Servants - 4

We employed Blossom for the two years we were in Kingston, the Jamaican capital, from the time we moved from the pokey flat where we started to the bungalow on the school campus. Finding her was easy as she came with a strong recommendation - her sister Olda worked for Ian and Cherry, who had cottage number 4. Blossom did various chores around the house and garden but she was most valuable because she could look after Elizabeth when Mrs MW had a class to teach at the school.

Lizzie and Blossom got on extremely well, and Blossom....

....became even more useful when Katy arrived. Blossom, on the left, is seen here with Olda, sitting on the back step of our bungalow.

Blossom doted on Katy, and was quite certain that she would one day hold down a very serious job, like a brain surgeon.

We had no hesitation in leaving the children with Blossom, although if we went out of an evening, we took them with us.

Blossom was deeply unhappy when we told her that we would be returning to the UK at the end of our two-year contract. Not only would she miss the girls - she had no children of her own - but work was not easy to find. She was very keen to come to England with us, but that would have been very difficult to organise. So, with great sadness, we wished her farewell.

There was nothing servile about the jobs our servants did for us. It was work, in countries where good, paid work was difficult to find; and in their work they were much valued by us. Perhaps we were lucky, but all the servants we had, in Mombasa, Rhodesia and Jamaica, were lovely people who were sorely missed when we parted.