The mother

sally’s daughter, megan, 26, is mother to reid, two, and elvie, nine months. megan, a swimming teacher, is engaged to Christopher, a builder.

My mum is reid’s and elvie’s “nanny”. She does everything for them when i’m not there, she steps in as the mother. She’ll also enforce the rules like making reid, who’s lovely and loving but also a maniac, sit on the naughty step if he has to. then we have “gg” – and gg is soft! She and reid have a really special bond. She has chocolate and biscuits, and reid loves to run through to the annexe to see her. he’d happily pull all the plates off her dresser or skydive off her bed and gg would say, “it’s fine! you can do whatever you want.”

gg – who i call nan – is the quintessential nan. She does all my sewing, the knitting for elvie and reid, and sometimes my ironing! When you have a stain in something, you ask nan how to get it out. if someone has a rash or a temperature, you ask nan what it might be. i breastfed reid and breastfeed elvie now, and all the advice for that came from nan, as my mum had been ill when i was born, so she bottle-fed me. nan’s involved with everything. She comes to reid’s swimming, she went to his baby sensory class. i can honestly say if i was worried about elvie or reid, the first person i’d call would be nan.