'Nanny'

         From the time Eileen and little Jean came home to Frensham that baby became my special one – she was my pet, then and still.  When Allan came home on his occasional leave and took Eileen off for a few days in Portsmouth, or when they would go down to the pub, Jean and I would spend wonderful times together.  When Jean’s sister Mary Florence was born a little over a year since Jean’s birth, we grew even closer. 

         Two babies in the household, along with the continual worry over the war and rationing and never knowing when my husband would make one of his rare appearances made me feel more and more nervous.  Len was running around the village with his wild friends getting up to mischief at all hours, and more than once brought home by a home guard warden with orders to keep him out of trouble. Too often, it seemed, Eileen and Pete asked me to take care of the babies when he was on leave.   Finally, worn down by sleepless nights I went to see my doctor.  He told me it was because I wasn’t getting my monthlies any more, and I needed a few weeks of rest and quiet. 

         Where was I to find a few weeks of rest and quiet?  “I’ll take the girls and go visit Aunt Emily and Uncle William in Portsmouth for a while,” she told me.  It was a good solution.  They had lots of room in their house, and it would make it easier for Allan to visit her. 

         For two weeks I stayed in my dark house, taking the medicine the doctor had recommended and trying to ignore Len’s comings and goings.  I kept my handbag with he so he couldn’t filch what little money I had, and stayed in my bedroom as much as possible.  No sooner had I started to feel better when Eileen and the girls returned.  A bomb had destroyed the houses just across the street, and Eileen wanted to get back to my safe house.

         Mary had just started to walk when Eileen announced she was in the family way again.  By then Len was old enough to go out on his own and help with the war effort, so we had a little more room to put the babies.  Little Allan made Eileen very happy, to have a boy at last.  She admitted to being a little disappointed Mary had not been a boy.  I had been please Mary’s second name was Florence, but I never felt as close to her as I did to little Jean, who was my shadow.

         Despite the stresses of having Eileen’s family living with me, and despite the hardships of wartime, they were happy years for me.  Despite rationing, birthdays and Christmas holidays were special, times to look forward to and celebrate.  I had given little thought to the end of the war, and what would happen to the children.  Would they stay with me, in our little English village, or go to far away Canada?