NURSE, CHILD, AND DOG

Press, Volume LXXIII, Issue 21992, 16 January 1937, Page 15

NURSE, CHILD, AND DOG

Old Nurse. By Barbara Barclay Carter. Jonathan Cape. 287 pp. (7s 6a net.)

"Old Nurse" is a study of three personalities: the nurse, Mary Ann, her : charge, and the Welsh village, Brecon. Miss Carter's method is to catch the glimpses of memory and to amplify these by the knowledge of scenes and persons that she has gained in adult life. Her memory is, without over-development, ample and clear, and many of her readers will envy her the gift of recalling intimate, childish incidents that very rarely recur to most men and women. She has had two means of \ assistance. First, she has kept many letters. Then "Nanna" lived for her child, and when the girl and young woman passed beyond her care and was orphaned, it was to Nanna that she turned for help, for sympathy in success and failure, and for certain affection. Their life together began when the child was born in California, they knew New York together, and in London, when the child's mother had to work, it was Nanna who kept her occupied and healthy. However far she travelled, Nanna's home never ceased to be the market-town of Brecon where her kinsfolk had always lived and where their sturdy, staunch characters were as firmly set as the great rocks upon their hillsides. Nanna talked of the other little boys and girls she had tended; but her thoughts and tales soon turned to home, and the child's mind was nourished by Welsh legends arid memories. Long before she saw Brecon, she knew its streets and bridges, she could describe the people who lived there, cheerful farmers, the brother who was blacksmith, the kinswoman who kept the bakery, and the great personages of the manor. When the series of visits to Brecon began, the child entered an active, wholesome world of riding, scrambling, and fishing, and of conversation with simple men and women whose wisdom and kindness seemed innate.

The subordinate interest of this biography is the evidence it gives of the influence of a nurse on the mind and character of a child. Miss Carter speaks of herself no more than her subject requires; but she would -gladly confess how firmly her own attitude to life is grounded upon the simple rectitude of Mary Ann, how finely she learnt to appreciate plain pleasures, and how soundly the nurse's taste in books and stories formed her own tastes. Such goodness was catching. Not that there is anything sanctimonious or pretentious either in the nurse or in her charge's representation; the story has its moments of pathos, but these are moments of real sorrow, when her last illness came upon Nanna in a place where she would have hated

to be, and when she let fall some hint of her own greatest loss. But the dial of Nahha's life generally numbered serene hours, and cheerful fun was rarely banished byseverity. In thus making known a vivid character so gently and affect - ingly Miss Carter has done more than the work of piety which, perhaps, was her first intention. One of the joys of both lives- the dog, Tige, who was named in the Buster Brown era. When his mistress was at school Nanha wrote for him: Dear Baby, I sm in Brecon. I am not very happy as you are not here. Nanna is very good to me but she don't take me enough, for runs in the fields. Nanna mt'de ■me sign this letter with my paw. I growled savagely all the time. Shonny [a catl is here, he is rude, he won't let me sit quite in front of the .fire., then I growl, and Nanna comes and drives Shonny away. I wish Shonny was not here, he is so silly and eats so little. I soon eat up his bread and milk. I have been playing with a little dog. It is very cold, so I lie in frcet of the fire and snore. I hope you are quite well. I want to see you very much. I send a paw and a lick. Tige.