What nannies know

Soon after moving to London at the age of 20, Nina Stibbe wrote to her sister Vic saying, ‘Being a nanny is great. Not like a job really, just like living in someone else’s life.’ She was working for Mary-Kay Wilmers, the editor of the London Review of Books, and her letters home to Lincolnshire give a hilarious picture of her new life. She gets on well with her charges, Sam (ten) and Will (nine), treating them as equals and often playing tricks on them:

Sam was invited to supper at the Tomalins’ — his first ever (official, evening) meal. Told him that Claire had rung to ask him to bring a potato with him. Will and me thought it was hilarious when Sam set off with a potato in one hand and his football cards in the other.

Alan Bennett comes to dinner most nights, despite some rather dodgy cooking:

Seeing such a lot of my Florida coleslaw left in the bowl, AB made one of his usual food pronouncements: ‘You’d be better off with mayonnaise or yoghurt, and perhaps not the tinned oranges.’

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Much of the book is made up of entertaining snatches of conversation, which always seem to conjure up something essential about the people who are talking:

Nunney [Nina’s friend and now husband]: What are you doing?
Me: Cutting out shapes, it’s Will’s homework.
Nunney: (cross) Why isn’t Will doing it?
Me: He doesn’t like paper craft and he’s writing a novel.
Nunney: Cutting out paper to exact measurements is maths… Will should do it — it’s a life skill.
Will: I’ll never need to measure paper in real life; I’ll buy it already measured.
Nunney: (to Will) Don’t let her ruin your life.
Will: She’s helping me with my novel.

Now and then Nina’s friends turn up with silly hairstyles and odd requests.