Reviews

More on wives

Thanks to the 24 people (including two from the BMJ 's editorial office) who applied for the job of my wife (BMJ 2000;321:1421). Thanks, too, to the (female) consultant surgeon who wrote in asking for names of any promising applicants that I didn't appoint.

The job's gone, to a fine individual from a former Soviet bloc country whom the agency described as "a most mature, most experienced lady." Indeed she is, and for an embarrassingly small sum she cooks, cleans, keeps house, and takes my children back and forth from school on the 143 bus.

The agency's answer to Mary Poppins is strong on elbow grease and maternal charm but speaks not a word of English. She attended for interview with a friend from the same eastern European country who had been here for four years and whose English was near perfect. We went round the house listing the tasks to be done daily, and together they took the opportunity to give me a few lessons in the finer points of cleaning.

"Missy will need Jif, Flash, Mr Sheen," she began. "Shower Shine to stop this . . ."running her finger down the murky glass"new mop-head, and big dusters: the small ones no good, no good." I made notes.

"For the toilet, I can see you clean it this way. . . ."she seized the loo brush and demonstrated, correctly, the way I go round the lavatory pan. "But is better to do it like this"on her knees now, vigorously scrubbing in a direction that was clearly more efficient. I thanked her, thinking, we're all expert at something.

Two weeks into the job, we invited our new housekeeper to stay to supper. With the help of a dictionary she explained why she and her friend had left their own young sons to come and look after the likes of mine. Since the break up of the Soviet Union, when hundreds of factories closed overnight, unemployment in their country had soared and wages plummeted. Previously middle class families were now living in extreme poverty. Even when jobs were available, professional salaries were often lower than manual ones.

I asked what jobs they had done before they came to England. She had been a teacher. And the friend? A doctor. Very clever, best in her year. But with two young children she could not manage on a doctor's salary. Another three years of cleaning toilets in London and she would be back in time to send them off to university.

Trisha Greenhalgh, general practitioner. 

London