My book Love, Nina: Despatches from Family Life is the letters I wrote to my sister when I was a live-in nanny to two boys in the 1980s. The book focuses mainly on my relationship with the family I lived with and …

First published in Psychologies, January 2014 Until I had children of my own I almost always went home for Xmas to my mum and step-dad’s house in Leicestershire and so did my siblings, all 4 of them. So, right into our 20s …

First published in The Sunday Times, 10th Nov 2013 When I left Leicestershire in the 1980s, to become a nanny in London, the thing that most captivated my friends was the idea that I'd be forever bumping into famous people such as …

An edited version of this article was published in The Guardian, 10 November 2013 ‘We’ll have to stop swearing soon’, I said to my friend a few years ago as we watched our small children playing together. ‘I’ve given up,’ said my friend, ‘I …