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June Gil//son
• June Gilliam has every reason to smile. She has just achieved a lifelong ambition. June is the transport manager of Quaker Oats Ltd and she says that for as long as she can remember she has wanted to hold such a position in transport.
While still a pupil at Gypsy Valley, Secondary School in Surrey she was tinkering about with her father's car, and showed not only an active but an intelligent interest in the mechanical side. However, when June left school she drifted into an office job with the Legal and General Assurance Company working as a junior clerk. After three years of this fairly routine work she began her climb in the world of transport by taking an appointment with a Ford dealer in Carshalton. This was possibly a very sound basis for her present role since she was dealing with the spare parts' stores; she now, therefore, appreciates the problems from both sides of a store's counter.
June's next move was to the Rank Organization where she worked as a clerk in the transport department and eventually became a transport section leader responsible for 500 vehicles.
She graduated to Rank's central transport administrative section and was involved in the company's transport purchasing policy. Now, at Quaker Oats June runs the whole show. She talks knowledgeably of transport matters and is desperately keen to hear the views of her contemporaries. But she finds that some of her male counterparts find difficulty in accepting her for what she is — a transport manager.
It would not have been surprising if 26-year-old June had been a women's liberationist, happily this is not the, case. She feels there is much more to be gained by being a feminist, but she does become disturbed at the thought that she may enjoy some special privileges because she is a female in what is almost exclusively a man's world.
She likes fast cars but points out that she cannot yet afford one; she enjoys show jumping and is a horsewoman. Next winter she hopes that the London Transport Managers' Club will accept her application for membership. I.S.