British nannies booming

Press, 4 May 1981, Page 14

British nannies booming

From

BRUCE JONES,

NZPA, London

Apart from the daffodils, the appearance in Londoi parks of nannies mindin: their charges and pushinj elegant prams is a sure sigr. that spring has arrived. It is also part of the evidence of a remarkable renaissance of the British nanny, also now the subject of an export boom. . Foreign clients on the waiting lists of London nannies’ agencies include royalty, wealthy American families, and Middle East potentates.

. In Britain, Princess Anne is looking for a replacement for her son Peter’s nanny, Mabel Anderson, who is retiring after 32 years in royal service.

Mabel, who looked after all four of the Queen’s children — Princess Anne ..was said to be her favourite — says that at 54 she feels too old to take on a new charge. '"‘Princess Anne is expecting her second child in two months.

Jonathan Gathorne-Hardy, the greatest living nanny expert, deemed the whole species virtually extinct by 1972 when his “The Rise and Fall of the British Nanny” was published.

To him the real nanny was a working-class girl, trained in service to achieve the

final accolade of “nanny,” totally dedicated to her charges over whom she had extraordinary power. Sir Winston Churchill so loved his nanny, Mrs Everest, that he paid for flowers to- be put on her grave Ipng after her death. Nannies like Mrs Everest were so omnipotent and nur-sery-orientated that the outside world was excluded from them.

Mr Gathorne-Hardy quotes one as saying to a frightened child who asked what the noise of an air raid meant,,. "Bombs, dear. Elbows off the table.”

While nannies are back in fashion, the circumstances in 1981 are very different. The modern nanny has a good salary, often a car, sometimes a private plane and several holiday trips a year. f-.

In the Middle East, she often has her own villa in the grounds of the royal palace, and a private swimming pool. Usually she can look forward to a salary of up to SNZ366 a week, and it’s all.

pocket money as she lives in and doesn’t contribute anything to her keep. The best-known of the nanny training colleges is Norland, in Berkshire, which produces what is generally accepted as. the Rolls Royce of the species. A girl training at Norland has to pay $10,848, not including uniform. For this investment she can, when qualified, choose just about any kind of position she pleases. The head of Norland, Louise Davison,, a behavioural science lecturer from Leeds University, says that though the wealthy and aristocratic families have always employed nannies, there are many new openings. These include, professional couples, single-parent families, or those where the mother either wants or has to work, she recently told Anthea Hall of the London “Sunday Telegraph.” It seems impossible to make any assumptions about what type of family will attract what kind of nanny.

A girl trained at Norland, where they even had one titled nanny, may opt to work in a state nursery helping under-privileged children. A girl from a workingclass background may be more attracted by a “glamorous” job. But. as Mrs Davison says, “glamour" can be misleading. ' Travelling abroad may mean being left alone with the children in a foreign country with no opportunity to sightsee. A household with servants may' mean the nanny is treated as one of them and not expected to express her views on anything other than the children. One agency usually sends its nannies to the Middle East on a one-year contract so they can come home if they find it too difficult. The sudden growth in nanny demand is partly the result' of legislation that stops a woman losing her job when she has a baby. The 1980 girl may find herself nanny to a well-paid and successful career woman who needs a nanny mOre

than a woman with time on her hands. Some nannies are also taken on as status symbols. Norland has had to give each of its graduates a code number to stop social climbers ordering Norland nanny uniforms from Harrods in which to dress unqualified, girls to impress the neighbourhood. In general, however,- formality is disappearing. There is a large increase in the nine-to-five nanny who works daily and shares a flat with a group of girlfriends who may be doing quite different jobs. However, one. who disapproves is Nanny Sinclair, who can look back on more than 55 years on the job. “Everything has changed, probably for the worse,” she told Anthea Hall.

“The nannies today aren’t nannies at all. We used to say ‘Madam’ and ‘M’Lady.’ Now they use Christian names and are all over the house, not keeping to their own place.” She looks back to when she worked in a household with seven servants for a lady-in-waiting of the Queen Mother in the days when nannies took the name of the family. I do all sorts of jobs now that wouldn’t have been done wheh I was young. But when you’re old you’re glad to be able to do work at all.”