1:55pm Wednesday 8th November 2006
By Leigh Robinson
THERE was practically a ban on English at the Marriott when French was the language for the Swindon Advertiser and the hotel's business person of the month.
The French connection came from Bertrand Dijoux, the hotel's general manager, the hotel's operations manager Loic Feron and this month's recipient of the month, Hafida Sarachi, whose family come from north Africa - and they were able to enjoy the language of their heart.
Bertrand is originally from Reunion, an island close to Mauritius; Hafida comes from Algeria, while Loic is the only native-born French person.
Hafida has only been in business for a matter of months but it's been long enough to win the Marriott Hotel/Swindon Advertiser monthly award.
Early in the year she gave up a high-flying job to start up Handygirl - a business which does work inside and outside the house - from her home in Wootton Bassett.
And the business has just got better and better.
"I'd had enough of broken promises from incompetent tradesmen who did lousy work on my own home," she said.
"I thought there's got to be something wrong if I can't do a better job than them and so I have proved them right.
"It all started with doing work on my own home and from that friends asked me to do work for them and it's just gone from there."
Before this business, Hafida, who is fluent in three languages and has an honours degree in computer sciences, was a trilingual consultant in Reading.
She has also found with her new job that she is welcomed in the homes of the elderly as people tend to trust a woman more than a man.
"You see in the papers where older people are pressurised into work that they don't really want by cowboy builders," she said.
"It might be sexist to say so but women communicate better than men and we are certainly less threatening in the building world.
"My company is all about turning a house into a home. We offer home repairs and other services and we cater for improvements to all properties.
"HandyGirl can also advise, install and support your home computer on various IT issues."
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