NHEMP
CONSUMING INTEREST
Help Wanted
By LESLIE ADRIAN
WIZEN mum has the flu (A, B or just the usual), and junior decides to ac- company her with the measles, what dad does is to stay home in these ser- vantless, family-divided days and try to cope. Till the boss decides that his need is the greater and any- way he's paying, when dad either tries a long shot and or puts in belatedly for a asks mother-in-law, week off.
There are a few other answers, and one of them is a newish outfit called Problem (20 Grosvenor Gardens, London, SW1; TATe Gallery 8181), founded about two years ago by a Canadian, Garran Patterson, fed up with poor service and shoddy goods in Britain, a woman solicitor (one of Britain's 500), Robina Lund, and a handful of like-minded, lively characters, who now find themselves solving problems for Mrs. Patrick Wymark (unspecified : John Wilder?) and a bunch of other celebrated clients. . At their invitation, I plunged them into a family-sickness-with-dad-commuting-to-the-City situation and they come up with full marks. My guinea-pig paterfamilias commented: 'If you must have a zebra by eight o'clock next morn- ing they will do their best to get it for you, but no one ever needed a camel or a kangaroo as badly as we needed the cheerful, competent girl who came for two weekends and coped unruffled with the baby, the meals, two patients, the phone, the door, Grandad's yarns, and packing off an older child, spick and span, to a friend's party. She even helped with the Christmas decorations.'
This family had tried the local authority's home-help service (which costs from nothing to 5s. 6d. an hour, according to income). The doctor's certificate was easy to get, but it proved impossible to get a live home help. They were mostly involved in maternity cases, which take precedence, and the local organisers arc in- clined to believe that a resident elderly parent should be able to cope anyway. They work office hours, 9 a.m.-5 p.m. and weekdays only. The toughest hours for a housewife tend to be 7-9 a.m. and 4-8 p.m. But when the home helps do come, they calmly take over and run the household in every detail.
Domestics Unlimited (426 Harrow Road. W9; CUNningham 0461) is not a problem-solving agency, but more of an employment bureau. Users tell me that the charge is about 9s. an hour, plus fares, and that beyond the range of the London Underground network the agency cannot find many students and part-timers to send. Universal Aunts (36 Walpole Street, King's Road, SW3; SLOane 9834) run a 'proxy parent service' for ten guineas a week, which generally has to be booked in advance, but we are willing to try if there is an emergency,' they say. Their mothers' help department charges 5s.-6s. an hour and expenses. or L5-£6 a week for a resident girl. However, in a crisis a friend discovered that help from them was rarely available outside Central London.
Local domestic agencies can sometimes help, but for the most part they are not interested in temporary, emergency arrangements, even when their advertisements imply that they are. With Problem, no such obstacles seem to lie in the way of prompt and intelligent succour, but they expect an annual subscription of five guineas a year, which could be a worthwhile investment. London Household Services, about whom I once wrote glowingly in this column, have changed hands and, apparently, habits. I found them in their heyday invaluable in this emergency-strewn metropolis, where usually help can be had only during daylight and on week- days, when it is least wanted. I note that they now operate an emergency service through SOS Home Services Ltd. (BATtersea 1133), which has radio-controlled vans.
Meanwhile, Problem are filling the gap and, if my experiment is any evidence, filling it capably. They will fetch your lost luggage from the bus deplit, scrub your house out on a Sun- day or decorate a room, do a conversion job on an outhouse or buy equipment for you and handle all the complaints with the makers, if necessary. Their baby-sitters are claimed to be the cheapest in London. All members benefit under a £100,000 personal liability insurance policy and can buy everything from wine to wardrobes at a discount. Services are free to members, but additional expenses are charged. They get you the theatre tickets, but you pay for them. But they can get you an airline book- ing in the middle of the night, when you might prefer to be asleep.
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