation's coal. She explained her own system of fuel-saving. "We live in the kitchen and do not light the fire in the-front room, except once a week, when our two daughters and granddaughter come to dinner." The other woman on the National Coal Board is Miss Marjorie Jones, a Shropshire farmer's daughter, who will watch the interests of domestic consumers in country districts. A Westmorland spinster is the first woman whom the income tax authorities thought they could trust with the"'.,big stick, represented by the title of Income Tax Collector-in-, Charge. •"