More Books For Girls: Air Hostess Ann
In the latest of my forays into the weird and wonderful world of Career Novels for Girls, I have been reading Air Hostess Ann by Pamela Hawken (1952).
I was promised on the fly cover that being an air hostess was “one of the most exciting careers for girls” so my expectations were high. Luckily, I was not disappointed and enjoyed this one even more than the adventures of Diana Seton: Veterinary Student.
Before I begin, however, I’d like to give a quick shout-out to Valerie Booker whose book this is - according to the little school prize sticker on the inside cover. Well done on your good work in class 2 at Parkhill Junior School, Valerie! I hope you too were inspired to seek a career in aviation.
Anyway, unlike Diana Seton, this story dives straight into the action. Given that the authors seem to like using dramatic real life events to give girls their new vocation, this is probably a good thing. Although I am quite sad we haven’t had to see Ann save an Air Hostess from being mangled beneath the wheels of a runaway aircraft before she made up her mind.
Instead we start at her interview at Aviation House and I’m quickly reminded that this is a Different Time because everyone in the room seems to be smoking like chimneys.
It turns out that becoming an Air Hostess for British World Airways is very hard work and requires a lengthy interview and an eight week training course. Ann’s pretty well prepared though, she speaks Spanish fluently and worked at a travel agency in Manchester creatively called The Manchester Travel Agency but whoops, she makes the mistake of saying it wasn’t glamorous like Air Hostessing. Mr Stannard, head of the training course, soon puts her right,
”We have to guard against taking on girls who want to fly because they think this is a glamorous job. They imagine themselves in a smart uniform parading up and down the gangway doing nothing but ushering passengers to their seats, handing cups of coffee to ambassadors, and looking after actresses’ poodles - and of course being photographed standing on the passenger steps holding a baby.”
I really hope they didn’t lure in the Easyjet cabin crews with stories like that. Talk about false advertising.
Mr Stannard goes on to point out all the ways it isn’t glamorous - grumpy passengers, washing up for thirty people after a six course dinner...
Now, you might be thinking - six course dinner? As if! WE WILL COME BACK TO THAT LATER.
Despite their best attempts to put her off, Ann gives an impassioned speech about how she much she wants to fly and do her job well and help others - before reminding me once again that it is the 1950s.
”I don’t just want to stand behind a counter all the years between school and getting married, if I get married. I want to do things and see things first.”
Also, don’t forget Ann, your husband might die.
Fortunately Ann wins them over with her enthusiasm and fluent Spanish and there’s an exciting mention of ‘Eleanor Adrian’s Bond Street Salon’ where all stewardesses are sent ‘to make the most of their looks’. I was really looking forward to this section of the book, but alas, this is the last we hear of Eleanor Adrian :( Perhaps Ann was just too glamorous already, although she spends a few sentences worrying about her ‘amateurishly powdered nose and home-shampooed hair’ all the same.
Interview over, we move on to Ann’s first week at the training school in London Airport. As with Diana, we learn lots of useful factual stuff about training for stewardesses. Ann has to go up in a plane for a test flight to prove she can cope with the experience, spend time in a de-compression chamber, and attend lectures and practicals where she learns to prepare food in a mock aeroplane galley (this sounded a bit fun, I have to say).
Amongst all the cups of coffee, lectures and mentions of handsome pilots, we get the odd little reminder of how being an Air Hostess wasn’t the dream job of everyone, especially not leading Air Hostess Jean, winner of Miss B.W.A.
”I should like to fly my own plane. By the way I’m Jean Lansbury.” Ann told her her name. “I was a ferry pilot during the war,” went on Jean, “but this is the nearest I can get to flying myself now.”
Before I get too enraged about that though, it’s straight into ‘Practical Aircraft’ and Ann and her fellow trainees Pat, Margaret and Sylvia have to prepare a meal on board a plane for a specially invited group of staff pretending to be typical passengers.
You know how some people want to party like it’s 1999? Well I’d quite like to fly like it’s 1952 please.
First they get out the cocktail glasses and mixers, then there is mention of a cheese board. Then this happens,
Ann held out her hand as the lady came aboard, smiled and wished her good morning, then turning to the interior of the plane called out “Lady Theresa Deighton”. When all the passengers had been announced and seated, she hurried back to the galley and collected the menu card. She went round presenting it to each passenger in turn, and then fetched her first tray filled with the hors d’oeuvres and soup.”
They end their six course meal with coffee and liqueurs.
O_O
If there is anyone reading this who has flown first class, can you please confirm if this actually still happens?
The job quickly gets even more awesome as we learn about the parts of the syllabus still to come.
’Practical demonstration of sleeping berths,’ ‘hygenic handling of food’, ‘passenger psychology’, ‘dish and plate appeal’, ‘doctrinal and invalid foods’, ‘air/sea rescue,’ ‘jungle and arctic survival’...
Passenger psychology, dish and plate appeal and jungle and arctic survival?!? Once again, I can only weep quietly to myself that these do not ever appear again in the book. I feel my plates and dishes are severely lacking in appeal of any kind (except as receptacles for delicious cake) and frankly jungle and arctic survival sounds AMAZING.
We also learn about some of the fantastic places they will fly to.
”Some of the places where we slip crews are marvellous for a good time - New York, Nassau, Johannesburg.”
Ah yes, 1950s Johannesburg - putting the ‘party’ into ‘Apartheid’.
In amongst all the important Learning she is doing, Ann finds a spare few minutes to judge the hell out of one of her fellow trainees and friend, Pat.
Pat was frankly low-brow, her interest in music being confined to dance bands and swing, and her interest in the theatre to musicals and revues.
Well nuts to you, Ann, I’ve been to see Whistle Down The Wind five times. Also I’m writing this while drinking wine from a mug and listening to The Beach Boys. GO AHEAD AND JUDGE ME.
So anyway, after being rude about Pat, Ann learns how to do the on-board safety announcement - the only part of the flying experience I’ve recognised so far except the shape of the plane and the fact it goes up - and ruminates on how London is the hub of the British Empire. Enjoy it while it lasts, Ann, that’s all I’m saying.
Finally, they come to the end of their course and get posted to their ‘lines’. Ann gets the South American line and is pretty excited about it, especially when she gets her smart new uniform - a grey skirt and tunic with red arrows on the lapels, white shirts, red ties, nylons and black shoes.
I would say something sarky about the uniform, but on the same page the author hits me with this.
When Mr Stannard came in to give his farewell address, the sixteen girls fell silent immediately. They stood by their desks, backs straighter and heads held higher than on any previous morning. And suddenly, Ann felt tears prickling her eyes and a lump come into her throat. She realised fully for the first time that she was not only going to be a stewardess, doing her own job by herself on a plane, but that from now on she was a member of a national service. She was bound by a common code and a common interest with all the men and girls throughout the world, on lonely airfields and in foreign cities, who were at this moment dressed as she was; and with all the crews flying at this moment, and also with those who had died wearing this uniform, doing their job at the controls or in the galley. She made a silent vow to do her best, in the humblest station on board, and to live up to her uniform and all it stood for.
Blimey. I think I actually have something in my eye.
Ahem.
Moving on. Ann, Pat and Marjorie find a house together in London - which they christen The Chummery because they probably grew up reading Famous Five novels, and Ann goes home for Christmas where, refreshingly, her parents are totally supportive of her career. I do wonder how supportive they would be if it wasn’t such a ‘female’ career, but anyway, Ann also finds the time to go to a dance in her ‘flame red chiffon’ dress and a new wrap so all in all a lovely Christmas is had.
Then - HALF WAY THROUGH THE BOOK - we’re going up on a plane at last for Ann’s first proper shift. We learn that Ann can immediately recognise ‘unmistakably American clothes’ (maybe they’re wearing those ‘USA’ baseball caps?) and that 1950s plane journeys are much like train journeys.
”B.W.A announces Flight No.15 to Cairo, Basra, Karachi, Delhi, Calcutta, Bangkok, Hongkong and Tokyo.”
I’m assuming Basra was somewhat safer back then.
We also learn that British World Airways put a creepy amount of thought into passenger seating arrangements.
In seating their passengers, British World Airways tried to put those of the same race, religion or nationality together to avoid obvious clashes, and even to put people of known similar interests or professions next to one another.
In the days before Google and Facebook stalking was invented, how the hell did they find out who had similar interests? Just how detailed an application form did they have to fill in to buy plane tickets?
There’s also a film company travelling on board - because flying is not glamorous, people!
Aaaaand everyone can smoke. Bet that was lovely.
Ann’s first shift doesn’t go too well when she fails to deal with a difficult passenger - but considering she speaks to her ‘as though to a stupid child’, I’m not all that surprised.
It’s in her first two days off that she meets Alan Royce, who is taking one of her housemates out for a drive but helpfully stays to fix the boiler. He’s a handsome young pilot by the way, and I’m sure he won’t be an important character or anything.
Spoke too soon... She gets appointed Stewardess on his plane and has to bring him coffee. We also discover that in their stayovers in South America, the stewardesses are put up at a ‘second class hotel’ and the pilots get the ‘Pink Paradise Hotel’ which has its own beach, shops, restaurants and hairdressers. But it’s okay though, guys, because all the hotels have wide, open patios ‘where drinks are served by white-coated coloured waiters’.
Thankfully, that’s about as wince-inducing as the book gets on that front, but let’s move on anyway.
Ann flies some more, has to look after tropical fish on board and small children and manages very well and then - DRAMA - she is posted to jets, which as you know are the very latest in aviation inventions. Also - MORE DRAMA - one of the other stewardesses whose mother doesn’t approve of her career because she’s posh gets engaged to a pilot who turns out to be the son of Sir Denby Howlett so her mother’s totally okay with it - THUS ENDETH THE POTENTIAL DRAMA, and all in three paragraphs.
It turns out this was just a prelude though to the super dramatic final two chapters - where Ann nurses a dying passenger over the whole of the Atlantic Ocean and then on the same trip Alan-the-future-husband-what-you-know-he-will-be has to perform a crash landing in Bermuda when ‘the under carriage won’t lock down’, whatever that means (there’s no pictures).
It’s tense stuff. Luckily Alan flew bombers in the RAF during World War Two - something we handily only learn now - so he’s probably going to be fine.
He is! HUZZAH. And because this is BRITISH World Airways, it doesn’t matter that the plane is listing on a 45 degree angle on the tarmac after a crash landing, Ann goes right ahead getting coats and bags down for her passengers and tells them breakfast is waiting for them in the airport restaurant.
The book ends then after their return to London and, in a genuinely shock twist, Alan DOES NOT propose. Colour me surprised. I’m fairly sure it’s in the offing though, there’s a lot of hand holding and meaningful looks going on in the cockpit of the plane.
Instead we get Ann realising how much she loves her job, to which I say PHEW and long may she enjoy it.
As they stood up to collect their things, she told herself almost fiercely, hugging the knowledge to her like a new possession: “This is where I belong. I really am part of it now. I’ve sort of ‘earned my wings.’”
THE END.
Coming up next on: Sally Reads Random Stuff - Margaret Becomes a Doctor by Joan Llewelyn Owens.
I was promised on the fly cover that being an air hostess was “one of the most exciting careers for girls” so my expectations were high. Luckily, I was not disappointed and enjoyed this one even more than the adventures of Diana Seton: Veterinary Student.
Before I begin, however, I’d like to give a quick shout-out to Valerie Booker whose book this is - according to the little school prize sticker on the inside cover. Well done on your good work in class 2 at Parkhill Junior School, Valerie! I hope you too were inspired to seek a career in aviation.
Anyway, unlike Diana Seton, this story dives straight into the action. Given that the authors seem to like using dramatic real life events to give girls their new vocation, this is probably a good thing. Although I am quite sad we haven’t had to see Ann save an Air Hostess from being mangled beneath the wheels of a runaway aircraft before she made up her mind.
Instead we start at her interview at Aviation House and I’m quickly reminded that this is a Different Time because everyone in the room seems to be smoking like chimneys.
It turns out that becoming an Air Hostess for British World Airways is very hard work and requires a lengthy interview and an eight week training course. Ann’s pretty well prepared though, she speaks Spanish fluently and worked at a travel agency in Manchester creatively called The Manchester Travel Agency but whoops, she makes the mistake of saying it wasn’t glamorous like Air Hostessing. Mr Stannard, head of the training course, soon puts her right,
”We have to guard against taking on girls who want to fly because they think this is a glamorous job. They imagine themselves in a smart uniform parading up and down the gangway doing nothing but ushering passengers to their seats, handing cups of coffee to ambassadors, and looking after actresses’ poodles - and of course being photographed standing on the passenger steps holding a baby.”
I really hope they didn’t lure in the Easyjet cabin crews with stories like that. Talk about false advertising.
Mr Stannard goes on to point out all the ways it isn’t glamorous - grumpy passengers, washing up for thirty people after a six course dinner...
Now, you might be thinking - six course dinner? As if! WE WILL COME BACK TO THAT LATER.
Despite their best attempts to put her off, Ann gives an impassioned speech about how she much she wants to fly and do her job well and help others - before reminding me once again that it is the 1950s.
”I don’t just want to stand behind a counter all the years between school and getting married, if I get married. I want to do things and see things first.”
Also, don’t forget Ann, your husband might die.
Fortunately Ann wins them over with her enthusiasm and fluent Spanish and there’s an exciting mention of ‘Eleanor Adrian’s Bond Street Salon’ where all stewardesses are sent ‘to make the most of their looks’. I was really looking forward to this section of the book, but alas, this is the last we hear of Eleanor Adrian :( Perhaps Ann was just too glamorous already, although she spends a few sentences worrying about her ‘amateurishly powdered nose and home-shampooed hair’ all the same.
Interview over, we move on to Ann’s first week at the training school in London Airport. As with Diana, we learn lots of useful factual stuff about training for stewardesses. Ann has to go up in a plane for a test flight to prove she can cope with the experience, spend time in a de-compression chamber, and attend lectures and practicals where she learns to prepare food in a mock aeroplane galley (this sounded a bit fun, I have to say).
Amongst all the cups of coffee, lectures and mentions of handsome pilots, we get the odd little reminder of how being an Air Hostess wasn’t the dream job of everyone, especially not leading Air Hostess Jean, winner of Miss B.W.A.
”I should like to fly my own plane. By the way I’m Jean Lansbury.” Ann told her her name. “I was a ferry pilot during the war,” went on Jean, “but this is the nearest I can get to flying myself now.”
Before I get too enraged about that though, it’s straight into ‘Practical Aircraft’ and Ann and her fellow trainees Pat, Margaret and Sylvia have to prepare a meal on board a plane for a specially invited group of staff pretending to be typical passengers.
You know how some people want to party like it’s 1999? Well I’d quite like to fly like it’s 1952 please.
First they get out the cocktail glasses and mixers, then there is mention of a cheese board. Then this happens,
Ann held out her hand as the lady came aboard, smiled and wished her good morning, then turning to the interior of the plane called out “Lady Theresa Deighton”. When all the passengers had been announced and seated, she hurried back to the galley and collected the menu card. She went round presenting it to each passenger in turn, and then fetched her first tray filled with the hors d’oeuvres and soup.”
They end their six course meal with coffee and liqueurs.
O_O
If there is anyone reading this who has flown first class, can you please confirm if this actually still happens?
The job quickly gets even more awesome as we learn about the parts of the syllabus still to come.
’Practical demonstration of sleeping berths,’ ‘hygenic handling of food’, ‘passenger psychology’, ‘dish and plate appeal’, ‘doctrinal and invalid foods’, ‘air/sea rescue,’ ‘jungle and arctic survival’...
Passenger psychology, dish and plate appeal and jungle and arctic survival?!? Once again, I can only weep quietly to myself that these do not ever appear again in the book. I feel my plates and dishes are severely lacking in appeal of any kind (except as receptacles for delicious cake) and frankly jungle and arctic survival sounds AMAZING.
We also learn about some of the fantastic places they will fly to.
”Some of the places where we slip crews are marvellous for a good time - New York, Nassau, Johannesburg.”
Ah yes, 1950s Johannesburg - putting the ‘party’ into ‘Apartheid’.
In amongst all the important Learning she is doing, Ann finds a spare few minutes to judge the hell out of one of her fellow trainees and friend, Pat.
Pat was frankly low-brow, her interest in music being confined to dance bands and swing, and her interest in the theatre to musicals and revues.
Well nuts to you, Ann, I’ve been to see Whistle Down The Wind five times. Also I’m writing this while drinking wine from a mug and listening to The Beach Boys. GO AHEAD AND JUDGE ME.
So anyway, after being rude about Pat, Ann learns how to do the on-board safety announcement - the only part of the flying experience I’ve recognised so far except the shape of the plane and the fact it goes up - and ruminates on how London is the hub of the British Empire. Enjoy it while it lasts, Ann, that’s all I’m saying.
Finally, they come to the end of their course and get posted to their ‘lines’. Ann gets the South American line and is pretty excited about it, especially when she gets her smart new uniform - a grey skirt and tunic with red arrows on the lapels, white shirts, red ties, nylons and black shoes.
I would say something sarky about the uniform, but on the same page the author hits me with this.
When Mr Stannard came in to give his farewell address, the sixteen girls fell silent immediately. They stood by their desks, backs straighter and heads held higher than on any previous morning. And suddenly, Ann felt tears prickling her eyes and a lump come into her throat. She realised fully for the first time that she was not only going to be a stewardess, doing her own job by herself on a plane, but that from now on she was a member of a national service. She was bound by a common code and a common interest with all the men and girls throughout the world, on lonely airfields and in foreign cities, who were at this moment dressed as she was; and with all the crews flying at this moment, and also with those who had died wearing this uniform, doing their job at the controls or in the galley. She made a silent vow to do her best, in the humblest station on board, and to live up to her uniform and all it stood for.
Blimey. I think I actually have something in my eye.
Ahem.
Moving on. Ann, Pat and Marjorie find a house together in London - which they christen The Chummery because they probably grew up reading Famous Five novels, and Ann goes home for Christmas where, refreshingly, her parents are totally supportive of her career. I do wonder how supportive they would be if it wasn’t such a ‘female’ career, but anyway, Ann also finds the time to go to a dance in her ‘flame red chiffon’ dress and a new wrap so all in all a lovely Christmas is had.
Then - HALF WAY THROUGH THE BOOK - we’re going up on a plane at last for Ann’s first proper shift. We learn that Ann can immediately recognise ‘unmistakably American clothes’ (maybe they’re wearing those ‘USA’ baseball caps?) and that 1950s plane journeys are much like train journeys.
”B.W.A announces Flight No.15 to Cairo, Basra, Karachi, Delhi, Calcutta, Bangkok, Hongkong and Tokyo.”
I’m assuming Basra was somewhat safer back then.
We also learn that British World Airways put a creepy amount of thought into passenger seating arrangements.
In seating their passengers, British World Airways tried to put those of the same race, religion or nationality together to avoid obvious clashes, and even to put people of known similar interests or professions next to one another.
In the days before Google and Facebook stalking was invented, how the hell did they find out who had similar interests? Just how detailed an application form did they have to fill in to buy plane tickets?
There’s also a film company travelling on board - because flying is not glamorous, people!
Aaaaand everyone can smoke. Bet that was lovely.
Ann’s first shift doesn’t go too well when she fails to deal with a difficult passenger - but considering she speaks to her ‘as though to a stupid child’, I’m not all that surprised.
It’s in her first two days off that she meets Alan Royce, who is taking one of her housemates out for a drive but helpfully stays to fix the boiler. He’s a handsome young pilot by the way, and I’m sure he won’t be an important character or anything.
Spoke too soon... She gets appointed Stewardess on his plane and has to bring him coffee. We also discover that in their stayovers in South America, the stewardesses are put up at a ‘second class hotel’ and the pilots get the ‘Pink Paradise Hotel’ which has its own beach, shops, restaurants and hairdressers. But it’s okay though, guys, because all the hotels have wide, open patios ‘where drinks are served by white-coated coloured waiters’.
Thankfully, that’s about as wince-inducing as the book gets on that front, but let’s move on anyway.
Ann flies some more, has to look after tropical fish on board and small children and manages very well and then - DRAMA - she is posted to jets, which as you know are the very latest in aviation inventions. Also - MORE DRAMA - one of the other stewardesses whose mother doesn’t approve of her career because she’s posh gets engaged to a pilot who turns out to be the son of Sir Denby Howlett so her mother’s totally okay with it - THUS ENDETH THE POTENTIAL DRAMA, and all in three paragraphs.
It turns out this was just a prelude though to the super dramatic final two chapters - where Ann nurses a dying passenger over the whole of the Atlantic Ocean and then on the same trip Alan-the-future-husband-what-you-know-he-will-be has to perform a crash landing in Bermuda when ‘the under carriage won’t lock down’, whatever that means (there’s no pictures).
It’s tense stuff. Luckily Alan flew bombers in the RAF during World War Two - something we handily only learn now - so he’s probably going to be fine.
He is! HUZZAH. And because this is BRITISH World Airways, it doesn’t matter that the plane is listing on a 45 degree angle on the tarmac after a crash landing, Ann goes right ahead getting coats and bags down for her passengers and tells them breakfast is waiting for them in the airport restaurant.
The book ends then after their return to London and, in a genuinely shock twist, Alan DOES NOT propose. Colour me surprised. I’m fairly sure it’s in the offing though, there’s a lot of hand holding and meaningful looks going on in the cockpit of the plane.
Instead we get Ann realising how much she loves her job, to which I say PHEW and long may she enjoy it.
As they stood up to collect their things, she told herself almost fiercely, hugging the knowledge to her like a new possession: “This is where I belong. I really am part of it now. I’ve sort of ‘earned my wings.’”
THE END.
Coming up next on: Sally Reads Random Stuff - Margaret Becomes a Doctor by Joan Llewelyn Owens.