Something you never knew...

Something you never knew about me….

My first career (way, way before I was an author), before I became a secretary, I was a nanny. I went on a nursery nursing course (and failed the exam – I am awful at exams!). However, I didn’t particularly need a qualification to get a nanny job, which is what I wanted to do anyway as my mum had been a nanny before she married.

I did this for eight years, working in Cambridge, London, Germany (in Cologne), Surrey and Dorset. I looked after seven girls and six boys ranging from about 2 years to about 10 years throughout those jobs.

We had some fun times – there were Christmas plays, walks around historical cities, playing in the woods or parks, visits to swimming pools (I was hopeless at mending their clothes or cooking meals but I could certainly ‘play’!).

This was taken in the London job. The boy was a monster! LOL. He managed to blow up the tv and take an overdose of children's medicine (but neither of which he did when I was there!)

In the Cambridge job I started a bank for the boys who gave me their money and if they got to a certain amount I would give them ‘interest’. Meanwhile they could give out ‘cheques’ to their family to reclaim the money from me. (Try to ignore the dreadful 1980s perm!)

I was in the Surrey job when Charles and Diana married and we made bunting and flags and designed what we thought the wedding dress would be like.

In the job in Germany I made up quizzes for the older children which involved answering questions or doing things and they had to pass one quiz before they could move on to another which got increasingly harder.

After eight years I gave it up because I needed a change of career, but still miss all those children, the eldest of whom will be 43 now…. (Yikes!)