“Good career” for women in army

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32524, 6 February 1971, Page 6

“Good career” for women in army

In Britain today women joined the Women’s Royal Army Corps to find a good career and to travel, Brigadier S. A. E. Heaney said in Christchurch yesterday.

The director of the British Women’s Royal Army Corps, Brigadier Heaney, has visited army establishments in Auckland and Wellington during the last week and will spend this week-end at Bumham before travelling to Australia on Monday. On this, her first trip to New Zealand, she said she had found ‘‘more similarities than differences” in the way in which Britain and New Zealand ran their women’s army corps. "Our aim is the same—to relieve the men for more active duty wherever possible,” she said.

The army now offered women a very wide range of trades over 30 —ranging from clerical work and catering to learning to handle modem technological equip-

ment, including computers, she 'said. "Life in the army now cannot be compared with conditions during the last war—then women were conscripted for various kinds of work. Now they join voluntarily seeking a career and the opportunity to travel. PAY GOOD "The material conditions are good and the pay is good. We don’t receive equal pay with the men, but then we don’t handle firearms so we can’t really claim equality," Brigadier Heaney said.

After 31 years in the W.R.A.C., Brigadier Heaney says she has found the way of life in the army full of interest and variety. "It has been satisfying in that you achieve responsibility early in life. Girls joining the army like the chance to be independent, but at the same time retain a measure of security.” She emphasised that discipline in community life was achieved by the practice of self-discipline and not mainly by authoritative action of

some over others. Any young woman who was not prepared to practice self-disci-pline would not find life good in the army, she said. On file personal level she said she had not found army life denied women private interests and hobbies. "I am interested in many things that most women like —particularly dressmaking—and many women in the army have a wide variety of interests and hobbies outside the scope of army life.” DRESSMAKING Dressmaking had been a useful as well as enjoyable interest for Brigadier Heaney, as civilian clothes were worn in off duty-hours “and sometimes on duty, depending on the occasion.” During her years of service, Brigadier Heaney had always welcomed the opportunity to travel and meet people,” she said. As well as visiting New Zealand and Australia on this trip, she will travel to Hong Kong and Singapore to see the British corps stationed there.