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"GENERAL JEAN"

NEW A.T.S. CHIEF YOUNG AND MODERN The youngest general in the army is 33-year-old Mrs Jean Knox, the new chief controller of the A.T.S. She is also probablv the only general in the world without a war ribbon since she was 10 years old when the last war ended. Mrs Knox, who is small, dark and slim, has revolutionary ideas about women in uniform.

"The A.T.5.." she told a reDorter, "can wear pale pink varnish 'if thev want to, but they'll always find it cracks in service. I approve of all make-up but 1 should be bound to criticise if I saw a lipstick that clashed with a rouge that was too bright." Mrs Knox herself has a faint pi'nh comdexion. wears a vermilion lipstick and no nail polish. The uniform has also come under her " reforming eve. A four-gored skirt will replace the old bell skirt which looked bad on the march worse ""hen. sittins down

The new skirt is fuller and will take slightly more material. "But the slight extra cost." said Chief Controller Knox, "will be made uo for in self-respect." Mrs Knox wants her girls to be happy. Bv Christmas she hopes to have 150.000 of them; by next year. 200,000. In August there were 50.000 girls in the service, so that it can be seen that Mrs Knox is on a recruiting drive. She vants. she says, to increase the nrestige and the efficiency of the A.T.S. She wants to command a million proud, keen, contented women who will win respect and admiration wherever they go. It is good news for the A.T.S that they are commanded by a woman who has risen from the ranks and who has aDnointed a group of staff officers to assist her. women as young and " modern" as herself chosen, not for th.eir social oosition, but for their abilities.

An interesting f.vt. commented upon by another writer, is that she shares with the Queen, the right to be addressed as "Ma'am." It will probably surprise many girls in the services in New Zealand that the term should be of such distinction in England. Before the war. the new chief controller had no thought of a public She was •oroud of her home. her husband, her daughter: fond of cooking, sewing and even dusting and cleaning. When her husband joined the R.A.F. she joined the A.T.S where her record has been one of continuous nromotion. The force of which Mrs Knox takes command is now as much cart.of the Army as the R.AM;C. or the Royal Ordnance Corps.

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Permanent link to this item

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/ODT19411014.2.36.5

Bibliographic details

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24737, 14 October 1941, Page 5

Word Count
430

"GENERAL JEAN" Otago Daily Times, Issue 24737, 14 October 1941, Page 5

"GENERAL JEAN" Otago Daily Times, Issue 24737, 14 October 1941, Page 5