The weather is even worse today. I have been tempted to search for a cheap, package holiday, somewhere hot and, away from Hampshire. I am presently wearing a jumper. It is 1st July. I am actually considering lighting a fire.

Wimbledon today will be a challenge – for the tournament organisers and punters alike – with more rain forecast on and off. Centre Court will have the roof on and, at least, we will see some action on tele. Hugo, my son, who is working at the shop on Court number 1, says that the shops and restaurants are heaving when it rains.

Yesterday, I wrote about our summer holidays in Norfolk. They were often chilly, perched on the slate-grey North Sea. On the other side of this stretch of sea is Scandinavia. I am part Swedish – through my Dad, and Geoff part Norwegian – through his Mum. I have always fancied myself as bit of a Viking, and it is comforting to think that Geoff and I share some tenuous ancient lineage. That connection always felt stronger when we visited Norfolk. And our golden-haired children reminded us of that link.

When Stan was battling with cancer eight years ago, I took myself off to Stockholm to find a bit of myself and him. I felt completely at home amongst the Swedes, much more than anywhere else in the world, apart from Sydney. The locals obviously thought that I was one, as these people who looked like Abba greeted me with ‘Hej’ (hey) – hello in Swedish. There is a magnificent stretch of tiny islands, the Archipelago, dotted around Stockholm. Very urbane, sophisticated Swedes turn their backs on the modern amenities of the mainland, and head out, en masse, in the summer, to live with Mother Nature on these idyllic islands. And they live very basically.

This is a bit like life on the Norfolk coast. There is a little house, not much more than a shack really, that is (0r was?) perched on the tip of Blakeney Point. We knew an extended family that holidayed there each year. It had no electricity or water, so they lived like Robinson Crusoe for a week or so each year, catching seafood, cooking it on open fires, sailing and getting pretty sea-salted. Their hair was like dreadlocks after a while.

We were invited to go and have drinks with them one evening. This entailed walking for an extended period of time through black, squelching mud. I rarely had a pedicure in those days, but I indulged in one just before my holiday. What a waste of money! After this pilgrimage to the shack, my feet look like pig’s trotters. It took weeks for the ingrained mud to wear off. There was something wild and romantic about what this family was doing. Facing the elements, together, was bonding.

Norfolk is wild and untamed. It is brooding, vast and eternal. It is not manicured, groomed or done.  It is sparsely populated, as it is on the way to nowhere. Somehow you felt better for smelling the sea air, eating the local fare and being blown away on the beach each day.

But it was always good to get back to Wandsworth and ‘civilisation’.

Today I am going to have to do some serious gardening at the Old Rectory. It is looking like a jungle out there.

 

 

 

 

 

The weather is still rubbish, so no more on that subject. There are some summers that are like tepid tea. Only just drinkable.

When the children were small, we went to Salcombe, in Devon, and/or to Cley-next-the-Sea, in Norfolk, for our summer holidays. My abiding memory is that it was never very warm. Even if the sun was out, you still had a top over your swimmers – what Aussie call cosies – short for swimming costumes. But there were many days that the sun did not make much of an appearance, and it was freezing. Other families joined us, including John and Nicky Barber, on these travels to East Anglia.

The form was that you would pack a picnic lunch, and then head to a local beach by car. The favourite beach was Stiffkey – pronounced Stookey. You couldn’t drive all the way to the beach. You had to dump the car, and then walk for about 20 minutes to the sea. Norfolk has huge tides. When it is low tide, huge tracts of sandy beach is revealed, and the sea is miles away. Just a thin strip of blue-grey, a long way out, overshadowed by huge skies above. When the tide is coming in, the sea moves so fast that, if you are not careful, you will drown.

We invariably set up camp in the sand dunes, where we were safe whether it was low or high tide. We took little nets and floats for the children to play with in the small estuary nearby. They were happy trawling for shrimp or floating around for hours at a time. They built sand castles, and the hours passed by happily. But sometimes, it was so cold that we gave up and headed home, disappointed and, wondering how we would kill time. The children inevitably got cabin fever playing board games or building Lego inside, and they ended up tetchy and cross.

There was a very handsome fishmonger in Holt, a lovely market town. It was a joy to go and buy potted shrimp or mackerel pate from him. In those days, there were antique shops everywhere, and you whiled away time ‘junking’. That meant looking through piles of junk for treasure. I bought some lovely glass and porcelain in Holt.

 

Then there was Holkham Hall, the ancestral home of the Duke of Leicester. Parts of it were open to the public. Like a lot of stately homes, the family relied on revenue from day visitors. Anna wrote to the Duke when she was about 8, saying how much she liked his house. He wrote a warm, handwritten postcard back to her, saying that he enjoyed living there. Holkham Beach is across the road, and it is a pristine, large beach, again with huge tides (they filmed some of the training scenes for Chariots of Fire there). I have a vivid memory of watching the children swimming in the freezing, shallow sea, when it was high tide, and the sand had been enveloped. I remember looking at Hugo and it dawning on me that he had turned blue. There was a bitter wind blowing off the North Sea.

At that moment, I felt a thousand miles, physically and metaphorically from my roots, from the warm sunshine and sea of Sydney.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My ‘top secret’ job today has kept me from blogging until now, late in the day. Sadly, I have not solved the Brexit problem, nor have I made the weather better – it has been dire all day. Nor have I solved world peace, nor even remotely ‘made a difference’.

I periodically glanced at Wimbledon on the tele, and I despaired for those non-Centre Court ticket holders, who had seen no action – zero – due to the rain. They were wandering around like sheep without a shepherd. Drinking Pimms, diluted by the rain, and eating soggy sandwiches. Hoping, against hope, that the sun would win through and they would see some action.

Centre Court now has a bazillion pound electronic roof (both in terms of cost and weight), which is closed when it rains. It was closed all day today. So if you were one of the lucky few with Centre Court tickets, you were okay. If not, it was a wash out for you. Luck of the draw!!!

Wimbledon, yesterday, was sublime for me until – late in the day – 4.30 pm. I sat in the sunshine, smugly watching fellow countryman, Nicky Kyrgios, crush his opponent. And then, another Aussie, Tomic, playing a Spanish opponent. Who could believe it? Talk about luck. Australia is ‘the lucky country’, and I had ‘lucked in’. You win ballot tickets, and you see the only Aussies seeded at Wimbledon! That is very good luck!

Somehow, a contingent of green and yellow – Aussie colours – sheilas and blokes – had nabbed frontrow tickets. They kept up a non-stop, tightly-choreographed cheer-campaign, in song, for both Aussie racketeers. Was I proud? Not sure! It was funny, but it was, a tad, naff! What does ‘naff’ mean? It a word that Sloanes use to indicate that something is not quite right… really what they mean is that something is a bit off, like fish left out in the midday sun. Like finding a sweat-drenched shirt in the bottom of your Gym bag after a few months.

But at 4.30 pm, as predicted, the heavens chucked it down, and play was suspended. It happened in a few seconds. One minute, I was on Court no. 2 watching Tomic fight to get through the first round and, the next minute, the heavens opened, and it was bucketing. Within lightning seconds, ‘fit’ grounds-people ran and pulled covers over the perfectly manicured lawns, like magic.

Thousands of people ran from the grounds to get home. Southfields Tube was hell on earth. The Powers that Be had closed the entrance to the Tube, as they didn’t want a crush on the platform. So instead, we all stood on the road and waited to be mowed down by the traffic in torrential rain.

Life is so much like that, isn’t it? One moment you are in heaven and then, suddenly, there can be a turn in direction.

Still it was a corker of a day. I spent it with my Brit mate from Steep Tennis Club, talented artist Louise Braithwaite. After-all, skin is waterproof! She had just returned from Glastonbury, where it was a mud-fest, due to the extreme wet weather this year in June.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Today the weather is threatening to rain. Which is a complete pain, as I am off to Wimbledon later this morning. I won two tickets in the Steep Tennis Club ballot for Court 2, and I am going with another woman from the C Team, Louise Braithwaite. Louise paints ‘happy Lowrys’ of perfect British locations, from Salcombe to Scotland, lavender fields to the Ritz. I want her to paint the Old Rectory, with cricketers in the background.

I love this time of year. I keep Wimbledon going, non stop, on the tele, from 1pm to sunset, and I pop in and out to see if any of my favourites are on court. I feel no guilt whatsoever! I don’t always watch the technique closely, whether they are slicing or top-spinning, I just love the vibe. The perfectly manicured green grass and the players’ white attire. Strawberries and cream, and Pimms.

When I was at university in Sydney in the early 80s, I used to finish studying at midnight, and then I’d tune in to Wimbledon, which was just starting at lunchtime there. I didn’t even play tennis. I had no connection, whatsoever, to the game. But every year, I’d be up half the night watching it again. I found the back and forth of the ball, ‘conk, conk, conk’ and then ‘Out’, very soothing after a day at the books. Back then, it was Martina Navratilova versus Chris Evert, and who can forget Yvonne Goolagong, our very own Aussie champion. I loved Becker, Borg, McEnroe and Connors. It felt so glamorous.

But there were two Aussie blokes that canned the doubles’ title at Wimbledon during my Uni years – Peter McNamara and Paul McNamee – they won in 1980 and 1982. They were called the two Maccers, and Macdonalds was aspirational then, not dodgy for causing obesity. I managed to stalk McNamara at the Hurlingham Tennis Classic a few years in a row, and I finally managed to get the pic with him. He seemed happy to oblige.

It was a dream come true, from 1989, to be actually watching the tournament on tele during the day in London, not too far from the All England Club. In the summer of 1997, Shaun and Wendy, my brother and his wife, came to visit with baby son, Ryan. They piled into the top floor of Elms Crescent. Nicky Barber came, with baby Harry, to celebrate Ryan’s first birthday in mid-June. We tried to make impressions of the boys’ hands in clay, but it just ended up a sloppy mess.

Jo Fothergill’s father was very senior at the All England Club, and she gave me two Centre Court tickets for Wimbledon. I took Shaun. I had no idea how special those tickets were – the sheer luxury of them. On the news over the years, I had seen long queues outside the grounds. People even slept overnight to be in the front section of the queue.You can still obtain, if you are lucky, tickets to the three main courts, Centre, 1 and 2, on the day, by queuing at Turnstile 3 (there is something so democratic about that). If you have a ticket to one of those three magic courts, the seat is yours for the day. Otherwise it’s a scrum.

But when Shaun and I turned up at Wimbledon that day, I had no idea of how it all worked. I thought that, even with a ticket to one of these premium courts, you had to run and grab a seat once you made it through the gates.

So it was with some delight, we discovered on arrival, that we didn’t have to queue, but we could bypass the queue. Just stroll in! When we went to Centre Court, nice uniformed people explained that the seats were ours all day, and we could pop in and out as much as we cared to. Even if we went for a bite, nobody could play Musical Chairs and take them. It was like finding out that instead of Economy, you were flying First Class. Bliss!

So off to Wimbledon I go.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The weather is better today. Summer has decided to pop in for a visit, but I fear it won’t stay for long.

Last Friday, I saw my old boss (circa 1988-89), Justin, and our client, Charles, for dinner at Zuma, in Knightsbridge. It was twenty five years since we’d all been together. Justin was our host and, as always, was perfect in his suggestions as to what we should order. He tried to order an Aussie wine, but the delivery hadn’t been made. Flamenco texted me her suggestions, as it is one of her favourite restaurants. She took me there for lunch years ago, and I have been back from time to time. Love the whole Asian fusion vibe! Reminds me of home and Singapore. The black cod was amazing. It was all amazing!

When we left just after 10pm, the bar was heaving with all the ‘beautiful people’. It could have been a fashion shoot, rather than real life.

I love the film The Devil Wears Prada; I love Meryl Streep, playing the powerful editor of Runway (modelled on Anna Wintour at Vogue?), and all the fab actors, Emily Blunt (as her assistant), Anne Hathaway (who sells her soul to the devil –fashion) and Stanley Tucci. One of the best lines is:

Fashion is not about utility. An accessory is merely a piece of iconography used to express individual identity.

When I travelled with Justin and Charles to San Diego on business, decades ago, I told Charles that I didn’t really spend money on clothes. He looked at me in disbelief. Was I a normal 27 year old female? All the pheasants he knew were into fashion. We laughed about that at Zuma.

Maybe I was, a bit, like Andrea, played by Anne Hathaway, before she sold her soul and started wearing designer kit to fit into the fashion world. When someone from Dolce and Gabbana rings up at the beginning of the film, she asks, “How do you spell Gabbana?” They hang up instead.

In downtown Sydney in the early 80s, global brands were not part of the landscape. Just before I departed for London, Hermes opened up in Martin Place. Now all the big brands are represented.

In the Wandsworth years, I lived in old jeans from GAP and run of the mill stuff. I was more interested in buying the latest wallpaper or Farrow and Ball paint for the house. I just wanted to look neat and tidy.

Now I do know what Dolce and Gabbana is. Fashion is everywhere. It is part of everyday life. I wore Missoni, bright orange and gold, on Friday evening. I wonder if Charles noticed?

At the end of the night, the three of us walked back to the Bulgari Hotel on Hyde Park to find cabs. Two guys were taking photos of a leggy brunette. I don’t think she was a model, but she could have been: maybe it was for Instagram. We all said goodbye, with promises to keep in touch. Justin was off to United Arab Emirates, where he lives. Charles closer by, in Wandsworth, and me, to Fulham.

I walked back to my car, parked in Sloane Street. So easy to park after 6.30pm. I walked past Boodles, the luxury jewellers on the corner, across from Harvey Nicholls. Mike Wainwright, a member of the family who own it, was a father at Broomwood Hall. He kindly checked the claws on my engagement ring from time to time. When we moved to Chelsea, I was trying to clear up after the builders, and tried to move a large door. I slipped and crushed my rings, so that they were no longer circular, but oval. I jumped in the car and headed straight for Boodles. I was distraught the whole way. I rang the security bell, and a security guard in a black suit let me in. I explained to a well-dressed sales person that I knew Mike and that I had damaged my rings. Customers seated in velvet chairs, sipping champagne, were staring at me.

I had not checked to see how I looked before making the dash to Boodles. I was completely covered in a fine layer of white dust. I looked like a ghost. The sales assistant had not blinked an eye when I entered like a crazy woman. He just took the rings, and said, “We will sort it madam.” Boodles’ treatment. And they did.

Today I am going to do some gardening and try to relax after the Brexit hysteria that is hitting social media. I think people need to calm down. People are getting nasty with friends!

 

 

I don’t think I can possibly talk about the weather today, when Britain has just exited from the European Union. Will this vote bring fair weather or storm clouds? Who can tell?

It is one of those momentous events, where you, forevermore, remember where you were when you heard the news: like JFK being assassinated, the Berlin Wall coming down with the collapse of communism, Diana dying in a car crash in Paris and the Twin Towers in New York tumbling down after being hit by terrorist planes. And now this!

I wish I had a crystal ball, and I could see how it is all going to pan out. Will my children have a worse future? How would Britain have developed if we had stayed in? We shall never know.

I suspect that some of the older pheasants and stags at the Hurlingham Club are toasting the news at the Polo Bar.

Not only are we out of Europe, but also we have lost David Cameron as Prime Minister, Scotland may hold another referendum to leave Britain, there is ‘carnage in the markets’, we could have another General Election resulting in a Labour government, and we may all need visas to enter European nations soon. And will a lot of my continental friends need to go home? Will my pheasant and stag friends on the continent need to come back to Britain to live? The repercussions are endless. It is a lot to take in.

So much has changed in London over the time I have lived here, now for almost 30 years. It is obviously cosmopolitan now! Where will it be in another 30 years?

Yesterday, I talked about renovating our house in Elms Crescent in Clapham, on and off, during the eight years that we lived there. It was when the children were little. Increasing property prices flabbergasted young couples, like us. In the time that we lived there between 1996 and 2004, the sale value increased threefold, like all the houses in the area.

The increase in property prices in London was common fodder for dinner party conversation post 1995. It was like we were all getting rich. Like we were winning the lottery. When in fact, all the houses on the market were going up at the same rate, whether you were selling or buying. It only made a difference if you were buying in another country, which had not seen a property boom.

This should be compared to when we sold our first little terrace on the north side of Clapham Common in 1995, just before Hugo was born. We made zero profit. We bought it for the same price that we sold it for. And that was after five years.

Is it a good thing that property prices are now so high in the capital that young people can’t get on the property ladder? Maybe my children will end up going back to Kangarooland! If they do, they will find that, due to globalization, central Sydney and the surrounds is prohibitively expensive too.

If they hop there, Geoff and I will too!

Tonight I am meeting my old boss, Justin, and our former client, Charles, for dinner in Knightsbridge.At Zuma. It has been a long time since we’ve all been together. 25 years.

 

There was torrential rain overnight. It is hot and humid today. It feels like there will be a thunderstorm later.

Yesterday’s Hurlingham Tennis Classic was a lot of fun – quintessentially English. Lopez versus Berdych, Sock versus Gasquet (who has the best back-hand, apart from Federer) and then doubles with the older players, including Bahrami, the Iranian exhibitionist. His trick shots and banter are hilarious!

I bumped into various women from Broomwood Hall days, in Wandsworth, wherever I went. There was one elegant mother queuing for sea food, who had been inspirational to many when it came to house renovations. Her entire family would camp out in a few rooms for months, while the rest of the house was gutted and transformed. She was visionary. They moved up the property ladder every time they sold.

Like a lot of Wandsworth women, I became an avid, amateur interior designer. I devoured the monthly issue of House and Garden. When we first moved into Elms Crescent in the Abbeville Village, to the east of Clapham Common, we could only afford necessary repairs – that meant nothing pretty. The roof needed replacing. The windows in a charming upstairs conservatory, overlooking the garden, were leaking and needed attention. The Victorian tessellated tiles in the hall had cracked and needed supporting from underneath via the cellar. Boring repairs!

When Hugo was six months old, my parents, Stan and Bev, came to meet him. They had met Anna when we all went to the Great Barrier Reef, where Hugo was conceived. After our memorable trip to Salcombe, they came to stay at Elms Crescent.

Stan could not sit still. He was a work-horse. The lawn was full of clover and he decided that it needed eradicating. He enlisted Geoff’s help. I went out for the day with Mum and the children. According to Dad, Geoff disappeared for a considerable period of time. He was eventually found, locked in the toilet, reading P. G. Wodehouse. Dad christened him ‘glass arms’, a term that stuck for years. When I came home, the lawn, instead of being green, was all dirt, with seed. I had a fit. Where would the children play over the summer? I had to wait for the grass to grow. It did grow and it was, indeed, free of clover.

When I started working in September 1997 for Blatt, Hammesfahr and Eaton, a Chicago law firm with a satellite office in the City, Geoff and I decided to renovate the upstairs conservatory. A few years later, over another summer time, we built on a downstairs conservatory. We decorated all the rooms over time. We put in utility room, with waterproofing, in the cellar. We changed the hedge in the front garden for iron railings. We landscaped the garden. We did everything that we could to improve the property. We didn’t camp in a few rooms whilst these renovations took place, but we did live with the builders. If you’ve done the same, you know the aggro.

Elms Crescent was a wonderful home when the children were young.

It felt like Stone House, Geoff’s childhood home. Even though it was in London.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Today is cloudy and humid.

I am off the Hurlingham Tennis Classic, with an Aussie sheila friend, later today.

The tennis tournament started yesterday with some doubles at 5pm. The players are, mostly, retired from the professional circuit and play in exhibition matches around the world. I noticed from the players’ board that Mark Philippoussis was playing in the opening game. I caught him coming off court a few years ago and wangled a photo with him. I have also seen other Aussie players, Lleyton Hewitt, and the doubles legend, Peter McNamara, at the tournament. It used to be principally retired players that came to entertain us, but now some of the current top players come to limber up for Wimbledon. So I have seen Nadal, Berdytch, Dimitrov and Sharipova, to name a few. Today, some of the top players will, no doubt, be playing again.

There is only one grass court that is used, with stands at either end and seating on the sides, so you can almost reach across and touch the players. There is a carnival type atmosphere at Hurlingham during the Classic. It is quintessentially English. Geoff and I headed there last night to meet my Book Club (and husbands) to enjoy the fun! I had some potted shrimps: very small, tasty prawns in butter on toast. And some English sparkling wine, made near us in Hampshire, at Nyewood.

The shrimp and the sunny evening, took me back to our last summer in Salcombe in 1998, ten years after landing at Heathrow from Australia on 19 August. We celebrated the occasion by inviting friends, on holiday nearby, for Aussie sparkling wine and king prawns. I found a fishmonger in Kingsbridge, the biggest town nearby to Salcombe, which sold Aussie-style giant prawns.

Geoff and I peeled away all afternoon and finally it was time for my pheasant and stag friends to arrive. They all piled into the garden of the little cottage we were renting on Island Street, where all the boating shops are located. Anna served food (aged 4) and Geoff made a moving speech. I could see a few damp eyes.

 

The day was a hard one. I started crying, on and off, from dawn. I couldn’t believe how home-sick the anniversary made me feel. There was a jewellery shop right next door to our rental cottage, and Geoff popped in and bought me a pair of earrings to cheer me up. I was so excited when I saw the little black box. I stopped for long enough to peek inside. I didn’t like them, and then with resumed tears I pouted, “I don’t like them!” So off we went and bought some alternatives that I did like.

Hopefully it won’t rain while we are watching the tennis, although it looks as if it might.

 

 

It’s a miracle. The sun is shining brightly this morning. This is good news, as Book Club is meeting at the Hurlingham Club this evening, for a BBQ, to say good bye for the summer. Once school is out in July, Chelsea and Fulham are like ghost towns.

Where will members of my Book Club go? One American will go to her harbour side house not far from New York and another to her house on Lake Michigan. The Honorouble will go to her house in Cornwall, where all good pheasants go for the summer: alternatively they head to Salcombe or St Mawes in Devon, Blakeney or Brancaster in Norfolk, West Wittering near Chichester or Aldeburgh in Suffolk. Another will head to Wengen in the Swiss Alps, where they have a chalet. Another will go to the South of France, where her mother and sister have a house near St Tropez. Another will go to her cottage in Dorset. Another will go to Isle of Wight, off the south coast, where she holidayed as a child. Another will go to her house on Hayling Island, where she holidayed as a child. Another will stay in her Hampshire house. I will stay in my Hampshire house.

The Hurlingham is quiet as a mouse over the summer break, particularly in August. (We have spent a few summers there, treating it as our personal resort.)

It is the same in Manhattan and Paris. A mass exodus for the summer holidays.

In the days when our children were tots, we headed to either Cley-next-the sea in Norfolk with Nicky and John Barber’s growing clan (and the Tawney family) or to Salcombe with a number of families. Some always rented great houses in South Sands, like the pink fairy tale house, ‘The Malt’, out by the headlands and where they moored their fantastic boats. We, by comparison, went for the modest house in town and rented a basic boat with an outboard motor so that we could pootle around the estuary (hired boats are not allowed out through the heads to sea).

Geoff and I were keen to holiday there again, ever since the magical time we had with Stan and Bev, my parents, in 1996, when Hugo was six months and Anna two years. So in the August of 1997, that was where we headed, with a car laden with baby and toddler paraphernalia: all but the kitchen sink jammed into our station wagon (estate car).

We also holidayed there again in the August of 1998.This time we shared a boat with our best buddies, the Glens. I was expecting a glamorous run- around. Instead the boat that Geoff hired, much to my initial disgust, was a large, blue, wooden barge. It was not in the least bit glamorous, but it was cool in its own way. It was named ‘Sheena’ and it weighed a ton. If the tide went out, there was no way the men could shift it off the sand into the water. We would have to stay put until the tide turned.

 

 

That very warm and sunny summer, we chugged around to the various beaches around the estuary, picnicking, crabbing, eating ice-creams, and building sand castles and moats.

It was too cold to swim without a wet suit, so the best you could do was paddle. I was frustrated to say the least. To be so near to clean, turquoise water and not be able to submerge yourself in it! The children were oblivious and frolicked away in the shallows.

In the year between our two summer holidays in Salcombe, I had been very busy. I started working for Greg Hopp’s Chicago law firm in September, 1997: Blatt, Hammerfahr and Eaton, in their satellite office in the Lloyd’s building. We also began the first of many renovation projects on our Victorian house in Elms Crescent, in Clapham. And that would lead me back to Salcombe again and again.

Today I am heading back to London in time for tennis this morning.

It is pouring with rain as I write this. Rivers are forming on the driveway and gushing out onto the street. Welcome to the British summer!

On Friday, I took Domino down to Emsworth to walk along the pebbled beach to the bridge to Hayling Island. There is a windmill and a charming pub just before you hit the traffic on the bridge. It is worth a visit. It was low-tide, so the boats were marooned on the mud flats, lurching drunkenly to one side. There were a few grandparents out with grandchildren. Were they filling in for parents off at work? Or was it simply some quality time together?

That got me thinking about childcare in Wandsworth in the 1990s, when Anna and Hugo were small.

 

In the 60s and 70s in Bexley North, where I grew up, nannies, au pairs or mother’s helpers didn’t exist. Nor indeed anyone that helped with housework. Childcare and housework were strictly the domain of the ‘Missus’. Lucky her!!!

And then let’s not forget the maternity nurse!

They are all different.

An au pair is a young woman or man from a foreign country, working for, and living as part of, a Host Family. They would help, typically the mother, with the small children for a few hours a day and do ‘light housework’. For this they would receive a small allowance (£40 a week in my day). In their spare time, they would pursue cultural activities and attend English classes. Or go out partying. They were not supposed to have sole charge of the children. A parent may pop out to the shop or ask the au pair to take the children to the Common, but it would be for a short time. A mother’s helper was pretty much the same, except they were mostly British and worked longer hours. Again, they were not supposed to have sole charge of the children. They could live in or out.

Sole charge was strictly a trained nanny’s job. Many of the pheasants and stags I’ve met, around my age, were under the charge of a nanny at a young age. Some of them only saw their parents between tea in the nursery and bath time before bed (think of the children on Downton Abbey). The ‘best’ nanny is considered to be the Norland Nanny, in her characteristic brown uniform. She (I don’t think there are any he’s) is trained for three years in all aspects of childcare at an academy, currently at the rate of £13,000 a year. Celebrities, royalty and aristocracy compete ruthlessly for them.

Of course, I noticed a number of parents, in Wandsworth, using their au pair or mother’s helper like a nanny. Without the pay!

So I had a nanny when I worked as a solicitor, which I shared with Emma: so she looked after Anna and Issie when I was in the City. I had an au pair for 6 months when Hugo was two months. She was Micky from France and was gentle and lovely.

But before she arrived, there was Ann French, the super maternity-nurse. She had worked for royalty and her previous job was working for Jean Claude Van Damme, the ‘Muscles from Brussels’. (Geoff still loves his action movies.) She came to look after Hugo and me –  us all really – when I couldn’t cope. After Hugo was born, I was getting weaker and weaker. One night I took a turn for the worse, and I had to be rushed back to hospital, undergoing an emergency operation. I had no choice but to have help. A wonderful group of friends gave me Ann as a gift, to help me get better. So incredibly kind and loving! You know who you are.

Ann was an angel. We had moved into Emma and Jim’s house while they were away skiing, as our house was full of builders and mess: I had an emergency caesarean the day we moved into Elms Crescent, after unpacking the kitchen. Ann came to us just like Mary Poppins. She was technically only required to look after Hugo and help me get into a routine with him: feeding and sleep etc. When she saw the predicament we were in, I couldn’t lift a leaf let alone a baby, she took over. She ordered Geoff around, sending him off to buy groceries; did all the cooking and washing; did everything required for Hugo, including bathing and feeding him and nursed me: feeding me iron rich foods and making me drink Guinness. If that was not enough, she helped us move back into Elms Crescent, unpacked our moving boxes and sorted out the builders. I owe her a huge debt.

Today I am at the Old Rectory and if it stops raining, I am training with the Steep Ladies’ C team.