Our British Nanny

There is an iconic figure, at least to the American mind, that is some conflation of Mary Poppins, Jane Eyre, Maria from Sound of Music (OK, I know she wasn’t British, but Julie Andrews!), and countless Victorian novels. It is the British Nanny. Those who know me well know that I love both Victorian literature and romantic stereotypes (Occidentalism, if you will, in this case), and thus the British Nanny has a special place in my mind and heart.

Twelve years ago, I had the opportunity to travel to England with the choir of St. Mark’s, Berkeley, spending a week each in 2 English cathedrals, and singing their services (predominantly Evensong) while the resident boys’ choirs were away on summer holiday. The only hitch was that I had an 11-month old (Shefler) at the time, who was not always cooperative with the silence and precision required by Anglican liturgy. Solution? The British Nanny. Although childcare websites, which make getting a babysitter while traveling so easy today, were not available in 2007, I somehow connected online with Our British Nanny, Julie Gilbert. Basically, I lucked out bigtime. Here she is with Shefler in 2007:

Julie has been running a weekday childcare center in her home in Lincoln, UK for decades. She routinely takes on special needs kids, extends her hours for parents with difficult work schedules, and does weekend care as well. She’s basically the answer to every mom’s (oops, mum’s) prayer. I brought Shefler there during rehearsals and the services of Evensong during the week. On the weekends (when we had even more singing commitments in the Cathedral), Julie came up the hill to the Cathedral to be with Shefler one-on-one (Nanny-style!).

Fast-forward to summer 2017. Same opportunity, same inconvenient parasitic organism situation for me (Rowena), same solution. Except that this time, we weren’t going to Lincoln. 2017: Care.com (UK) to the rescue, and I emailed Julie to let her know we were coming just in case she wanted to join us for tea one day, but Julie (something of a slave of duty if I might be so bold as to invoke another English stereotype) insisted on driving all the way from Lincoln to Bristol, where we were in residence the second week, to provide care for Rowena over the weekend, again, a time when weekday childcare is not available and when our commitments at the Cathedral were increased. That’s a three-hour drive one way in no traffic for those of you unfamiliar with the English road map. Here’s Julie 10 years later, with Rowena:

So, needless to say, we had to go visit Julie on our trip around the world. She finally got to meet the other 4 of our 7, and everyone got along swimmingly. We introduced Julie to the wonders of the Brazilian steakhouse, and she introduced us to the joys of the British seaside. A good time was had by all!

All I can say is, thank God for Julie; and thank God for the British Nanny!