I swallowed back my tears and tried to ignore her.
In playground at lunchtime it was more of the same. They turned their noses up and marched past me, cackling.
“Stuck up cow,” one said with a laugh. “Who does she fink she is?”
I didn’t think I was anyone. I just wanted friends to play with.
It was a miserable time and I hated it. My old, safe, comfortable world seemed a million miles away. By the time the first school term ended, I was in a state of despair. I had made no real friends, showed no aptitude for learning, and was at a loss to know what to do with my life. Why couldn’t I be a clever bookworm like Kathleen?
“I don’t belong,” I wailed to Mother and Father one night as they attempted to explain a mathematical formula for what felt like the hundredth time. “I don’t understand it and I hate school.”
My head slumped into my hands as I sobbed. “I’m just a stupid, stupid dummy.”
Mother was horrified. “Of course you’re not, my darling,” she soothed. Gently she cupped my face in her hands and looked me right in the eyes. “You are different from Kathleen, it’s true, but you are just as clever as her in different ways. You have very good practical skills.”
I loved my mother for trying so hard to console me, but her assurances did nothing to ease my loneliness and sense of isolation.
I’ve purposely clung to this memory and the agony of feeling so desolate to remind myself what it is to be a child and feel out of your depth. All children, even those from the most secure and happy of households, feel low at times; and we must remember that their fears, however irrational, are very real to them. If any of my charges were miserable about something, I made sure never to dismiss their pain but instead to listen to their worries and to do whatever I could to ease their burden.
I’ve always made a point to ask my charges at the end of the day if there is anything that troubled them or worried them. Chances are, something will have and it will be something that can be so easily sorted.
Some children have a funny habit of holding on to little moments, pockets of pain, or irrational worries and storing them away to be worried over at a later day. Take time to dig out their fears and soothe them away.
I realize now that in some ways I was sad that my idyllic childhood was coming to an end. I was in that funny land straddling childhood and adolescence. Adulthood seemed like a bewildering, frightening place to be.
It was all right for Kathleen. She had just left home in a flurry of excitement to train as a midwife in London. But what was to be my purpose in life? What did my future hold?
Of that I wasn’t yet sure, but there was one thing I was certain of: I was going nowhere fast at the local county school. I was sick of feeling like the dummy, of being compared to my clever older sister, and tired of Father having to explain my homework to me over and over. By spring of that year I had made up my mind. I had turned sixteen by now; surely that meant I could decide my own fate?
I strode into school on Monday morning with fire in my belly.
Knocking on the headmistress’s door I politely requested a meeting.
I sat down and drew in a deep breath. “I think it’s time I left school,” I said.
The headmistress looked at me through her half-moon glasses and not unkindly replied, “But you have to take your exams, Brenda.”
Sitting up straight, I coughed nervously. “But what is the point? I don’t think I’ll pass.”
Headmistress sighed and removed her glasses. “Well,” she said finally, “I have to agree with you.”
What a blessed relief.
It was decided there and then that I should leave school with immediate effect. Walking out of the building, I felt an enormous burden lift from my shoulders.
Back at home, Mother wasn’t cross, just concerned about what I would do with my life.
“Oh darling,” she said with a sigh, “I wish you’d stayed on to take your exams, but I can’t say I’m surprised. We need to find you a job.”
Mother had seen my despair building, and I half wonder if a tiny bit of her wasn’t relieved. She was practical and good with her hands like me, and she could see I was drowning under all that homework.
But if I had thought I could sit around at home while I worked out what to do next, it seemed Mother had other ideas.
“I can stay here and help you look after David,” I protested.
“No,” she insisted, her voice turning a shade firmer. “You need to work.”
All too soon she had lined me up with a job, one that was to alter the course of my life forever. I was to be a mother’s help to Mrs. Ravenshere, who lived not far from us in a smart home in Byfleet in Surrey. She had two sons, aged eight and eleven, who attended Dulwich School as day boys. My duties included helping her to keep house, run errands, and help look after the boys when they returned from school. For that I was paid the princely sum of ten shillings a week. A pittance, really. I have never earned much money throughout my life, but then you don’t go into child care for the money, do you?
Mrs. Ravenshere didn’t work. I don’t suppose it occurred to anyone that she should, and while her husband was at work in the city and her children at school, every fiber of her being went into making that house a home. She was the very epitome of a homemaker. Every room in that house was immaculate. She would never have dreamed of letting her husband come home from work without finding his slippers laid out next to his pipe, a newspaper, and a glass of whiskey in the drawing room.
She poured her whole heart into that family and they loved her for it.
The boys adored it when they came home from school and found a fresh-baked sponge cake cooling on the countertop or clean socks warmed by the fire for them to change into. After she’d poured them milk, they would all sit round the kitchen table and she’d ask them what they’d learned that day. Her eyes never left theirs as they eagerly told her of cricket matches won and tricks played.
“Oh, you are quite brilliant boys.” She laughed gaily when they told her once about the time they’d been asked to captain their respective rowing teams or how nervous they’d been when they had to recite in front of the rest of the class. Her eyes shone with love as they chattered and wolfed down her cake. Of course, they never asked her about her day; it never occurred to them, nor to her to tell them about it. She just wanted to know every detail of their lives.
The man of the house never said more than he had to and locked himself away in his study as soon as he returned home. In many ways he was absent from their lives, so the boys looked to their mother for light and love.
I felt like a fly on the wall, watching this family play out their daily lives and interact with one another, but just studying them was teaching me so much.
I already knew from my own family how important a mother was to a home, but watching Mrs. Ravenshere and the huge daily effort she made to connect with her boys and the way she worshipped and loved them made me realize just how influential a mother is. How, with just one word or a smile, she had the power to bolster their egos and turn their worlds around. Because of her unrelenting love she made them feel like men ten feet tall.
“You have a natural ability with those boys,” I told her one morning after she’d waved them off to school.
“Do I?” she said, looking surprised. “I don’t think I do very much at all. I’m only their mother.”
Only their mother!
Throughout the rest of my career I heard that come from so many women’s mouths. It’s always said in an apologetic tone, as if all of the million things they do daily for their offspring happen quite by chance.
I wish mothers would stop putting themselves down so much. All mothers are quite brilliant in my eyes and nine times out of ten don’t realize the sacrifices they undertake or the powerful contributions they make. And, of course, life is ten times harder now than for the mothers I used to work for. Mothers today juggle work, child care, paying bills, ferrying their childre
n around, and keeping their children, bosses, and husbands happy in a climate of constant fear over crime and economic instability. Quite honestly, I don’t know how they do it; they are all amazing.
Please, I urge all mothers to remember that. They provide the very foundations upon which a house is built; they are the linchpins of their families. Mothers today are quite, quite brilliant.
Aside from loving her boys unconditionally, Mrs. Ravenshere had a number of ponies, including one mischievous little Shetland pony by the name of Jelly, who often escaped and rampaged through the neighbors’ gardens, causing chaos.
After we had spent one afternoon chasing Jelly round the neighborhood, Mrs. Ravenshere and I sat down to tea.
“You know, Brenda, I’ve been thinking,” she said. “Have you ever thought of training to be a Norland nanny? You’re good with children; they love you.”
Of course I had heard of Norland nannies. Everyone had. They were famous for taking on only smart young ladies of genteel birth, and schooling them to achieve the highest standards of child care for the offspring of the wealthy. Everyone knew it wasn’t easy to earn the right to push those big coach prams round London’s smartest postcodes. Coach prams are the original and, in my eyes, best prams ever invented. With big, old-fashioned wheels, high sides, and a beautiful roomy interior lined in pure cotton, they are quite simply the Rolls-Royce of prams. Modern prams simply don’t compare, and Norland nannies pushed the coach prams with pride.
I had seen pictures of Norland nannies in my mother’s Nursery World and Good Housekeeping magazines and admired their beautiful uniforms and capes, but it was all far too grand for sixteen-year-old Brenda Ashford from Surrey. I was just a country girl.
Besides, Father had no money now; there was no way he could afford to send me to train at the Norland Institute. There was an entrance fee of one guinea, and a year’s tuition was £132. On top of that, those beautiful uniforms cost £16 10s. It all added up to a small fortune, one I knew my father simply didn’t have.
“But there could be a way round it,” insisted Mrs. Ravenshere. “Let me talk to your father.”
“No, please,” I pleaded. “I don’t wish to trouble him.”
Since the bankruptcy, Father was struggling to find work and set up in business again. I didn’t want to add to his load by reminding him that he could no longer afford to have his children educated.
Besides, I couldn’t move all the way to London by myself.
But the conversation left me feeling even more fretful about my future. What was my calling in life?
The answer came via a large black horse.
Later that day Mrs. Ravenshere said she was sending me to the local stables, owned by a friend of hers, for a riding lesson round Byfleet common. As a horse lover, especially one for whom riding lessons had been consigned to my old life as just another unaffordable luxury, I was thrilled at the prospect. Mrs. Ravenshere’s friend even gave me a new pair of cream jodhpurs and a beautiful pair of shiny brown leather boots. They must have cost a small fortune. I hesitated to take such kind gifts, but she insisted.
Then, out of the stables the instructor led the most magnificent horse I had ever seen. Jet was sixteen hands high; and his well-chiseled head, long neck, and high withers told me he was a young and spirited Thoroughbred. His black coat gleamed as he trotted round the yard, tossing his mane this way and that.
I felt a ripple of excitement run through me as the instructor gave me a leg up. Soon Jet and I were trotting happily along the common. Didn’t I feel grand and grown-up, riding on such a beautiful creature in my new leather boots.
But as we trotted under a railway tunnel a train thundered overhead. Jet took fright, flared his nostrils, and started to dance all over the path.
“Hold on tight, Brenda,” warned the instructor. “I think he’s going to bol …”
Her words were lost on the wind as Jet bolted. Hedges and trees flashed past in a blur of green as we galloped flat out over the common.
I clung on for dear life, my heart in my mouth, as we dashed down the path. Using all my might, I tried to pull his head up, but it was to no avail.
“Please stop,” I whimpered.
My weedy arms were no match for his powerful neck.
Just then I realized, We were heading for the road.
My knuckles were white with terror as we galloped full tilt toward the traffic.
No way was this horse going to send me flying into the path of a motorcar.
With an almighty grunt and a superhuman show of strength I pulled his head up, and at the last minute we swerved out of the way of the road and slowed to a halt by a tree.
It was hard to say who was trembling more—me or Jet. His flanks were coated in sweat, and my hands were shaking so hard I could barely hold the reins.
Suddenly, I experienced something else. Pure exhilaration. Grappling with a runaway horse had sent my blood racing. By the time the instructor caught up with me, I was laughing.
“I thought I was a goner,” I said breathlessly.
“So did I,” she said, panting.
When we arrived back at the stables and Mrs. Ravenshere heard of my adventure she was obviously impressed with my ability because she rewarded me with a cup of hot sweet tea and a slice of cake.
My brush with death made me appreciate something: there were no second chances in life and perhaps we should grab all that is put in our way.
“I was thinking,” I said between sips of tea. “Perhaps you could speak to Mother about Norland?”
“If you handle children as well as you handle that horse, you will make an excellent nanny,” said Mrs. Ravenshere, with a smile.
AND SO IT WAS THAT MY mother and I found ourselves some months later boarding a train bound for London Victoria.
The Norland interview, which my mother had arranged over the phone, had put me in a state of heightened excitement for weeks, and the night before I had barely slept a wink.
“Now remember, Brenda,” advised my mother as the train hurtled toward London, “don’t talk too much. Listen, nod your head politely, and sit up straight.”
I don’t recall much about that journey, what I wore, or what I’d eaten for breakfast—just that my destiny was unfolding and everything hinged on this interview.
In London my senses were assaulted. I’d never been to the big city before and I was bewildered and excited by everything I saw.
Mother decided we should walk from Victoria to Norland in Pembridge Square in London’s Notting Hill. There was intense noise everywhere. Red buses whizzed past, belching out clouds of smoke; the road seemed to be clogged up with motorcars and electric trolleybuses. We even passed an underground station, and Mother told me there was a train there every ninety seconds. Unimaginable.
Suddenly, I felt so small. Everyone seemed to be marching about with real purpose and a sense of determination.
I spotted a sweet shop much like the one Father must have bought our Saturday treats from. The glass jars lined up in the window glittered tantalizingly close. But then I remembered, I was on a mission, too. There was no time to dawdle.
Soon the crowded cobbled streets gave way to wider pavements and smart leafy squares. The Notting Hill and Ladbroke Grove areas—which today are buzzy multicultural places filled with bars, shops, restaurants, and a yearly carnival—were very different seventy-three years ago.
Elegant, stuccoed white mansions looked out on a slow-moving world. Calm, peace, and prosperity prevailed. Norland nannies and smart mothers pushed their fashionable black coach prams serenely in front of the imposing mansion houses. Little girls in smart smock dresses walked in a crocodile to school; boys in sailor suits ran along, clutching boats to sail on the Serpentine in Hyde Park.
My mother stopped in front of one of the grandest homes I’d ever seen. It was far bigger than our little bungalow, bigger even than Hallcroft.
Numbers 7, 10, and 11 Pembridge Square, London, W2, were home of the Norland Institute
Nurseries Ltd.
Suddenly, I felt like a tiny mouse on the doorstep. I’d never crossed the threshold of somewhere so grand.
Mother knocked on the imposing black door.
Looking back, it must have been a strange moment for her. She, too, had longed to train at the Norland, but Grandpa Brown didn’t consider it to be a suitable career choice for a young lady and forbade it. Times had changed, and now I was about to have the interview she had always longed to have.
Mother turned to me with a faraway look in her eyes. Excitement and something else, sadness perhaps, flickered over her beautiful face. “I can’t tell you how much I would love to have been a Norland nanny, Brenda,” she said softly. “I loved babies just as much as you.”
I didn’t doubt it. She would have made a wonderful nanny; no one knew more about children than my mother.
She shook herself a little, as if to shrug off the ghosts of unchased dreams. “Listen to me,” she said, as the door swung open. “I’m so thrilled for you, darling. Let’s show them what you’re made of.”
She straightened out my coat and smoothed down a stray hair, then pushed me gently inside the impressive hallway.
A few chairs lined the black-and-white tiled corridor. Mother and I sat down nervously. A large clock ticked ominously on the wall.
Finally a door was flung open, and a tall, imposing woman who I guessed was in her forties towered over us. She was dressed in a dark-colored dress with collar and cuffs trimmed in white lace.
Miss Ruth Whitehead—the principal, and to my young mind, a truly terrifying sight—held the key to my future.
On the wall above her head was a black-and-white photo of a regal-looking lady, underneath the Norland motto, Love never faileth. She seemed to be staring straight at me.
“I’ll have a word with you now,” she said.
Mother and I leaped to our feet, scraping our chairs back and nervously straightening our skirts.
“Not you,” she said, fixing my mother with a penetrating gaze. “You stay here.”
Mother sat down, well and truly put in her place.
A Spoonful of Sugar Page 4