When I was a little boy, we had a black maid called Ella, who was ‘the help’ around our house. Even back then (I’m talking early 1960s), Ella was quite old. I think she’d be in her early 50s, although to a little four-year-old boy that seemed ancient, of course.
My mom was quite a permissive lady, and very rarely spanked me. However, my bottom’s luck changed when Ella came to work for us. Although she wasn’t explicitly employed as a nanny as such, looking after me was one of the things that was on her list, as it were. She had brought up five kids of her own, all now grown and gone by this time of course, and had very definite views on discipline.