British seen at their best in any crisis
JREMEMBER the Millennium Bug? As Christmas approached exactly 19 years ago so did mass panic. We were all doomed. On the stroke of midnight on December 31, 1999 life as we knew it would cease.
Aeroplanes would fall from the sky in mid-flight. Everything electronic would no longer function. Hospitals would seize up, our cities would go dark; we would have no heating and all communications with each other and the rest of the planet would judder to a halt.
There would be medicine and food shortages; basically, we’d all be screwed, existing in a terrifying science-fiction apocalypse. And all because of the Millennium Bug.
Most of us had no idea what this bug was or why it would wreak such havoc, but we were told by people with large brains and serious faces that computers could not survive the advent of January 1, 2000 and the human race would be reduced to starving savages.
Even my own dear husband took such warnings to heart. In the last months of 1999 he built up an impressive survival kit in what we called his Millennium Cupboard, bursting with paraffin lamps, candles, torches, tins of food, packets of cereal and innumerable
Jdried goods. Richard even made a little film about it for This Morning, which drew derision and praise in equal parts.
How we laughed when January 1, 2000 dawned bright and cheerful, no planes crashed, no plunge into darkness, and everything just carried on as normal.
Something like this is happening again right now. I suppose we could call it the Brexit Bug or the No-Deal Disaster. The Government has belatedly panicked, now the prospect of our “crashing out” of Europe has finally loomed into view.
Three thousand, five hundred troops to be mobilised as a “contingency plan”. Extra space hurriedly booked on cross-channel ferries to keep food and medical supplies going.
The NHS has ordered thousands of extra fridges to store stockpiled medicines.
Maybe it’s the time of year. Old Father Time and all that. The Grim Reaper lurking behind the Christmas tree. But don’t panic. We’re good at crises in this country. We’re not going to get hysterical because an inadequate government has buggered up Brexit. Unlike the French, we don’t do civil unrest. We keep calm and carry on. That’s Britain, Brexit or no Brexit.
ALL the fuss about the new Mary Poppins film has made me think about nannies, thankfully now a dim and distant memory for me. Not that some (well, two) weren’t great, and are still good friends now our babies are in their thirties, but I have to say most don’t inspire warm and fuzzy thoughts.
There was the nanny who, when we arrived home from work (bang on time, never late) would invariably be sitting in the kitchen, coat on, handbag grimly clutched, wearing a face like an angry trout. She would regale us with that day’s list of misdemeanours while the little ones grizzled and wailed. As soon as she left the house, they’d giggle in delight.
Then there was the girl who wore tiny tight sweaters, even tighter jeans and white stiletto heels every day, even if she was taking the kids on a muddy walk. My younger brother fancied her like mad and became an annoying daily fixture in our kitchen, feasting his eyes on her.
On the whole, unless you’re Kirstie Allsopp, who has the aristocratic self-belief to treat her live-in nanny with benevolent charm while her employee wraps the family presents, the relationship between mums and nannies is an uneasy one. Mary Poppins would have terrified the living daylights out of me.