MISS SPARKS

New Zealand Listener, Volume 25, Issue 631, 3 August 1951, Page 19

MISS SPARKS

¢C TN Norwegian ships now there are many of us," said the tall, slender, grey-eyed girl with the pretty smile. The. Listener, Molly McNab, and a microphone were in a sunny cabin, marked "Supercargo," where Molly was recording an interview with the cabin’s occupant, the radio operator of the Vilja. Three years ago, this 19-year-old Norwegian girl, her training course at the Marine Radio Operators’ School in Oslo just. completed, rang her home in Narvik and said, "I am going to sail the seas tomorrow." Since then Bodil Akeroy has been all over the world, mostly in the Vilja, a 10,000-ton Norwegian motor vessel at present running between New Zealand and Nauru on a two-year char-

ter. On this particular morning the -Vilja was discharging phosphate with the assistance of a bulldozer that was working sixty feet down in the ship’s hold. When Bodil Akeroy (who learnt English at school) became a_ student at the Seamen’s School in Oslo, there were only 13 girls in the class. That year, because of the shortage of skilled operators after the war, girls were admitted to the radio operator’s course for the first time. All 13 held Norway’s equivalent of our University Entrance. As ship’s radio operator, Bodil*Akeroy works the regular eight-hour watch — two hours on, two hours off-from 8.0 am. to 10.0 p.m., with eight hours free in one watch. "That is when I sleep," she said, adding that an auto-alarm keeps watch when she is off duty, and in the oe

event of picking up another ship’s distress signal, rings in her cabin. On duty at sea, Bodil wears slacks or shorts. She | is a good. sailor-"I have never once been seasick." Since the war, when 52 ships were sunk in the harbour, her home town of. Narvik has been completely rebuilt. Today, there are more houses than ever before, and Narvik now handles a much greater bulk of ore from Sweden than in pre-war days. Clothing and coffee are still rationed in Norway, Bodil Akeroy told. The Listener. New Zealand’s South Island reminds this young Norwegian of her homeland, though in the cities there most people live in huge blocks of comfortable, modern flats. "Norway is almost only mountains and snow," she said. "In Narvik, in winter, I put on my skis right outside my hack door. For three months in the year we do not see the sun at all-but after all, in summer time we have the midnight sun."