The Nanny

From time to time I would go to stay with my Mothers sister. We will call her Iris for the sake of internet privacy. She trained to be a Nanny in the 50`s and got away from a difficult home life by living in. She ended up working for a wealthy family who owned land in Shropshire, they had a huge house as well as what was called the Estate.

1950`s Nanny`s

There was a lodge at the end of the road to the main house. A working farm with farm house and two workers cottages in the midst of rolling fields. My Aunt grew very close to the family over time as many Nanny`s do and was given a grace and favour cottage. When the children went off to boarding school she kept a job in the house and as the years passed by her roll changed as the need arose. She slowly became house keeper of the large family home and extensive gardens with trout stream and swimming pool and helped manage the estate and the workers, she was a companion to the Lady of the house as she aged and maintained a close relationship with the children as they grew to adulthood being adviser and confidante and filling in the parenting gap that was often there with the moneyed classes who had had little to do with their children as they grew up. All the commitments filled her days and she never had children of her own, though did marry in her 40`s to a man quite a lot older than herself. He was a long distance coach driver and was away a lot so their work lives fitted well together. 

Shropshire

We visited from when I was a child and as I grew I would stay a week or 2 with my Aunt. Her cottage was quintessentially English, 200 years old with a large garden, veg patch, bee hives, apple trees and an old piggery at the bottom of a long path from decades ago when the cottage knew a different life and no doubt pigs were kept to be slaughtered. Even as a child I recognised the magic of its charm, thick walls, tiled floors, open fires and views across the fields, perfect to watch the changing of the seasons.

When my Mother was in hospital for a few months before being diagnosed with Celiac Disease I lived with my Aunt Iris and went to the village school for a short time.

I was completely enchanted by her. She was very different from my Mother. Quite a beauty in her day, with a look of a young Elizabeth Taylor, an expert at the jitterbug she turned many a GI`s head during the war when she was in the WRAF. 

She was well read, well travelled and a fountain of knowledge about everything and anything. 

She wore designer perfume and had a 1970`s country chic style, wearing cord jeans, Laura Ashley blouses and a slick of red lipstick, she looked as if she had stepped from a magazine page. She had perfect diction, impeccable manners and seemed to stand out from the crowd, I trailed around after her like an adoring puppy, hanging on her every word. We would go for cream teas in Sidoli`s at Shrewsbury on Saturday afternoon shopping trips and in the Summer we would sit by the river while we waited for the once a day country bus home. She taught me to make patchwork cushions and paint my nails.

We shared a love of reading and were never short of conversation.
She never stopped wanting to learn, a habit I picked up from her.

It was a very different world than life at home and for a long time I relished visiting with her. Things changed when I reached puberty and I got my curves. It was then I came under the radar of her older Husband. I never knew what she saw in him, they were a mismatch for sure, he was a rough and ready country man, he caught rabbits and skinned them with delight in front of me.
He was predatory in his behaviour, any chance to brush against me, watching all the time. He gave me the creeps. 
One time we were watching TV in the evening, a pretty woman was on the screen and he turned to me and said "She`s got come to bed eyes, like yours, you`ve got come to bed eyes"
I was 12 years old.