Source: Telegraph >> Read full article and comment
By Julian Fellowes
After Sarkozy Senior’s risqué revelations about his nanny, Julian Fellowes recalls his own family’s more innocent experiences.
It seems the nanny is back in the news. This time she is accused of playing merry hell with the childish psyche, leaving boys incapable of love, commitment or tying their shoelaces. There is, however, a cultural oxymoron going on here. We are told by everyone, from television dramatists to government officials, that we must promote the right of women to have significant careers. I agree with this, actually, but any fool can see that, on some level, a nanny is essential for most women with professional ambitions.
Of course it is true that a nanny may be the first young, unrelated woman that a boy has encountered. My father found himself in this predicament in the 1920s. My grandfather had died in the Great War and some years later my grandmother married again and bore a second son when Pa was 12. A nursemaid was duly conscripted. My father was tall for his age and good looking, and it was not long before the new recruit offered to take him dancing “down the Palais”. Needless to say, he leaped at the offer and, when each Thursday came, he crept down, through the kitchens, escaped and met the girl on the corner. The palais in question was the Hammersmith Palais and over the next few months he became really quite a good dancer, rare in an Englishman, which served him well in the years ahead. This idyll lasted until the cook reported him to my grandmother. The nanny was sent packing and my father was under house arrest for some time. But, far from being damaged, he recalled the episode with gratitude for the rest of his life…..Continue reading
************************************
Not Related to Above Article:
