Flashback The writer Brigid Keenan remembers her beloved nanny in India, 1941

Brigid Keenan remembers her beloved nanny in Jabalpur, India, 1941

One of my earliest memories is of lolling in the hammock that Ayah-Ma’s sari made, stretched across her knees, being fed morsels of chapatti dipped in honey. Life could only go downhill after that

When I see this picture, it makes me happy. I can almost feel the Indian heat as my ayah (I called her AyahMa) and I stand there in the shade. I swear I can remember my outft, but I think that’s impossible because I was only two. I don’t know who took the photograph – my mother I imagine. The caption below it in the album says we are in the garden of our bungalow in Jabalpur. The city had a large cantonment and we were there because my father served in the Indian Army.

I am obviously at home in the arms of Ayah-Ma, the woman I was closest to in my frst fve years – even as the picture is being taken, she is trying to fddle with my hair or something. My parents were hands-on, but Dad was away at the war and Mum was out doing diferent things. Ayah-Ma took care of me most of the time. One of my earliest memories is of lolling in the hammock that her sari made, stretched across her knees, as she sat on the foor of the kitchen, being fed morsels of chapatti dipped in honey. Life could only go downhill after that.

Strangely, I don’t remember her face very well; I remember her hands more than anything. Small and wiry, Ayah-Ma’s hands were multipurpose tools: they could hold water as well as any cup, they could splash as efciently as a shower, they could wring out your newly washed hair painfully, like a mangle; her fngers could squeeze out splinters, or carry food to your mouth as smoothly as a spoon, or wipe your tears – or your nose – as efectively as a hanky. I never heard her name; I only knew later that she came from Chennai (then Madras).

Ayah-Ma was never cross with me. I could do no wrong in her eyes, nor she in mine. I was her Missybaba, her baby; we loved each other. I knew no harm could come to me while she was there.

But this picture makes me desperately sad as well: four years after it was taken, in 1945, after the war in Europe had ended, my family had to go ‘home’ to England on a long visit. No one told Ayah-Ma and me that after this happened we would never be together again. It was only as the family assembled to leave that they said, ‘Say goodbye to Ayah, darling, you won’t see her again.’ We suddenly understood, and tried to cling to each other, but we were pulled apart. My last memory of her is the noise of her long scream echoing round the garden – though my own nearly drowned it out.

I feel her loss to this day. Full Marks for Trying, by Brigid Keenan, is published by Bloomsbury (£16.99)