A Spoonful of Sugar

by Brenda Ashford

  8:00 PM: Rested and read in bedroom, wrote letters home. Chatted to other girls while we smocked, sewed, or knitted.

  9:30 PM TO 10:00 PM: Prayers and lights out.

  WITH THE SOUND OF THE SIREN still ringing in my ears, I boarded a train bound for Ashford in Kent. I had received word that I was to join the Norland to continue my third and final term of training at Hothfield Place in the village of Hothfield.

  Bathed in late summer sunshine, Kent looked absolutely glorious. The skies were dappled with clouds, and the apple orchards took on a pinkish hue.

  The loud shriek of the train’s whistle announced my arrival.

  Lugging my huge trunk onto the station platform, I tried to get my bearings.

  Just then the steam cleared and a familiar figure emerged.

  It was none other than tall, athletic, and highly efficient Mary Rutherford, our head girl. With her Norland cape flapping behind her as she bounded along the steamy train platform, she looked like a supernanny!

  “Brenda,” boomed Mary, enveloping me in an enthusiastic hug. “Marvelous to see you again, old thing.”

  We were joined by the rest of the gang—shy country girl Joan, exotic French aristo Yvonne, and lovely Scottish Margaret.

  Norland had sent a car to collect us, and soon we were whizzing through the stunning Kent countryside.

  I thought where I lived in Surrey was picturesque, but the landscape of the garden of England was simply beautiful. Hop farms and orchards, still groaning with late summer fruit, stretched out as far as the eye could see. In places, a light mist swirled over the fields, punctuated only by the tips of the roofs of curious-looking houses.

  As we got closer to Hothfield the landscape changed.

  Hothfield Place was located in the ancient village of the same name. Wide, flat, and boggy heath led into the village center, with a beautiful common and a thirteenth-century church at its heart.

  Livestock grazed on the common, and a sense of tranquillity abounded. People round these parts lived off the fat of the land; and village life had remained unchanged for centuries.

  It was a peaceful idyll. The only sounds were the gentle warbling salute of a blackbird from the eaves of a stone cottage and the far-off rumble of a tractor.

  As the late afternoon shadows lengthened and the sun dipped over the church spire, I could make out blackberries glistening invitingly from the hedgerows, just begging to be picked.

  Smoke curled from the chimney pots of warmly lit cottages as young boys playing football on the common packed up and headed for home, summoned by the thought of dripping-covered toast in front of a parlor fire.

  “Hard to believe we’re at war,” murmured Joan, gazing out the window.

  I nodded. Where were the German bombers and constant air raid sirens we’d all been prepared for?

  That blissful six-month period came to be known as the Phony War, a slow start to hostilities that would soon enough become horrific beyond our comprehension, but back then it was all too easy to fool oneself into thinking that Neville Chamberlain’s announcement had all been just a nasty dream.

  I had heard that Hothfield Place was a stately home, but nothing could have prepared me for its dramatic beauty.

  As the car turned a corner onto a long drive, we five girls all gasped simultaneously.

  A beautiful big Adam mansion set in 350 acres of rolling parkland stood before us. The gathering dusk served only to make its facade more dramatic.

  “Wow.” Joan whistled.

  “So beautiful,” said Margaret, sighing.

  “I can’t believe this is to be our home, girls,” I said, grinning excitedly.

  By the time our car slid to a halt, it was obvious that the old house was in fact a hive of bustling activity. As well as the nursery staff and the rest of the students, the entire Bethnal Green day nursery was here, too, having been evacuated lock, stock, and barrel a couple of weeks before. We numbered forty-four children and seventy-five adults in all.

  Heavy furniture was being lifted in and out of the magnificent stone-arched doorway, coach prams were lined up like soldiers on parade in the driveway, and excited little children tore round the grounds like tiny tornadoes.

  Where once horse-drawn carriages would have slowed to a halt and aristocratic ladies and gentlemen graciously alighted, now little East End evacuees chased one another in a riot of noise. The babble of their excited voices merged into one big humming sound. Doleful-looking cows in neighboring fields stared curiously over the fences at the commotion.

  Presiding over the lot, like an oasis of calm, was Miss Whitehead, still managing to look immaculate and unflustered in her blue uniform and scarlet-lined cape.

  One little girl nearly knocked Miss Whitehead clean off her feet as she chased a little boy up the drive, her blond curls bobbing furiously.

  I smiled as I remembered the games of cowboys and Indians that my brothers and I had played growing up in Hallcroft House. Children’s games don’t seem to change that much, wherever you’re from.

  Over the years I saw some of my wealthier charges with the very latest in toys, from model railways to cars, doll houses to miniprams; some of them had nurseries simply stuffed with the most beautiful must-haves, and yet I still say there is no greater game than having to use one’s imagination.

  I’m certain children’s intelligence develops all the more if they aren’t spoon-fed games and are just left to get on and play in a make-believe world.

  Give children a chance to use their brains and imaginations, and they will. Put a computer console into their hands, and they won’t.

  Put a book there instead or plant them in an empty field or park and suddenly the world opens up and becomes a fantastical place of make-believe and adventure.

  Seeing those children playing in the fresh air was a joy to behold.

  “Slow down, Elsie,” barked Miss Whitehead. “You’ll do someone an injury.”

  But instead of cowering under the principal’s steely gaze, the little girl grinned cheekily up at her, her blue eyes flashing with an irrepressible spirit.

  She may have had the face of an angel, but her voice when she spoke was like nothing I’d heard before.

  “Gor blimey, it ain’t ’arf perishing ’ere, Miss White’ead. I goddi go in the cat and mouse and get me weasel and stoat, so’s I ’ave,” she jabbered. “If you sees that Pete Brown, tell ’im ’e better watch it an’ all. Reckons I pen and ink like a bleedin’ pig, ’e does—’e can stick that right up ’is Khyber, I’m tellin’ yer.”

  I didn’t have a clue what it was she had said, but it was all rattled off like machine gun fire. Pen and ink … weasel and stoat? Elsie may as well have been speaking in Spanish.

  Born and bred in the back streets of the East End, this girl had been brought up around the rich and colorful dialect that is cockney rhyming slang.

  I really understood only snippets of what she said, but I liked her instinctively. She was bursting with an exuberant joy.

  I winked at Elsie and she winked back.

  “My brothers and I used to play It just like you are.” I smiled. “I think you and I are going to get on famously. Perhaps I’ll join you in that game soon.”

  “Alwight,” she said, wiping a snotty nose on her sleeve. “Bet I beat ya.”

  I had a feeling she might just, too!

  I laughed. “All right.” I grinned. “You’re on.”

  The Bethnal Green evacuees, or “Bethnal Greenies” as they came to be known, were like no children I’d ever met before. They were tough little children who walked with a swagger and talked in a language of their own. They may have been uprooted from their homes and separated from their families, but nothing could crush their spirits or dampen their excitement at being in Hothfield. Most of them had never left Bethnal Green before, much less been to the countryside. A few may have been to Kent with their families for the annual hop-picking harvest, where whole East End families worked by day in the fields collecting the h
ops, slept in barns at night, and treated it as a holiday. But for most, the fresh air, fields, and wildlife of the countryside were completely alien.

  Imagine never having seen a pig, sheep, or cow in your life, then suddenly being exposed to them all? The fresh air, coupled with all the abundant nature and the enormous house, had the Bethnal Greenies in raptures.

  “Are you having a lovely time?” I asked Elsie as Miss Whitehead retreated into the safety of the house.

  “Not ’arf,” she said. “We saw a cow being milked afore. Knows where the milk comes from?” Her blue eyes grew as wide as dinner plates. “Only from a ’ole in its bum.”

  I snorted with laughter.

  Seconds later she was gone, sprinting toward the house and bounding up the stairs two at a time.

  “I think I’m going to like it here very much,” I said to Joan, linking arms with her and walking into my new home.

  Joan and I paused inside the black-and-white-marble-floored hall and stopped to take in our surroundings.

  “Wow.” I whistled. “This hall is bigger than my whole house.”

  We headed up a sweeping marble staircase and onto the first floor, where we found the sense of excitement and confusion was only slightly reined in.

  Norland’s registrar, Miss Hewer, a usually unflappable woman in her fifties who always wore her gray hair scraped back in a rather severe bun, was looking decidedly flustered as she stood in what was once the drawing room. Priceless furniture and valuable heirlooms were stacked up in the middle, looking for all the world like an antiques bonfire.

  “One knows not where to start,” she muttered, staring at a sea of boxes.

  All the babies were in two nurseries called Daisy and Spring; the older children were in night nurseries around the gallery that looked down on the main hall. The Bethnal Greenies were in a big nursery in what was once the billiard room. Miss Whitehead’s office was in a small drawing room. The library was turned over to a communal day nursery for meals, play, and lectures. Our kitchen was an old stillroom; and a laundry was made of a brushing room. Dozens of bicycles for our use were lined up in the stables.

  Hothfield wouldn’t have looked out of place on Downton Abbey, and one half expected an earl to come striding round the corner with his Labrador at any moment!

  Centuries of unchanged tradition had all been turned upside down in the space of weeks.

  Best of all, the children’s rooms had the most wonderful views over lush green fields. Painted in sunshine yellow, they contrasted beautifully with the light oak wooden nursery furniture.

  A nursery today might contain any number of things, from musical mobiles, digital video baby monitors, and bottle warmers to nappy bins and fleece-topped baby changing tables. Back then, all they contained were plain wooden cots with cotton sheets and eiderdowns—pink for the girls, blue for the boys—and a few simple toys donated by generous locals, and plain wardrobes.

  There were no cupboards and toy boxes groaning with toys, no flat screen televisions mounted on the wall, no computer consoles littering the floor.

  In many ways the earlier days of nannying were far simpler; and it was a more organic lifestyle for the children, too.

  We all used our imaginations and didn’t have to rely on twenty-four/seven entertainment to get us through the day. A child could play with the same toy for months at a time and not get tired of it. Hard to imagine that now, that’s for sure!

  I’m not saying that the old days were necessarily better, just different. We had little but the necessities, and yet we still got by and never seemed to be bored.

  We didn’t rely on monitors—a baby’s cry was usually sufficient to wake us. We had no need of nappy bins—all the dirty nappies were dumped in a bucket of warm water to soak before being scrubbed clean.

  All children had their weekly bath in a huge tin tub filled with pails of water from the laundry room. The Bethnal Greenies took their lessons in the billiard room, and the younger children played in the library.

  Break times were to be taken in the fields surrounding the house. You always knew when lessons were finished by the stampede of little feet through the grand hall and outside. Elsie usually led the way. Their boisterous babble could be heard drifting over the countryside as they squealed and played.

  Where smart ladies and gentlemen once took a turn around the grounds and politely conversed on society matters, now all you could hear was the jubilant battle cry of “coming, ready or not.”

  Breakfast, lunch, and dinner were to be eaten at long trestle tables in the old dining hall. As in Norland in Pembridge Square, we dined with the children so we could lead by example. The children were far more likely to develop healthy eating patterns if they could see we finished everything on our plates.

  Once I caught Elsie stealthily stuffing carrots in her pocket. I said nothing. The shame of my public dressing-down at the hands of Miss Whitehead still lingered and I wasn’t about to subject her to the same misery. On the way out, though, I whispered in her ear, “We won’t be doing that again, will we?”

  She shook her head vigorously. “Besides,” I said with a wink, “they say carrots can help you see in the pitch-dark of the blackout.”

  Her eyes widened at the possibilities and the mischief she could get up to with such a superpower at her disposal.

  She wasn’t to know this was simply government propaganda, put about to get us to eat our vegetables during wartime. It worked, though, as from that day on I caught her eagerly wolfing down all her vegetables, not stuffing them in her pockets.

  This taught me that a little fun and imagination can go a lot further in getting a child to do what you want than a telling off.

  At night they were read stories from the few books donated by local villagers.

  Most evenings I and the rest of my set sewed, read, or wrote letters home. No one was ever awake past 10:00 PM. During the autumn months it was too cold, too dark; and we were, for the most part, simply too tired to stay up later.

  We never listened to the wireless. I think Miss Whitehead may have had access to one, but certainly we didn’t. As for a television? Forget it. But do you know, of all the periods of my life, this is the one that sticks in my mind most for the fun and camaraderie we had. We talked and shared in one another’s lives because we didn’t have the distraction of television. Such innocent pastimes and such a straightforward way of life was infinitely more rewarding and life affirming. I still believe that today. It was a simple but busy life, and my duties left little time for reflection or fear.

  As we settled into the huge house I couldn’t help but speculate about the previous occupants of Hothfield Place. Just where were the owners? Had they offered it to the Norland, had the house been requisitioned for our use, or had they simply left at the outbreak of war? It was so strange and baffling.

  One thing was for sure, the house fairly hummed with the spirit of its ancestors. All along the walls, ancient portraits of past generations of Hothfield’s resident family, the Tuftons, gazed down on us with a look of mild surprise. How shocked they would have been to see the Bethnal Greenies tearing around the grounds.

  Suddenly, we became aware of Miss Whitehead’s clapping her hands and summoning everyone into the library. We hurried in and took our places.

  Miss Whitehead cleared her throat. “Lord Hothfield, by whose generosity we are here, is letting us have practically the whole house, which has not been used for some time. He and his family live in only a small part of it, but you must show them the utmost consideration and courtesy should your paths cross.”

  Heads nodded eagerly.

  Ah, the mystery was solved. How generous this gentleman was to hand his magnificent house over to the institute. Mind you, I suspect he found it hard to say no to a request from Miss Whitehead.

  “Our part, ladies, is to keep war from the children, to give the evacuees’ parents the comfort and security of knowing their children are happy and safe, and to carry on as normally as we can.
If we can enjoy a realization that what we are doing is useful, then some personal discomfort should be of minor importance. To these small folk, the war with all its suffering and anxieties must be a sealed book.”

  I thought of little Elsie’s parents, still living and working in Bethnal Green, facing God knows what dangers. What they wouldn’t do to be in this haven of tranquillity with their beloved little girl. I owed it to them to care for Elsie as if she were my own blood.

  Nighttime falls quickly in the countryside and after a delicious supper of cold meat and potatoes, followed by blackberry and apple pie with thick double cream, it was time to retire to our beds.

  By 8:00 PM the whole house lay under a heavy blanket of velvety dark, with just a dusting of stars. I had never known a night like it. With no streetlights and not even a solitary lamp from the village twinkling over the fields, we were engulfed in jet-black.

  For the rest of the night not a living soul stirred. I lay there in the dark, nervous yet full of excitement. At last, I was finally able to care for children.

  My time at Great Ormond Street had been difficult and made me realize I definitely wasn’t cut out to be a children’s nurse.

  In my heart I knew I was a nanny, and at long last I could begin my training and work with children. I had never dreamed it would be under such strange circumstances, mind you—shut away in a big old house in the country—but I suppose what little I knew of children already made me realize one had to be adaptable. Circumstances change all the time, and I had to be ready to move with those changes if I was to keep pace and be the best nanny I could possibly be.

  ON THAT FIRST DAY, after a warming breakfast of porridge, we had a walk around and bumped into Miss Edith Taylor, who ran the Bethnal Green nurseries and was in overall charge of the evacuees. She was coming back from a walk with some of them.

  Her merry laugh and open features always inspired trust and confidence.

  “Everyone has been so kind and we are so indebted to Miss Whitehead for bringing us here,” she said. “Well-wishers have sent our little children glucose sweets and tins of biscuits. I think it’s safe to say they are having the time of their lives.”