European Girls Take Jobs For Languages

Press, Volume C, Issue 29623, 20 September 1961, Page 2

European Girls Take Jobs For Languages

Dutch and other European girls who felt they must master several languages now go to the country of their origin to learn them. They spend periods in England or other European countries as mothers’ helps or nurses. But few English girls feel the need for this as they consider the English language sufficient for most careers. This view was given in Christchurch yesterday by Dutch-born Mrs Wilma Johnston, aged 21, who spent a year in Yorkshire as a mother’s help after her schooling.

Mrs Johnston gave an example of a Dutch girl who might be a stewardess on a shipping line plying only between Holland and England. She must be proficient in at least three languages, including English, in order to be able to converse with each passenger in his own language. In Dutch schools pupils must learn German and French for five years and English for seven, she said. Latin and Greek were also taught but other European languages, such as Spanish and Italian, were taught only by private tutors and. at the universities.

In England, the European mothers' helps were very welcome, Mrs Johnston said. Few English girls entered domestic service now as they could earn more y working in factories. Mothers living on the Continent had the same domestic help difficulties as most girls there also felt they could earn more in a factory, and because the

English girls were not taking such jobs to enable them to learn a language. Girls going to England to become mothers’ helps found their jobs through newspaper advertisements in their own countries. But Mrs Johnston got hers through a girl who had worked with an English family who had been employing mothers’ helps from Europe for many years. This family went to Rotterdam and met Mrs Johnston's family, and she herself went to England a month later.

She joined a class in English at a technical college, where she was taught the language with German, Italian, French, Danish and Indian girls, most of them mothers’ helps. She took two examinations.

German girls were in the majority and were inclined to cling together, Mrs Johnston said. She herself did not go out with other Dutch girls, feeling that it would hinder her progress in English. The family for whom she worked treated her as one of themselves. But while about 50 per cent, of foreign mothers’ helps in England were treated by their “families” as daughters, the other half were treated as maids. Her work included cooking, helping with housework, and bathing the children at

night and putting them to bed. There were two children in her care, the third child in the family being at boarding school. She described the house as huge, and having four floors. Besides herself, there was a "daily” who came each morning and a gardener and odd job man. Mrs Johnston had one whole day and cne half-day off each week, and was free each evening after seven and between two and four in the afternoons.

She found the English people most hospitable, on the whole, and made many French and English friends during her stay. While in England she met her husband, a travelling representative for his father’s textiles firm. Mr and Mrs Johnston are on a world tour for their honeymoon. On their return they will settle in a village in Yorkshire, in a cottage with “traditional beams and roses round the door.” Their home is being decorated during their absence.