Being a student, as most people know, has a number of advantages. Look at Claire Hart for example (and who wouldn't want to in any case!). She manages to go to France every summer, live there for two months, and it costs no more than if she stayed at home in England. She stays with a French family, who have a daughter who exchanges with Claire and lives with her family in England for the same two months every year.
"It's a marvellous way of doing things,' says Claire. "The food's wonderful, I'm accepted as one of the family, and I improve my French without having to study at all. They have a big estate, some of it given over to vineyards, and I help out some of the time with the lighter work. If get bored with that, there's a good social life in the town a few kilometres away. And if I want to go off for a couple of days on my own, there's nothing to stop me.
She told us she isn't really bothered about what she'll do when she leaves university. She'll have a good education and she'll be able to pick and choose. But nothing too restrictive or dull; routine jobs aren't for a girl like her. "Maybe I'll try translation work, as a freelance. That'd be a good start. could find my way into films, something like that . . .'
Students these days tend to be unhappy with the world they live in, and protest about it. But Claire has the answer, and it doesn't involve any demonstrations or sit-ins. If she's happy with the way she's living, it's because she's the sort of girl who doesn't take things sitting down; she gets up, goes out and changes her life so it suits her the way she wants it. Whether she goes into films or anything else, we're sure she's the kind who'll go far.
Mustang No 3 - 1967
