The Guardian from London, Greater London, England • 11

Friday April 30 1971 11 WOMAN'S GUARDIAN ITIln 5 3nso Maflefl5ime MARY STOTT meets the first woman's editor of the Guardian who began the woman's page in 1922 "3 ANN SHEARER Poititefl flaeaMSi Guttditn fuhion of Iht trntiet i drtumi hy Sdrlnr. matter." Pause for reflecting that most people move to the right as they grow older and that the "Guardian," after all, is the Guardian." Then, emphatically. "I hkc iour 1'npe. Though 1 can't say 1 like all our regulars." Inquiries as to who is who, and then agreement that thought attitudies in the sevenues are different from attitudes in the twenties and thirties. The aim ol the women's page, to interest intelligent women, has never changed.

To go back to the beginning, then. Miss Linford arrived as a girl in Cross Street in October. 1913. as an assistant in the display advertisement office. She was lent to Mr W.

P. Crozier, then news editor, later editor, as a temporary and stayed in the editorial department where she was the only woman right up to 1944 when Mary Crozier joined the staff. No need, like Dorothy Parker, to put a notice Men on her door. They all popped in and out to see her. and she found her isolation among a staff of brilliant men exhilarating and tremendous fun.

It was in 1922 that the directors discussed the idea of a page for women, put forward hy T. Hobhouse. C. K. Montague opposed it.

"He couldn't see that It wouid be of any interest to intelligent women No one said as much, hut Miss Linford was well aware that a women's page was attractive to advertisers. No concessions C. P. Scott's directive to Miss Linford was terse. I was just told that it would start on such and such a date, that it would consist of three columns, on six days a week, and that I was to give birth to it and nurture it.

My briefing was lucid and firm. The page must be readable, varied, and always aimed at the intelligent woman." Sho was also told that there must be no concessions to popular jargon, slang, or colloquialisms. These might make an occasional and startling appearance in the leader columns, hut not on the women's page. And colloquialisms. In C.

P. Scott, included "pram." "chic," "modish," and ensemhle Mention of names of manufacturers and stockists was also forbidden. with the result that Miss Linford, who had for names never appeared In the Guardian of those days many pieces for the women's page and those memorable hack-page essays. She has a Life of Mary Wolstonecraft to her name and a couple of early novels. So why since she left Manchester has she written nothing more important than reports for the Westmorland Ga7ette" and a few "Guardian" women's page articles in the fifties and early sixties When she retired, A P.

Wadsworth, the then editor, said Why so excellent a writer should have given it up for rather humdrum administrative work, I dop't know, hut I think it was a loss to literature." Baby weighing There were a few things about Misa Linford that Mr Wadsworth didn't understand. One was that she thoroughly enjoyed the organisation of the page. Another was that she belonged to the generation that took if for granted they should engage in social work, and that this was very important to her. In her early days she was roped in hy the office wives, notahly Mrs E. T.

Scott, for weighing babies at the School for Mothers in Hulme. (The thought is inescapable: Could Mrs Alastair Hethertngton put similar pressure on Hella Pick. Judy Hillman. Jill Tvveedie. and Mary and or Catherine Stnlt?) Miss Linford joined the WRVS in 1939 and spent the war years manning a civil defence post from 12 noon to 4 pm and then doing a night's work.

Ry the end of the war she was tired, hut she has never given up her voluntary activities and has worked steadfastly for the United Nations Association snd the WRVS. It was the Guardian she gave up. She remained in charge of pirtures hut when women's features crept into the nt'Mpai-r agun after their wartime banishment, she did not resume the women's editorship. And she had, after all, completed 40 years. In her farewell speech in 1953 she said: "I am very sorry to say goodbye to a great many of you." In April, 1971, she said For threequarters of my time in Cross Street I was passionately happy." What about the rest of the people and the rest of the time-' That is a question a reserved, reticent elderly lady does not answer.

only half the services of a secretary, had to answer all the readers' inquiries herself. During all the 17 years Miss Linford edited the women's page she had help neither from above nor below. No one else saw the copy before it was set in type. I don't think they read it." she said with that swift, ironical smile. (Though there was one occasion, she confessed many years ago, when a headline was altered.

She guessed it carried an improper second meaning, but no one ever told her why, nor did she ask. Nor did she ever hear an Improper word in all her 40 years at thp Guardian." Things were different then Why was the young secretary-turned-reporter entrusted with the new women's page Probably because her reports from war-devastated Europe in 1919 made such an impression. The Manchester Guardian helped to raise a great deal of money for the Society of Friends' mission to war victims and Madeline Linford was sent out to sec how it was being spent. She travelled dangerously through France, Poland, and Austria. The White Russians and the Rolshcviks were still fighting in Poland and typhus was raging.

Three members of the Friends Mission died of it. Going to Warsaw I was locked in a first-class compartment with one man for 11 hours. There was no heat or light on the train and it went dark very early. It never occurred to me to he nervous either for my virtue, which didn't matter all that much, or of the fact that I was carrying a good deal of money on me which would have been a fortune in Polish rurrenry at tho time. We arrived at Warsaw at 2 am and I had to wake up French soldiers who were sleeping on the platform to get them to interpret for me.

On the journey from Warsaw to Vienna the train was so packed that I sat fur 24 hours my enmpartment. with only a Hh-hlock of chocolate to eat. I did think ahout investigating the sanitary facilities, hut believe it or not, I didn't st ir." When Miss Linford made a second trip, to Cologne. Rerlin, and Warsaw. C.

P. Scott insisted she should have a woman escort. She was also insured for 2,000 against typhus. Rut her salary stayed at 30s a week-. She never went abroad for the newspaper again, but she wrote! as M.A.L., of course.

MISS MADELINE LINFORD Is a quiet elderly, retired lady living in a quietly furnished first floor flat in a quiet road in Wi.idermere. In the well-proportioned sitting room there is a collection of Royal Copenhagen china figurines. On a bedroom chest there is a collection of photographs of nieces and nephews, great nieces and great nephews. Miss Linford goes often to coffee mornings and out to afternoon tea, and takes lunch every day with friends at a small restaurant where they get special rates because thev are regulars. She changes her frequently, biographies and historv, at the public library.

She is a little bowed, a little stiff in her movements now she is in her seventies, and she is beginning to shed some of her committees and become hooked on television. The essential maiden aunt living on memories and visits from younger relations Those fine dark eyes, which anyone who ever knew her must remember, would flash with sardonic amusement at the idea. Mis Linford, in fact, was one of the most remarkable newspaper women of her day. the creator, in the Manchester Guardian of the first women's page for the intellectual woman, and probably the first woman to he pictures editor of a national newspaper. She retired prematurely, in 1953, so has been living the Lake District for as many-years as she was editor of the women's page.

Rut any fear that she might gently have drifted away from it all was dissipated at once. The Guardian lay on the sofa. "No. I haven't shed it. 1 read it with great interest and affection and I always stand up for it.

1 watch to see how many people are reading it." Nor has she shed that mixture of tart honesty, reserve. and well-bred reticence which made her a little awe-inspiring to younger women journalists when she was in Manchester. "There are some things I don't like about the little things like putting the Rirths, Marriage-, and Deaths on page four. I don't always agree with the views the leader columns. I got terribly tired of the Labour Government I've got no tune for Wilson, though 1 can't say I'm enamoured of this lot.

either. "The 'Guardian' takes a more left wing view than I do. But it doesn't JOHH ARIOXT Jenny Abutter, aged 18, Roberta in "The Railway Children," has been named most promising actress of the year by the Variety Club of Croat Hritain. She has bern in films since she was 11 and last month appeared in "The Wild Duck" on television. She talks to MICHAEL BEHR about growing up in the film world.

Wnime ttSjjN Picture ef Jenny Agutter hy Michael Barrett WHAT. IN OUR drug-laden Western societies, do we tell the children bout their use and abuse? We're used enough in this country to the Jmase of parents lighting a cigarette snd pouring a stiff drink, the better to tackle their children about the smoking of pot. In America, the pharmaceutical industrv has got together with the School Health Association on a rather more thorough attempt than that, and their guide for teachers is just coming up to the end of its first year in the schools. It may sound a bit suspicious, this alliance of a notoriously profit-based Industry with a non-profit making body of teachers and administrators. But they report nothing but good reaction to Teaching about Drugs Some 3S.O0O copies are already in the nation's schools.

The guide and it's not meant to he more than that starts in the kindergarten and ends with high-school leavers, and a pretty thorouch document it is too. It emphasises, and surely rightly, that ou can only teach about drugs in the content of a complete health education programme, and says fairlv firmlv that schools which haven't got one yet should get cracking before thrv lisp the guide. Health" interpreted the widest World Health Organisation fashion. 5o emotional factors get at least as a billing as pharmacological snes. The guide ends up.

in fact, as a basis for individual living Razor blades You start in kindergarten with the Idea that even the water we drink and the air we breathe has an effect on health, and you work upwards from there Don't plav with razor blades, fireworks, garbage dumps, or strangers who offer on candy. Ask your unfortunate parents what they do to promote good health, and count the medicines in the cupboard at home: if they haven't taken the hint hy now and Mill puf kerosene in the old cola bottles, play poisoning games, evamine milk cartons for evidence of safety and pasteurisation. By the time you reach primary achool, you're already set to become a clean consumer and ready for more information aboi.t drugs 'them-solve. you learn the difference between prescription and. nonprescription medicines, and to evaluate the advertising claims of the second You learn the law on drugs, but you also begin to wonder why so many people drink so much coffee.

You start to think about there lemg more positive was of dealing with grief, on snd disappointment than taking drugs, and that there may be times when you don't dn what your friends do because ou think it's sophisticated. The virtues of responsibility are introduced help yo-ir famiiv, do sour homework help jour friends if 'thev have problems. W.i: Your Health Affect Your Success discuss. In early adolescer.ee. responsibility for oneself becomes a stronger theme the importance of knowing when to lead and when foil ow, nat constitutes a coon relationship with parents and friend, and a "wholesome one w.th the opposite cx.

You're ready an ess3y on How activities in my south may affect my future I fe." and ou discuss the control of anger and frar. and concern for others. On the drug scene itself, you're growing your nan pemcill.n. and taking trips to your neighbourhood pharmaceutical firm to learn about growing vaccines. There's a straight run-down now on the working of drugs of abuse, with a catalogue of the effects, from euphoria to sometimes death, and the s.Tial, physical, anil problems they can bring their wake.

A social worker come: in to tell you about rehabilitation work with sdlicts, and yru have a session on how to communicate problems; if th.s doesn't work, there's always the strictlv confidential questions box at the end of the classroom. Drop-outs In later adolescence, you're ready for consideration of the widespread place of drugs iri society. Why do people leave the doctor expect.ng to bear a prescription with them? What are the chemical additives in food? Is drug dependancc to be tolerated in terminal illness? You enter the pot debate and your teacher has the help of an essay at the bark of the which gives a complete rundown of the pros and cons, ending up saving we haven't even decided yet whether to spell it marijuana or marihuana, far less whether to legalise it. You discuss why a com-minity protests against having a centre for addicts in its midst, and on to talk about values, personal pcais. drop-outs, aud responsibl citizens.

Ail this, and much more too. The pressure to conformity may be a little appalling, and the twin virtues of Health and Success ironical in a s-iety where if you don't have the Fcond. you're virtually guaranteed to be able to buy the first But there a lot of good the guide, re-ertheless The drug industry in th cour.try is basking in its coilearues' social responsibility at the imment, but fcs sent copies of "Teaching About Drugs" to the Health Education Council snd the pnper Government departments. So far no comment But think how you cojld weave in education about sex ari world population, about tha re.atiTish of poverty, housing con-dtins. and health, about our to deviance of sor's.

That be some start to an education. But would there be time for the exams We must mustn't wa, remember our teau do Sales, 1 05. Among eight of 16, at a few shillings more, they have the underestimated ChSteau Chasse Spleen, lB6fi (1.15). FA Vino offer two 1965 rhlteau-bottled dcuxitmcs c.rus, Chateaux I-ovillp Pnvfern and Hranc Cantenac at 125 and 1.30. As the price tells theso last two are not for laying down; they will not last but thev are reasonably priced and.

out of a generally poor year, distinguished light clarets to drink now. A do7en or two Chateau Plaisance 1966 94p) from Peter Oominir would hr a sound buy and thev will live a year or two. He might try half bottles or Chateau Pichnn Iingueville Lalande 19R1 (TylersVictoria 71jp) or Lafite 19RI) (Ucvenisli 1.10). For his burgundies he would look to Layton's (H Place, Ki: 1). Santenay le Passotomps 3 907 (1) or a splendid bargain a domaine bottled Vosnc Kntnanfe les Malcon.sorLs lfir at 1.75.

Peter Dominic have a Pierre Picard Beaune 19P.7 at 1 and a 19l6 Pommard at 1.10: both well worth drinking. Tipplers are a problem if you believe wine belongs with food. Two distinguished journalists of my acquaintance make a regular evening or a bottle of first-class vintage claret with cigarettes remarkable. Not too acid, not too delicate, seems the tippling prescription like the fruity, fresh Bnurgogne Aligotft (Berry Brothers and Kudri, ROp) or a Loire Muscadet (Devenish 92p) among white wines. Of the reds the host might well he the burgundies the young Brouilly 19(i'J of Amance, 90 or the tni" "vin de l'annee." KtMiijuirtis Noiivcaii S7p, both from Lavtons; or Khrmanns (21 Grafton Street.

1) have a 1970 St. Amour for 1.10. For my wealthy host to serve now avoiding the savagely overprice! "name" wines and leaving the great 19fils time to reach their peak undis-turhed Chateau Margaux and Mouton Rothschild I960 (,1 and 3.25); Chateaux Cheval Blanc, Ausxinp, and Latour all or (2 90. 3. and from Bcrrv are princely wines.

In the Peter Dominic list there is a generous Pimiernl ChSteau la Con-aeillante I960 (2.12p) and three wines of 19B2. costly because little mire diiting'Msherttw ran hi hought anywhere Chateaux Ausone (3.10), Cheval Blanc (3.40), and retrti (4.65). RACING AND wine tipsters have different problems: the hnrse-doper's task mav hp more difficult but al least he knows exactly what information is wanted of him. In the last three weeks four people who asked to bp guide I to wines "to suit me" had completely contrasting needs. One is an habitual wine dnnkrr lie and his wife lake a hottle always with their evening meal and often at midday his neighbour drinks less but regards Ins p.iiale religiously a half hottlp with dinner three times a week, bottles for a dinner party the third is a winp tippler, development from the English pub halul.

All three basically want to maintain their accustomed standards of quality, yet to keep their drinking hiidget stable in a world of rising prices The last man has no financial anxieties; he is a whisky-drinker with no interest in wine and no palate, but aomc of his guests have he likes to please and impress them, so one occasionally of their number must bo happy to help. The regular wine man, anxious tn huy his wreklv dozen-plus of French table wine at less than 10. must go for those from reliable shippers, bottled in Kngland. There are several as one always satisfied and sometimes delighted by Calve! nrdinaires it sterns fair to direct him there. Their Vieux Bordeaux is an honest claret at 73p a bottle: Maison Calvpt, a red burgundy at H7p and Macon Villages, a clean, simple, white hurgundy for fiOp.

They can all be bought In Long's Wine Shops. Devenish put out a Leheguo Mrilnr at 7fip. Tylers a Bordeaux Rouge at (iflp. This man, though, ilkp many uliieis, nugiil Ik consider economising on his aperitifs. The quality conscious drinker who drank the premiers, deuxiemes and troisieme rrus or the Mednc a few vears ago now wants good wine under less famous names; in the field of claret his demand can be met.

Berry Rrolhers and Rudd, for all the lofty, old-world manner of their shop In St Street, are as astute spotters of clarets as any wine merchants in the world At less than 1 (their 5 per tent discount on a doren bottles brings in nlhers) thev offer some worthwhile London-bottled items. Three of I9fil now ready are Le Vieux Moulin (SOri), ''nSirsus Lr.rnv.ir. (BSp). and Larguet 105: of 1962. Chateau Couvent des 1, and a generously rounded Pomerol, Cha IT'S A SORT OF complete life of it's own on a film." said Jenny.

Agutter. A very strange life, because you're very close to a lot of people for a ceriain amount of time and everything revolves round what you're doing. And suddenly it all ends and you sav goodbye. No, you don't keep in touch with everybody perhaps with Just a few. Most of my friends are in the circle of film-makers well, I haven't really met manv other people, except for girls at school.

I don't go to parties a great deal I don't really enJo them verv much. I love going out with people I know. Rut parties are just sort of 'talking', and you misunderstand people, and get their names wrong. It's even worse when vou go to a showbiz party and ynu kind of 'half know' the people there, and you don't remember in time if it's just someone you've seen on television or something, or someone vou've actually worked with. I love everything about filming if 1 wasn't acting I'd like to he doing something el.e in films.

I'd love to direct in a small way 8-mill even, just so as tn create one's own film. Or failing that, something on the design side. I find it all fascinating I think the point is there's so much to discuss, when you're working, compared with any of the other arts. I enjoy gom? tn the theatre, it's lovely watching real people on the stage but with film you're presenting more than just the actors playing scenes you're presenting a picture, with shapes and forms and ideas and impressions of people. And the colours.

And the way it's all put together. You're quite simply painting a picture that moves." Dawning sexuality In "I Start Counting" Jenny was fraught little girl getting her first twinges of dawning sexuality. It's the thing of being slightly inhibited and aware of your movements and things, and you don't quite know what to do with vourself. You go tn pick up a cup and vou knock it over, and you do all sorts of terribly clumsy things. You've just begun to grow taller and vou're slightlv lanky or something" and you haven't got complete control of your movements.

I suppose thp main thing Is gotting confused about ideas. You're just beginning to think about different things. Say you've got a subject, and you're trying to thing about it. It's like with a part you're learning, if you've got a basic idea about it (whether it's right or wrong), whatever you learn afterwards you can put it on top of that. So until you get a firxt idea, you've got nothing to go back on and work it out with, so you get sort of vague and your mind goes off in different tangents." She reckons that she was quite an extrovert up to the age of nine, when she first went to boarding school.

Now she prefers quieter people. She says the hearty men of Australia, where she worked four months on "Walkabout." were absolutely what she didn't like. No. she wouldn't have dreamt of snubbing them, she sajs. and anyway with that sort of character they don't tend to see very far anyway, so whatever you did wouldn't be terriby noticed it's difficult to relate to people when there's a resistance, a sort of self thing, in them.

Which did she think she was. a I only when the thought has arrived and you can see it behind her eyes. In performance she has the asset of making the dialogue seem speondarv not npressanly an advantage If she ever comes tn attempt classical parts Even so the features have ail the marks of Inquanty, from the unrecessed eyes to the Vigorous mouth. And her body speaks in movement rather than gesture, (she was once a champion swimmer and thp skin-flick bathing sequence in "Walkabout" is very classy indeed). Added up, the total explains some of her effectiveness srreen acting, where immediacy is all.

She was not quite nine In 1960 when the famous uns.gned, reticent noti'-e appeared in the "Times," dryly heralding L'Avventura as the "literature of the future She and the new language grew up together. She's lucky'. She speaks it wlL to one point of view. There are to many different ways one could go one ought to be open to any sort of change that's going to happen." Jenny gets recognised a bit now in thp street. Is that nue? "Yes," she says, seriously and politely.

But she's pretty sceptical about the film-star bit. There aren't star; now she thinks they're more like experts who are judgpi with great exactness on each thing they do. And there's a lot of possibility of artistic failure, whereas the stars were forgivpn and loved for their failures You begin to see how it could all quieten a girl down. And, she savs. an additional challenge was having to cope with adult experts in the game of human relationships while her -rontemporanes were banging about happily on the tennis court.

She thinks her way through a eonvrat on in the same way, she thinks through a scene speaking girl or a woman She fieided neatly and with dignity. I'm still changing I haven't enough information to have formed opinions yet. There's still a great deal to learn. I suppose I mean I'm no: totally decided about the sort of things I want to do But then I suppose the whole of life is a process of changing I don't think one should ever get set, or confined.