WE would like to wish a very happy New Year to all our friends, both old and new, in schools and colleges throughout East Lancashire. Now is the time for looking forward, and older pupils may be thinking about life after school with all the exciting prospects of training and careers - but which one to choose? One of the best ways to find out about a job is, of course, to ask someone who is doing it. So a couple of Nelson students decided to get the low-down on a high-flying career by interviewing a former student from their school, Alex Prest, who at that time was an air stewardess with Airtours. Rachel Higgins and Michelle Buckingham, year 9 pupils at Edge End High School, sent us a copy of their question and answer session showing that the job is not all glamour:

Q. What does an air hostess do?

A. My main responsibility is to look after the safety of passengers. This involves knowing about fire safety, advanced first aid and general passenger care.

Q. Why did you become an air hostess?

A. Mainly to travel. I like working with people and it is nice to get the duty frees.

Q. What qualifications do you need for your job?

A. To apply for the job you need five GCSE's with good grades, especially in English and maths. You should also have a language. In addition, you need to be able to swim at least 25 metres and have a good personality.

Q. What type of training do you have to do?

A. I trained for the Boeing 767, which carries 320 passengers, and also the Airbus A320, which carries 180 people. We have six weeks training with five of the weeks in the classroom. I learned everything from looking after the bar to all the passenger services and fire safety training. We had to watch horrible videos of major plane disasters and go into a smoke-filled chamber to rescue a dummy. Then we went to Heathrow Airport to learn how to evacuate a plane and had training in using life rafts. Q. What are the best and worst parts of your job?

A. The best part is seeing people satisfied with the service and going to interesting places such as Las Vegas. The worst part has to be dealing with awkward or sometimes violent passengers. It's not really a glamorous job and can be quite lonely.

Q. Do you suffer from jet lag?

A. I am not so bad going west, but travelling east is hard work.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.