Tag Archives: Mary-Kay Wilmers

Love, Nina by Nina Stibbe

Love, Nina coverTo me Love, Nina: Despatches from Family Life (published in the U.S. as Love, Nina: A Nanny Writes Home) sounded as if it might be a collection of ‘hilarious’ letters about the everyday domestic chaos of life with small children.   Highlights being, perhaps, lost nappy bags and cold mugs of tea.  In TV terms, a sort of Call the Midwife crossed with Outnumbered.

It’s not like that at all.

This is a book of letters written over 5 years by Nina to her sister in Leicestershire.  In 1980 Nina left Leicestershire at the age of  twenty and without any qualifications to go and work in London as a nanny for Mary-Kay Wilmers (editor of the London Review of Books) and her two sons, Sam, 10 and Will, 9.   Her decision to nanny was random: it sounded like it might be a nice life.  Being chosen by Mary-Kay was random too; a lot seemed to hinge on which football team she supported. Continue reading

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