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Hazel Eaton
A Real Careers Officer - A Winner in the Wirral
I met Hazel Eaton for the first time in the summer of 1949. Interviewing candidates for eight post of District Youth Employment Officer needed for the service I was committed to instigate for Cheshire Education committee on 4th October 1949 . She was a teacher who had taken the first one-year post-graduate training course for Y.E.O.s at Lamorbey Park in Kent . She was appointed to Wirral District based in Bebington.
Within six months it was apparent that we had a winner in the Wirral. Alderman Eaton (no relation, he told everybody) had been chairman of the Ministry of Labour Youth Employment Committee and was subsequently appointed Chairman of the Cheshire District Committee. At its first meeting he told me pointedly 'The County can't manage this - they'll fall down on it!' Six months later he was big enough to admit he was wrong and that 'her service was already outstanding.' That quiet tenacity and ability to get on with people was beginning to make its mark in the Wirral.
Her colleagues soon valued her contributions at out monthly meetings on the philosophy, practice and presentation of a Careers Guidance Service in Cheshire . Hazel not only raised most of the questions for discussion, she suggested ideas for solutions. The Service to schools and employers (and we had some very good examples of both) grew side by side with the Cheshire Alternative courses and the Industrial Training Boards.
Then in July 1953 Hazel and Tony Exton, Careers Master at Caldy Grange Grammar school , held their first Careers Convention at the school. Some representatives of the industry, commerce and the professions were invited for the afternoon and evening sessions to be available for consultations by boys of thirteen and their parents with teachers also being available in each classroom.
The first programme showed just a simple list of names. Within two years of the County Education Committee had approved a policy offering Cheshire schools a Careers Convention every two years, organised by the school concerned and Y.E.S and including a meal between the afternoon and evening sessions for all involved. This allowed opportunity for networking between school staff, consultants and us in the Y.E.S., who would also prepare the pupils beforehand.
A card index of some two thousand consultants was soon established - it would be called a database nowadays - for the twenty or thirty conventions we organised each year. Hazel's idea proved an excellent starting point for disseminating careers information.
In the Local Government Act 1972 Chester was absorbed into Cheshire and luckily for them, Hazel transferred into the newly-enlarged service in charge of the Chester District, retiring from that post in 1976.
Hazel was also busy in other fields, primarily as Soroptomist and served as a Chairman of the North-West branch of the Institute of Careers Guidance . She had long been involved in the United Nations Association since it was set up in 1945. She joined the Bebington (Wirral) branch and subsequently held office as Chairman and Secretary. She was also involved with the Merseyside region and for her work with the UNA she was made a Life Member in 1995. Among other things she, with others, organised fundraising concerts at Eaton Hall ( Chester ) Tirley Garth Tarporley ( Cheshire ), and Burton Manor (Wirral).
For over forty years, Hazel organised a very popular inter-schools quiz for sixth formers in state and independent secondary schools In the Wirral and Ellesmere Port areas, which was an excellent way of publicising the work of the United Nations.
She was also an active member of the Bebington United Reform Church and served as an Elder. She died recently aged 90.
Mr V. B. Bray MBE
County Careers Officer, Cheshire 1949-1975
Fellow of the Institute
President of the National Association of Youth Employment Officers 1956-7 |