2 questions - nannie, and mrs marlow's hairdressing skills

[res23.livejournal.com]

1. After Nicola's very short haircut with fringe, that apparently looks dreadful, Lawrie tries to cut hers to match, and doesn't do a very good job.  Mrs Marlow, I think, then tries to fix it.  (Or does she take Lawrie back to the same hairdresser as Nicola went to eventually?)  It's surprising that if they all hated Nicola's so much, that she'd let Lawrie get one just as bad - and yet just a week later they look still so identical that they are mistaken for each other at the elocution comp and the gymkhana.  Also surprising that her hairdressing skills are good enough to make them look identical again, specially if she was going cut Lawrie 'round a pudding basin'!

2. Who was nannie?  Lawrie mentions her, and things she'd said before she went off to look after her sister.  Was it Mr Marlow's mother, or did they have some kind of nanny to help when all the children were small? (which would not have been surprising with 8 children!).

Comments

[lobeliaqueen.livejournal.com]

I would say she was definitely a nanny who was a paid employee. I can't imagine Mrs Marlow as the hands on carer of 8 small children and, as they'd have been children before the second World War, I can imagine a live-in nanny quite easily.

I think it would have been unusual, given their social background, for them to refer to a grandmother as "nannie". Please correct me if i'm wrong on this!

[thekumquat.livejournal.com]

Definitely a live-in nanny. Quite possibly only from when the twins were born, given that would make a lot more young children at home, and they were often poorly.

And I'm sure they wouldn't use 'Nanny' to mean grandmother, given they're both Southern and middle class - for reference I'm both and never knew anyone to call their granny Nan until I was 10 or so. I think if a family is in a financial situation where they might actually have a nanny, they never use Nanny to mean grandma.

I guess if Lawrie had gone for a similar haircut, the best that could be done is make it look intentional by making it even, which would result in looking the same as Nicola.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Nicola's father approved, so it may not have been that bad. I suspect it was more a shock because it was so drastic; the other girls all have long hair, I think.

[ankaret.livejournal.com]

No, they don't. A few months earlier, in the train at the start of Autumn Term, it's mentioned that Ann is the only one with plaits.

[owl]

I think Karen has long hair as well, perhaps? I remember it says Rowan and Ginty have cropped curls.

[ankaret.livejournal.com]

Yes, I think you're right. I never imagine Rowan with curly hair, but I know it's right there in the books.

[jackmerlin.livejournal.com]

Nicola's hair can't have been all that long in the first place as she said it was only just starting to tickle her neck.
At the gymkhana she would have been wearing a riding hat so the other girl could have mistaken her for Lawrie from her face alone. Doesn't explain the elocution comp though, I think we assume she was taken to hairdressers and trimmed to match.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Ah, Then I'm thinking of the cover of the copy I borrowed which showed the twins in plaits. Not that I accepted that; to me they had the shoulder-length hair of the illos in the edition I first read as a kid, then went to short tomboyish hair. Maybe they all had shoulder-length or so. What was the fashion in the 50s?

Anyway I still think it was the shortness that horrified, and it must have been fairly drastic since their father grinned and said it was practical.

[smellingbottle.livejournal.com]

Nanny would definitely have been a paid employee, rather than a grandmother - the Marlows' class would have been highly unlikely to call a grandmother 'Nanny'- though now rather enjoying the idea of Madame Orly (always called 'Grandmother') changing nappies and distributing milk ...

[res23.livejournal.com]

It was Madame Orly that Lawrie was having the conversation with when she mentioned 'nannie', so I think we could rule that one out regardless! :)

Interesting about the idea that class/location would have ruled out called a grandmother 'nan'/'nannie'. I'd not realised that, but it does make sense.

[smellingbottle.livejournal.com]

I think Patrick refers to a nanny in the same terms at some point as well - I think it might be in the context of beliefs about praying, maybe the part of Run Away Home where he keeps vigil for Giles and Peter at sea...? It certainly wasn't a Merrick who passed on those cosy lower-class notions about prayers in the warm not counting but if you fell asleep saying your prayers, your guardian angel would finish them for you...

[rosathome.livejournal.com]

Yes, that sounds right to me.

[colne-dsr.livejournal.com]

"Bridie, who once had sole charge of him between nannies" - definitely employees. And I don't think we have any clues as to who Bridie is, except that I'd lay a guinea to a farthing that she's Irish, and my guess would be a sort of nursey maid.

[(Anonymous)]

I often wonder what's wrong with a fringe? Rowan says 'Why the fringe for goodness sake?' as though that is worse than short. Sorry, but I think 'working class' is the accepted term.

I'm pretty sure it was a paid employee

[manda-09.livejournal.com]

And with, at one time, 6 children under 5, who could blame Mrs Marlow? Almost any mother would be screaming mad with that many very small children.

They seem to call their maternal Grandmother by that name - in the later decades, perhaps they might have moved to "Granny" or even "Nanna" (but that could be northern only).

Amanda

[charverz.livejournal.com]

When I was a little boy in the 1950s(third in a family of four) we had live-in nannies as well. One was the Canadian poet Margaret Avison, who was a friend of my mother's. She sent me a lovely letter when I married in 1988, with her memories of me as a three-year-old.

Pam Marlow would definitely have had full-time help with the children, especially with her husband off at sea, and her pregnant most of the time. Has anyone ever thought that when Captain Marlow retires (aged about 50) Pam might end up with a new family?