An Interesting Occupation

Southland Times, Issue 22728, 2 November 1935, Page 17

An Interesting Occupation

WIDELY TRAVELLED TYPIST. Tall, slim, blonde Miss Grace Macpherson, an Edinburgh stenographer, has typed her way ten times round the world. In the last eleven years she has travelled an aggregate of approximately 1,050,000 miles on sea, circled the globe ten times, and crossed the Atlantic more than 250 times, states an exchange. Miss Macpherson has been the confidante of ships’ commanders, captains of industry, millionaires, society folk, and a host of other people who travel by sea for business or pleasure. And all the time she has been earning her living. For Miss Macpherson is an official stenographer on board the Canadian Pacific luxury liners. In her travels she has met many world-famous people. When Mr Bernard Shaw was making a world cruise in the Empress of Britain a year or two ago, Miss Macpherson did a lot of work for him. And he was very pleased with the way she did it. Which is saying a lot, for “G. 8.5. is a great trial to his typists. He does not dictate a word. He writes everything in shorthand and hands over his notes to his typist to tix 3 n scpi b “What sort of shorthand does Mr Shaw write?” an interviewer asked Miss Macpherson at the house where she makes her home when not at sea. She smiled. “It is Pitman’s,” she replied, “but some of the outlines are essentially Shavian. I racked my brains until I succeeded in solving them. I would never ask Mr Shaw if I was in doubt. I am a Scot, you see, and I never let anything beat me.” It was mostly letters that Miss Macpherson transcribed for “G. 8.5. He was writing a play at the time, and intended to let her type it for him. Her duties include preparing the ship’s manifest, keeping numerous accounts and balance-sheets, typing the reports of the commander, purser, chief engineer, surgeon, and other officers, and doing any note-taking and typing which passengers may require. “I have typed material for passengers on every subject from pigs to politics,” said this hard-working young woman. “I once typed a book for a well-known American financier in eleven days. It dealt entirely with statistics. He dictated to me every morning from nine to twelve without a stop, and I handed him the typed transcript each evening before dinner.

“But I love the life,” she declared. “It is a wonderful way of broadening one’s mind and improving one’s geography. Although we have our long hours and our busy rushes there are compensations in being able to visit places which would be denied to us in ordinary, circumstances.”