"UP IN THE AIR"

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 132, 1 December 1938, Page 19

"UP IN THE AIR"

HOSTESS OF X.L.M. LINER

' When Miss Laurie Steele, slim 26----year-old brunette, stepped into a Dutch X.L.M. airliner at Croydon recently, states the "Daily Mail." she was entering not a mere means of conveyance, but her place of employment. She is the only British stewardess serving on a Continental air route. Among the petite, polygot, trim-uni-formed "air hostesses" who have become such familiar figures at European airports, she is the only one speaking English as her mother-tongue. There are, you see, two opposing schools of thought on the subject of feminine attendance in the air. WHY SHE IS UNIQUE. Those in favour hold they exercise a soothing influence on nervous passengers, and with their social graces, induce an easy, friendly atmosphere en voyage; those against contend that men make the more efficient stewards ! and all-purpose attendants. And since British air lines operating | Continental services are numbered among "those against," you will understand just why Miss Steele is unique. "Am I lucky to get the job!" she exclaimed to me, just before setting off for Amsterdam and her aerial duties. "I was air hostess in Australia for a year, but I wanted to see the European capitals and keep my job in the air at the same time. It seemed a hopeless prospect, but I aproached the X.L..M. agent in Sydney on the off-chance. "It means I have to be in the air six days a week instead of having three to myself, as in Australia, but it is worth it, if you love flying and enjoy constantly meeting and doing your best to help fresh people." The feminine attendants of the skies are first and foremost vivacious girls with a real love of flying and a strict sense of duty; add to that the intelligence and conversational powers ...of a woman of the world, the linguistic ability of a professor of languages, the sympathy of a nurse, the domesticity of a housewife —and only then will you understand why so many call but so few are chosen for the position of air hostess. To restrict things even more, only girls below nine stone in weight need I apply.