Bath Times and Nursery Rhymes

by Pam Weaver

  A month went by and the post arrived with her usual invoice from the wine shop. To her absolute horror she discovered that she had not only been billed for the Magnum of Champagne but the Jeraboam as well!

  There was an illegible signature at the bottom of the page, followed by ‘Purchased on behalf of Mrs Jennifer Bancroft’.

  Chapter 12

  In 1965, as part of the agreement to work for Mrs Bancroft, I managed to get home to West Moors for Christmas for the first time in five years. It was part of an unwritten agreement that no one in the home had Christmas Day off duty. It was irksome but it was fair. It meant that there was plenty of staff on duty to ensure that all the children had a good time and it prevented petty squabbles about who should have the day off. If someone was given Boxing Day off, she would have to work on New Year’s Eve and vice versa. As there was little point in asking for the day off because I wouldn’t have enough time to travel all the way to Dorset and get back in one day, I hadn’t been home for Christmas since 1960.

  As my last duty before I caught the train, Rupert and I had spent a happy time in Harrods looking for a present for his mother. We bought earrings for his mother and we enjoyed wrapping them up when we got back home. Mrs Bancroft let me go, albeit reluctantly, but she sent me home with a huge pile of presents. I had a beautiful jewellery box and a bottle of expensive perfume. Mum had a pair of doe-skin gloves and my dad had a very expensive-looking tie. I think when he saw the tie, he was glad she hadn’t taken up his offer to be the pet for a week.

  We didn’t do much as I remember but it was wonderful to enjoy my mother’s roast chicken with all the trimmings. Chicken was considered a luxury back then. We toasted each other in beer (Dad’s choice), ginger wine (my choice) and cherry brandy (my mother’s favourite Christmas tipple), pulled crackers and wore silly hats. Our entertainment was the telly, especially listening to the Queen’s speech. On Boxing Day we went to see my Auntie Betty and did the same thing all over again.

  Back in London Mrs Bancroft had ordered some clothes for Rupert from a very refined clothes shop on New Bond Street. Although they had them, they didn’t usually sell ‘off the peg’; they were reserved as Sale items. You choose the style and a colour and whatever you liked was made-to-measure. These jackets were fully lined but whoever had cut out the pattern had made a serious mistake: the lining was far too small. As a result, the jackets pulled at every seam and Rupert looked a bit like the Michelin man. As Mrs Bancroft had spent a lot of money on the outfits, she decided to send me back to complain. I went everywhere by taxi – it made me feel like somebody when I could stand on a street corner and just wave my arm, especially when someone else was paying the fare! However, I was soon taken down a peg or two. When I got there, I was taken to a Miss Lyons. Apparently Mrs Bancroft was her client. She examined the jackets and then, looking down her nose at me, said very haughtily, ‘Well, Nanny, it’s the way you’ve washed them. I cannot be held responsible for that.’

  I had never washed the clothes and I told her so but she was so rude, eventually pushing the clothes into a bag and walking off to serve another customer. I went back with my tail between my legs. Mrs Bancroft was furious. She got onto the phone immediately and demanded to speak to Miss Lyons.

  ‘When I send my nanny,’ I heard her say in ringing tones, ‘I expect her to be treated as if she were myself.’

  I was duly sent back in another taxi to a very frosty Miss Lyons, with the demand from my employer that we either be given the money back or some other outfits. Embarrassed, I tried to placate the woman.

  ‘I would greatly appreciate it if you would help me, Miss Lyons,’ I smiled. ‘You know Mrs Bancroft’s tastes perhaps a little better than I do.’

  But she was having none of it. ‘I’m afraid the decision must be entirely yours, Nanny,’ she said stiffly.

  After some deliberation, I finally returned with two complete outfits: a blue shirt with coral stitching and matching corduroy trousers, a brown dogtooth check suit which had short trousers, a Kashmir jumper and a pair of socks. The bill was an unbelievable ninety pounds! Fortunately for me, Mrs Bancroft was delighted, especially with the suit.

  Rupert had some very expensive clothes. HIs best coat was double breasted and closely fitted, and with real mink on the collar. It cost the unbelievable sum of eighty pounds and Rupert looked very sweet in it. I spent a lot of time with his wardrobe. Everything was either handwashed or went to the cleaners. I made sure he wore the right socks with the right trousers and ironed everything very carefully.

  When I had taken the job, as a very new Christian I had extracted the promise at my interview that I would be allowed time off to go to church. That had happened in the first week of my employment but the next Sunday my employer was busy and the following one she was out all day. I wanted to go, so I decided to take Rupert with me and he loved it. The children went into a Sunday school and the teacher was particularly gifted. Better still, Rupert was mixing with other children his own age and as a result, he talked about it incessantly. He loved the songs and he came back home with a book of stickers. The problem was, my employer was Catholic and back in those days, there wasn’t the mixing of denominations we now enjoy. Christians of different persuasions kept very much to their own kind, sometimes even crossing the street to avoid someone from another church. However, Mrs Bancroft was willing to offer a compromise, and I was asked to take Rupert to his church one week and to my own church the following week.

  The Catholic church was huge and I was totally unfamiliar with the order of service. We sat in the pew and once I had taken off his coat and gloves and he’d looked around, Rupert was bored. I did my best to keep him interested in what was going on at the front of the church, but he was a bright child and knew exactly what to do for attention. His questions became louder and louder and as soon as he became difficult to keep under control, I decided we were spoiling it for others who had come to worship, so I made our escape. The only problem was, as I had gathered up his things and we’d stepped out into the aisle, the rest of the congregation was making its way to the altar rail for Communion. We found ourselves going against the flow and I quickly realised that with a small child behind me, I couldn’t simply barge my way through. I turned back and went with the people until we reached the rail. Of course now I realise that as non-Catholics we could have knelt there with the others and received a blessing but because I knew Rupert was too young for Communion, I walked past the rail and headed towards what I thought was the door I had used to come in.

  By this time, Rupert was throwing a complete wobbly because he wasn’t allowed a drink (Communion wine) and the wails were growing ever louder. I reached the door and did my best to turn the huge round handle. It rattled and shook but it was only as I looked up that I realised I couldn’t possibly have come in that way because it was bolted somewhere near the high vaulted ceiling.

  By now I was desperate to get out. I found another door and wrenched it open. In my efforts, my elbow shot back and knocked over a tall flower display behind me, which landed with an almighty crach. As the whole congregation gawped, I felt a sharp tap on my shoulder and a priest beckoned me and led us both out of the church.

  When I confessed to my employer what had happened, she thought it hugely funny.

  Rupert had every single toy in the book but few friends. We had our routine which included daily walks in the park and meeting the children with other nannies and of course, the music and movement classes. If he was ill or the weather wasn’t good, Rupert and I didn’t see another child for days on end. This to my mind wasn’t good. His mother loved him dearly but her social calendar didn’t include meeting other parents with children. I was desperate to find a way of helping this child to socialise, so I took him to the places where he might have the company of other children. I met up with girls from the nursery and we’d go skating or to the zoo together. I even took Rupert home for a weekend with my parents, although quite what he made of their humble surroundi
ngs I don’t know. He was used to living in the lap of luxury whereas my mum and dad didn’t even have a bathroom or inside toilet and my dad had a penchant for wandering around in his string vest. The one thing I do know, Rupert loved being with them and playing with my cousin’s children, who were a little older than him, but more than willing to accommodate him in their games.

  We all went to Bournemouth and played on the beach together. We had tea in Bobby’s, a large department store, and that was when I learned the value of paying immediate attention to your charge. Rupert was in the habit of interrupting adult conversation and I was talking to my friend as we sat down at the table.

  ‘Palifar,’ he began. He couldn’t say Pamela and so Palifar had stuck.

  ‘Just a minute, Rupert,’ I said firmly. ‘I am talking.’ I carried on with my conversation but eventually I gave him my full attention. ‘What was it you wanted to say, Rupert?’

  There was an old woman riddled with the most terrible arthritis making her way through the tables. I had noticed her sitting at the table in the corner some time before and I’d hoped and prayed my small charge didn’t make any ringingly loud remarks. By now, the woman was only a handshake away when Rupert said in a booming voice, ‘Is that the wicked witch?’

  I was mortified. The dear soul looked at me with a twinkle in her eye and that only made me feel worse. ‘No,’ I said gently. And as the woman made her way slowly and painfully to the door, how I wished I had answered the child’s question before she was within earshot.

  Soon after we got back to London, Rupert was ill with whooping cough. I nursed him but the poor child really struggled to breathe at times. His doctor came from Harley Street and in my humble opinion, he wasn’t all he was cracked up to be. I was so concerned and at one point I felt that Rupert was so ill that he should be hospitalised, but the doctor would have none of it. Thankfully, he improved and before long we were back to the old routine. I taught him nursery songs, which not only helped to strengthen his lungs again but also impressed his mother.

  ‘That boy knows every nursery rhyme in the world,’ Mrs Bancroft told her friends proudly. Rupert enjoyed anything with a strong rhythm and especially songs with humour in them.

  Doctor Foster went to Gloucester

  in a shower of rain.

  He stepped in a puddle right up to his middle

  and never went there again.

  Rupert had never been shown finger plays either. It took a while for him to get the right finger involved as we said the rhyme but he mastered them eventually. Five Little Froggies was his all-time favourite and at last Rupert could do something which pleased his mother. He enjoyed showing off his new skills when he was called in to meet his mother’s friends.

  Rupert also loved the Dark, Dark Wood story. It made him feel deliciously afraid and he would beg for it again and again.

  In a dark, dark wood, there’s a dark, dark house.

  In the dark, dark house, there’s a dark, dark room.

  In the dark, dark room, there’s a dark, dark cupboard.

  In the dark, dark cupboard, there’s a dark, dark box.

  In the dark, dark box, there’s a BOO!

  I would start the story in a normal voice and let it get quieter and quieter until on the last line I was whispering and then I’d shout BOO!

  A few weeks after I had started the job, my old friend Hilary came to see me. She had popped in as a surprise although I think I was the one who was the most surprised. She was five months pregnant! I knew she was seeing someone and that it was serious, but by this time they had split up and she hadn’t told him about the baby.

  ‘But he loves you,’ I protested. ‘He’d be really chuffed to bits to know you’re carrying his child.’

  By the look on her face, I clearly shouldn’t have interfered. She became openly hostile, took an immediate dislike to Rupert and made no secret of the fact that she thought my job was rubbish. I was sure it was only sour grapes because we were about to leave for the South of France and I was busy packing.

  ‘How will you get there?’ she eventually asked.

  ‘We’re flying,’ I gulped as I remembered that I had refused to go to Italy on our holiday because I was scared of flying. She gave me a disapproving glare and we had a rather prickly parting.

  It was early spring when we all left for the South of France. Mrs Bancroft had been telling me for a week that the air would be so much better for Rupert’s health after his cough. We flew from Bournemouth, so Mrs Bancroft invited my parents to have an evening meal in the hotel where we were staying the night before we left. My father chickened out, but my mother came. Mum had a taxi both ways because Mrs Bancroft wouldn’t hear of her coming on the bus and she paid the fares. She was very generous that way. My mother was a bit bemused by it all, but it was good to see her and say goodbye because I had no idea how long I would be gone.

  The airport at Hurn was very low-key in those days and we flew in what felt like a rust-bucket. It was very noisy and there was only the three of us on board. When we landed at the airport, Mrs Bancroft’s brother was waiting for us on the tarmac. I hadn’t realised that he lived in that area. He was filthy rich, with an amazing house overlooking the sea.

  Mrs Bancroft had rented a cottage in a beautiful area and at last Rupert and I could enjoy a different walk and the seaside. The weather was pleasantly mild but not yet warm enough for us to go out without a coat. The cottage was fairly isolated, with our nearest neighbour about half a mile away. It had its own grounds although the only thing in the garden was a swing. The cottage itself was white with dormer windows. There was a large kitchen, with two other rooms downstairs. They had been knocked into one, with double French doors to separate them, if necessary. Rupert and I shared a room which had two single beds. He was thrilled to have a grown up’s bed. The wallpaper was floral and matched the counterpanes on the beds. There was a kidney-shaped dressing table with a mirror next to the window, with a curtain in the same material as the counterpanes.

  The biggest drawback was that we were both friendless and lonely. Mr Valentine had hired a young housekeeper called Judy but, although she spoke English, she and I had little in common. We had little time to get to know each other either because she lived out.

  It was Judy who fixed me up with a blind date. He was English, living in the South of France while working in the area and going to take me for a meal in a restaurant when I had the day off. I gave myself some serious pampering, a hairdo and a new dress. I also tried a face pack. I’d bought some Fuller’s earth from the chemist and pasted it all over my face. Horror of horrors, I’d obviously got the time wrong because he turned up half an hour before I expected! Judy gave him some coffee in the kitchen while I rushed around upstairs, getting rid of the face pack and slapping on some lipstick. He was a nice man and we were getting along famously. In the restaurant he told me something funny and as I laughed I put my hand up to my face. To my horror I could feel a distinct line of Fuller’s earth along my jaw line. What he thought of it I have no idea but it was so predominant I had to excuse myself and go to the Ladies for another face wash. Sadly, he didn’t ask me out again.

  I took Rupert out as much as I could but he was very lonely. Back then, we didn’t have the social support system we enjoy now. There were no Mother and Toddler groups and because the whole place was geared to the summer and tourists, nothing was open in February. We spent our time on the beach dipping into rock pools, or travelling into town on the bus.

  My employer was beginning to do things which I found unacceptable. Rupert was scared of water, so I had been taking it very slowly. We had walked beside the sand for a while then when he was confident enough, we ventured a little closer to the water. As time went on, he was happy to look into the rock pools, so long as the tide was a long way out. He didn’t realise that, over time, I was gradually getting him closer to the water’s edge. I told Mrs Bancroft of our progress and she was very pleased. She was planning to spend the summer in Spai
n at an exclusive club and so she was keen for her son to enjoy the beach. I had a day off and she looked after Rupert. When I got back, I was horrified to hear that she had taken Rupert to the swimming pool and grabbing his hand, had made him run towards the water. The poor child had had become hysterical and the doctor had to be called. Thankfully, he recovered but from that moment on he refused to even get on the bus if it was going near the seaside. We were even further back than square one.

  Mrs Bancroft also wanted Rupert to have a spoonful of multi-vitamins every day. They were quite a new thing in the Sixties. Mrs Bancroft bought the plain ones and I wasn’t allowed to put any sugar in it. Actually Rupert quite enjoyed them until the morning when his mother came into the breakfast room and said, ‘Oooh! Let me have a taste.’

  Rupert loaded his spoon and her mother ate it but at the same time pulled a face and shuddered. From that moment on, taking the vitamins was a battle and although I tried to persuade him, after the way Matron made poor Flora eat her carrots I didn’t have the heart to insist he ate it.

  As April approached, I was coming up for twenty-one and Judy told me that Mrs Bancroft was planning to give me a car as my birthday present. Although it would have been handy to take Rupert out and about, the whole idea frightened me to death. If I accepted such a generous gift, I’d be beholden to her for at least a year and already I was having concerns about her as an employer. One evening Judy and I were trying to watch a good thriller on the TV when Mrs Bancroft came in, wearing a new ball gown. We admired it but she wouldn’t move from in front of the screen, apparently oblivious to the fact that this was our off-duty time and we were engrossed in the movie. It was annoying and we couldn’t tell her to get lost. Eventually I said something cutting to her. A lot of nasty things were said and we never did see the end of the thriller.