“Can we keep her, Nana?” pleaded Pippa. “Can we, please?”
Staring into her beautiful cornflower blue eyes, how could I refuse my Pippa anything?
“Go on, then.” I chuckled. “But only on the proviso you all look after her.”
Bless them. They were so proud of their little fish, Mr. Wiggles, they carried him or her all the way home in a water-filled plastic bag.
Back in the nursery he soon had a new home in a glass tank.
“Mr. Wiggles can only stay if you all clean him out once a week and remember to feed him every day.”
They were ready for the responsibility of caring for an animal, and a goldfish was the perfect place to start.
The girls nodded their heads and promised faithfully.
True to their word, they did. Except one week Penny was carrying the bowl out of the nursery to the sink when disaster struck.
“Nana,” she screamed.
Mr. Wiggles had made a break for freedom and had splashed right out of the bowl and was flipping about on the nursery carpet.
Pandemonium broke out. “Help Mr. Wiggles,” cried Penny.
Oh, crumbs. Getting down on my hands and knees I frantically tried to scoop the fish up, but he was too slippery—no sooner had I got him than he flipped out of my hands.
“He’s going to die, Nana,” yelped Pippa, tears streaming down her sweet little face.
Eventually, I got hold of him long enough to get him back into the bowl of water.
“Thank goodness.” I sighed, sinking back against the door to catch my breath.
There was just one problem. From that day on Mr. Wiggles never swam straight again. He swam on his side!
Mr. Wiggles survived, but unfortunately, in the countryside, where there’s livestock there is also dead stock, as I learned to my cost one day.
“Brenda,” called Mrs. Barclay one morning, after I’d dropped the older girls at school and settled Pippa for a nap. “You wouldn’t be a dear and come and help me with something, would you?”
As a nanny you hear that sentence uttered by the mouths of mothers an awful lot. From collecting something from the shop to making sure you are in for a deliveryman, you are often called upon to do things outside your job description.
On one memorable occasion I was even asked to put out a blazing incendiary bomb with a cowpat after it set fire to a boss’s field! I never was asked to carry coal or eat with the servants, as the Norland stipulated was against the rules in my handbook, but every day, mundane tasks were often asked of me. I always agreed. I don’t say this to sound like a martyr, but I was there to support the mother and so I needed to be prepared to roll up my sleeves and help out. Although even I could see what was asked of me now was pushing the boundaries somewhat.
Following her out to the farm I was intrigued to see Fred the local gravedigger huffing and puffing as he attempted to dig a grave in a nearby field.
It had been an icy cold night and frost coated the fields like a white blanket.
“Ground’s as tough as rock,” he muttered. “And me tongue’s hanging out for a cup of tea.”
“No time for that, Fred,” snapped Mrs. Barclay. “Keep digging.”
She seemed unusually tetchy and when we reached the sty I saw why. Her prize sow Susie was lying dead, frozen solid to the floor of the sty. “She died last night. Vet reckons swine fever.” She sighed. “Highly contagious. We’ve got to bury her quickly and disinfect the whole farm before any of the neighboring farms get wind.”
“But how will we get her out?” I gasped. “She’s frozen solid to the floor.”
“Only one thing for it,” she said. “Go and start boiling some kettles. We’ll have to defrost her.”
Shaking my head I scuttled back to the house and returned soon after with a steaming hot kettle.
“Tea?” asked Fred hopefully, as I ran past with the kettle.
“Keep digging,” I called.
Back in the sty I winced as we poured boiling water over the dead pig. Gradually, she defrosted and Mrs. Barclay was able to move her a little.
But there presented our next problem. “She weighs an absolute ton,” she huffed.
“Can’t we just call the vet?” I asked.
“No, Nurse Brenda,” she said. “He won’t come out for fear of contamination. This is down to us.”
Last I heard, this wasn’t in my job description, but it didn’t seem to be the time to start quibbling.
“I’ve an idea,” Mrs. Barclay said, her eyes lighting up. “Go and get the children’s sled.”
Shaking my head, I did as asked and returned with a large toboggan. “Now,” she said, “you push and I’ll pull.”
With an almighty grunt, I pushed; but as the pig was still a bit icy, she just shot straight on the sled and off the other side, landing with a thud by Mrs. Barclay’s feet. “Oh this is ridiculous,” she cried, pushing the slippery sow and sending her ricocheting back over to me.
Suddenly, the humor of the situation hit me and I started to laugh. It started as a little chuckle but soon my body was racked with laughter and tears streamed down my face.
“This is absurd,” I screeched.
“It is rather, isn’t it?” Mrs. Barclay said, her mouth starting to twitch.
Soon we were both in hysterics. How we got that frozen pig onto the toboggan and out across to the field I’ll never know, but the sight of two cackling women pulling a dead pig on a sled was too much for poor Fred.
“Queer folk,” he muttered, putting his spade down and getting out of there as fast as he could.
Fortunately, he had dug enough of a hole for us to fit her in.
“On my count of three, tip her in,” said Mrs. Barclay. “One … two … three, heave ho.”
We lifted the sled and with a thud the sow landed half in and half out the grave, her little pink trotters poking out the ground.
“Oh, this is ridiculous,” I cried. “There’s only one thing for it.”
I jumped down in on top of her and with a slither she landed in the bottom of the grave.
Without exchanging a word Mrs. Barclay pulled me out of the grave. Working quickly, we covered Susie in a sack of quicklime, filled in the grave, and hurried back to the house.
We never spoke again about the dead pig incident. I have done many bizarre things in my career as a nanny, but that may well go down as one of the oddest.
But while I was grappling in graves with frozen pigs, my contemporaries in Britain and America were spending their time in a no-less-energetic way.
Across the Atlantic in America, rock ’n’ roll had been created. With its roots in blues, jazz, and gospel music it exploded on the scene in Britain in the mid 1950s.
The leading figure of this and the “king of rock and roll” was one Elvis Presley.
Women went crazy for his gyrating hips and men tried to emulate his cool.
Across the pond women danced and strutted their stuff in full skirts, colorful heels, and nylon stockings.
While many my age started wearing denim jeans—the symbol of the teenage rebel in TV shows—cropped pants, and halter-neck dresses to local dances, I stuck resolutely to my cotton dresses nipped in at the waist with a belt.
Children didn’t simply become young adults at thirteen, they now became teenagers; and while they may have been taking over the world in other places, here in the small Hertfordshire village where I lived, country music was the only sound that rang out.
It was less shake, rattle, and roll and more do-si-do.
Every Friday night in the next village along from ours in the village hall they held country-dance lessons.
After the children went to bed I would get the bus.
I wasn’t going to meet a man, more because I loved to dance. But if there happened to be a man as lovely as Bill, then that would be rather nice, too, thank you very much.
Sadly, when I pushed open the creaky door to the drafty village hall my heart sank.
The
place was full of couples and I was on my own!
I was just about to turn on my heel and head for home when the instructor spotted me. “Oh, don’t go,” he said. “I’m Keith. I’ll partner you.”
Keith’s eyes roamed over my body like a cheap suit as he took me by the waist and guided me to the dance floor.
“We don’t get new faces here often, Brenda,” he said, pressing his face so close to mine I could smell what he’d had for dinner. “A woman like you needs special attention.”
I smiled awkwardly.
Keith ran the weekly country-dance lessons and was fairly adamant that I needed extra tuition. Unfortunately, Keith was what you might call the sexy type and his hands were forever wandering to places where they shouldn’t have ventured.
No matter. I’d dealt with a few frisky animals back at the farm. I could deal with a harmless letch like Keith.
Week after week Keith insisted on partnering me, leaving his poor wife, Kathy, sitting at the side. Keith seemed to have more arms than an octopus and could seemingly swing me round, do the do-si-do, while letting one slightly clammy hand run down the small of my back.
At the end of one class Keith managed to wheedle out of me that I had that Sunday afternoon off. “Oh, you must come for tea,” he oozed. “Kathy and I would love to have you.”
I couldn’t see the harm in it. His wife would be there, after all. I felt bad refusing, too; besides Keith was a man who didn’t really seem to be able to take no for an answer.
I called Mother. “You don’t mind if I don’t come home this Sunday afternoon, do you?” I asked.
“Of course not, darling,” she exclaimed. “I have Bambi to keep me company, and your father and I are going to take him for a long walk.”
That Sunday afternoon, instead of returning home to the warmth of my family, I brushed my hair, splashed water on my face, and headed to Keith and Kathy’s with a small bouquet of daffodils.
Keith answered the door. Two things struck me immediately as I followed him into the lounge: the overwhelming stench of Old Spice and the distinct absence of any wife.
“Kathy had to go out.” He smiled as he sat down on the settee and licked his thin lips. “Her mother’s sick. So afraid it’s just you and me.”
He patted the seat next to him. “Come and sit next to me.”
Perched on the edge of the sofa, I felt as out of place as Mr. Wiggles the goldfish must have done when he found himself floundering about on the carpet.
As I nibbled on a crab paste sandwich and mentally planned my escape, it appeared Keith had other things on his mind.
“There’s a big competition on in London soon.” He smiled, his eyes glittering with mischief. “You know you’re good enough to enter, Brenda, with some extra tuition from myself, of course.”
With that he laughed heartily and clamped a hand down on my thigh. Dropping my sandwich, I jumped to my feet.
“I won’t get the time off, Keith,” I blustered.
A loaded silence hung in the air. “Well, it’s been lovely, and I’m so sorry to miss Kathy, really I am, but I best be getting back to the farm,” I said.
“Shame.” Keith sighed. “I’ll run you home.”
“Really,” I said. “It’s no bother.”
“I insist,” he said, smiling and staring at my bosom.
As he got his coat, I looked round at the sitting room of the small semidetached house. Pictures of Keith and Kathy on their wedding day looked down from the walls.
What was wrong with some men? Did he honestly think I would fall into the arms of a married man? What did he take me for? He was as fake and cheap as the nylon shirt he was wearing.
As we bumped along the roads back to the Barclays in Keith’s Ford I had an ominous feeling I knew what was coming. He pulled to a halt outside the farmhouse.
With no streetlamps it was pitch-black inside and outside the car, but I could see the whites of Keith’s eyes.
Suddenly, he lunged across the car and pressed his thin lips on mine.
“Oh, Brenda,” he groaned, his hands snaking over my body.
“Oh no, you don’t,” I snapped, disentangling myself from his clammy embrace.
I shot out of the car like my heels were on fire and ran like a whippet up the drive.
Once inside, I dashed upstairs to the landing window, my heart thumping in my chest. I heard Keith gun up his engine and speed down the country road. Of all the disgusting, slimy …
In bed I undressed and stared at the ceiling.
What was wrong with me? I wasn’t a bad person. Why did I have the worst luck with men?
“I give up.” I sighed. The only man I ever really felt anything for had promised himself to Jesus and all the rest seemed to be fickle cheats.
After that I had less and less time off. Mrs. Barclay, suffering with a kidney problem after a nasty kick from a heifer, more often than not took to her bed when I was due a day off.
Finally, after seven years on the farm, I started to get itchy feet. This place had been wonderful. I simply adored my charges, and my hands-on approach with the animals had made for some memorable occasions, but I felt instinctively that it was time to move on.
The magical wind of change was blowing my way, making me restless and uprooting me. There were babies being born everywhere, babies who needed my care.
I had done my duty here. I had even earned my badge of merit from the Norland in 1953 for more than five years of faithful service to one family. It was the same year that Her Royal Majesty Elizabeth was crowned queen. She had found her vocation and I mine.
Now, in 1955, Pippa was seven, and even though she was the apple of my eye, I could see she needed me less and less. Jane, now fourteen, and Penny, ten, were just as distraught.
“Please don’t go, Nana,” they cried, when they heard I had handed my notice in. “Who will help us milk Buttercup?”
“I’m sorry, my darlings,” I said sadly. “We will always stay in touch.”
I had had a riot at the Barclays’, but it was time to move on.
As I dried the tears from Pippa’s blue eyes I thought back to the magical moment I first saw her open them and gaze back at me. What a very special journey we had been on together. Sadly, Pippa’s journey was to end before my own.
We did indeed stay in touch, Pippa and I, and she grew up to be a fine young woman, with two daughters of her own. I visited her many times in her own home and reveled in watching her grow as a woman and as a mother. I have always tried my hardest to stay in touch with all my families and visit them as often as time and circumstances permitted. If I couldn’t visit, I always put pen to paper and wrote, and so was the case with Pippa.
Tragically, though, she was diagnosed with breast cancer and died in 2007 aged sixty.
As I sat at her funeral and watched her coffin lowered into the ground I was struck with a deep sadness.
I had been privileged to witness her entry into the world and now I watched bewildered as she left it.
I had gazed in awe as she had emerged from her mother’s womb, heard her first words, witnessed her first steps, tended her grazed knees, and dried her tears. And now she was gone.
“Ashes to ashes, dust to dust,” cried out the minister’s voice, and I bowed my head in respect.
I had witnessed the full circle of life, from birth through to death.
Life on the farm taught me a great many things: that our journey through life can be fleeting and we none of us are masters of our destiny.
We are just as fragile as the snowdrops that push up through the soil in spring. We owe it to ourselves to live each day on earth as if it is our last.
TESTIMONIAL
Nurse Brenda has been in entire charge of my three children. Her care of the baby during infancy is beyond all praise and her management of all three children is admirable. It is with a feeling of real loss that she has left us to return to babies. Not only is she an outstanding nurse but her kindness and devotion to our family
is beyond praise. She holds a unique place in our family life and will always be considered a member of it.
—MRS. BARCLAY
Nanny’s Wisdom
APPRECIATE THE PASSAGE OF TIME.
When we are young we think we will remain that way forever, that somehow we have escaped the aging process. Working at the Barclays’ made me appreciate the passage of time, the passing of the seasons, and that time doesn’t stand still for anyone. We aren’t invincible or ageless; we are but just tiny specks on this great planet and we must strive to make our mark on it any way we can. More important than anything, we must appreciate this life and not waste a single precious moment of it. It is a cliché, but life really is a gift. Don’t overplan it or complicate it by forever thinking of tomorrow. Enjoy today, for what else is there?
MAKE YOUR OWN BUTTER.
Few people realize how easy it is to make butter, as we did at the Barclays’. When the girls and I used to make it, we churned it by hand using Buttercup’s fresh milk and then squeezed it into shape on butter pats. Nowadays it’s even easier.
Simply pour four pints of heavy cream into a bowl and whisk until thick. Continue whisking until the whipped cream collapses and separates into butter and buttermilk. This should take about five minutes. Turn mixture into a sieve to drain off the buttermilk, using a spoon to push the mixture down and force out the fluid. Return the butter to the bowl and beat until more buttermilk separates. Drain and repeat. Mix in some salt if you like the taste. Wash the butter in very cold water, shape into a pat, wrap in wax paper, and chill in fridge. Homemade butter is absolutely delicious on hot toast.
CHAPTER 12
TROUBLESHOOTING NANNY
LONDON AND THE HOME COUNTIES, ENGLAND
[1956, AGE THIRTY-FIVE]
Horsey, horsey, don’t you stop,
Just let your feet go clippetty-clop.
The tail goes swish and the wheels go round.
Giddyup, we’re homeward bound.
—NURSERY RHYME
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A Spoonful of Sugar Page 27