Home & People Conran says: The secret of ironing is to avoid it

Press, 5 December 1978, Page 16

Home & People Conran says: The secret of ironing is to avoid it

By

LEONE STEWART

A home is a myth, says Shirley Conran, British journalist and business woman, beginning her best seller, “Super-woman.” Her definition of home is “an office block, one damn long, never ending cleaning job, which nobody notices unless you don’t do it.”

Shirley Conran had a rushed day in Christchurch during her whirlwind tour of the country, promoting “Superwoman.” She has been on tour since August. Her paperback guide to home management for people who hate housework had teen appropriately adapted for 10 countries. The' Japanese edition is now being planned.

The New Zealand version, adapted by an Auckland free-lance journalist, Sue Miles, has given her less trouble than all the others. Our home-making trials and tribulations are much the same as the British, it seems.

Although most of the advice on where to obtain goods and services is Auckland-based, Sue Miles has tried hard to include those firms which have agents throughout the country.

Pleasing the provinces has been a problem everywhere. French readers complained their edition was too Paris orientated. The British complained about all the London addresses. “But where do you stop?” Shirley Conran asks. Twenty years of blood, sweat, toil, and tears have gone into her book. She promises no miracle cures — “It’s just amazing how many women do hate housework” — but she wants to pass on some hard-learned tricks to lighten the load. Everyone, she has found on her travels, has a favourite chapter. Nothing is left out: from managing the cleaning, the shopping, the maintenance, and the moving house, to advice on how to be a working wife and mother, and what to do if you are raped. The publishers were not too keen on including the latter, but she persuaded them that sexual assault of some kind was part of life for most women. Women the world over like the confessions of a r y-cleaner’s daughter best. That is just what Mrs Conran is, and it is just amazing the moneysaving results that can be achieved at home. “When the book came out the Dry-Cleaners’ Federation was furious with me,” she said, “How to profit from a crisis” is the author’s

favourite chapter. Her sane advice about selfreliance, prompted by her own “doomsday” when she moved house five times in 18 months, is really what the book is all about. It is her philosophy for coping, “just to keep plugging on.” Shirley Conran has had an active, varied career both in Fleet Street and in industrial design. Divorced some years ago, she has two adult sons, and now runs her large home in England and her French farmhouse without help. Characteristically, her kitchen in the French

farmhouse is designed to be run by the guests. In her foreword Shirley Conran urges women to forget the television image of the perfect housewife. Just how insidious is the television commercial housewife?

“Very much more potent and worrying than most people think,” she says. “Advertising agencies hire psychiatrists to tell them how to make women feel guilty.” “Superwoman” is meant to provide guidelines. It must be one of the few books which the author advises readers to deface, adding and adjusting to suit themselves. “I would not presume to dictate to any woman,” said Shirley Conran, “and neither should anyone.”

Her theory is that women inherit a tradition of housework, that they develop their own systems. Mrs Conran’s system is to run the home like a business. Her many male readers, who find the

easy-to-follow maintenance section invaluable, the her they had no idea managing a home required so much skill.

The problem is, she maintains, that women are suspicious of efficientsounding systems, words I’ke the dreaded filing. “What do they think they do with the china .after they’ve washed up?” The Conran home is like a business, with one-woman, planned : budgeting, purchasing, and filing departments. According to Sue Miles, who rubbished the whole thing when she first read

it, Shirley Conran’s filing system really works. And it is adaptable.

With the humour which often' gives the book a lift, the author tells of the very personal system operated by the beautiful historian, Lady Antonia Fraser. Only she can find anything in her files, because she does things like putting the bills under U for unpleasant. . Shirley Conran emphasises that her book is not designed to give women more time to do more housework. Does she think women fill their days with chores, especially when the children are less dependent? “Life is untidy, and so are the children,” she said. “We have to accept that. Housework expands to fill the time available.” Sit down and work out what you like doing, and what you don’t like doing, she advises. Concentrate on what you like doing, find ways to eliminate the

rest. (She gave up. ironing and has only wash am wear in her households.) Much of Shirlej Conran’s advice is good, basic stuff, including some tired and true, old fashioned recipes. “It’s amazing what you can do with meths.” Her fabric guide is an invaluable aid to translating everincreasing, synthetic trade names into fibre groups.

She believes women should not allow themselves to be “blinded by science,” confused by advertising propaganda for competing products. The same goes for gadgets: the fewer you have the less there is to go wrong.

A washing machine, dryer, and dishwasher are top of her “drudge saving” priorities. “If Mr Muldoon had to dry the smalls, or have the nappies flapping in his face when he was pegging them out in damp weather he wouldn’t have put that monstrous tax on dryers.” Shirley Conran advocates a dishwasher fund for every woman with two or more children. Into a glass jar in the kitchen should go all the small change, and all the money obtained on request for birthdays and Christmas presents. “They buy the Model T Ford, not the Rolls, there will be less to break down.” Career women often attribute their domestic success to the making of lists. Her shopping become a master of the lists. Her shopping, kitchen, and work book lists sound sensible, easy to operate, and leave nothing to chance.

Joint bank accounts are anathema to Shirley, Conran. Given the divorce rate, she thinks women would be wise to keep clear of them. You can t afford to be sentimental about money, she says in “Money, Money, Money.” She suggests separate account for husband and wife, and a joint account for household expenses, to which both would contribute if both were earning. J What if your husband is the sort who thinks a wife’s work is worth about $2 a week, and that she should be able to look a million dollars on it? “They could use the system I did when working out my son’s

allowances.” she said. “Just write down everything you bought over a three month period and produce the evidence. Most men are reasonable if shown the facts.” Because her career has made her a public personality in Britain, Shirley Conran has, by her own admission, kept a low profile at home. When her sons were growing up she did not want them to measure success by the number of times her photograph appeared in the newspapers. O f “Superwoman’s” success she says: “If I deserve a place in history it’s because the book has got men interested in housework, and got them doing it.”