Consuming Interest
Holding the Baby
By LESLIE ADRIAN WANTED, by young couple wishing to enjoy rea- sonable social life, reliable and not too expensive way of having baby looked after occasionally. An advertise- ment on these lines would represent the problems of a large number of people these days. What's the answer?
For most people a nannie is not possible, either be- cause there would not be room for her or because she would be too great an expense. An au pair girl is a possible answer (and I gave details here some months ago), but au pair girls are often more interested in learning English or see- ing boy friends than they are in looking after babies or washing up: and most of the people I know who have an pair girls have had to take on half a dozen before linding a suitable one or one who would stay for ans length of time. Even then, like nannies, they have to be given full board and accommodation and they become in- volved in more of your life than you might like.
Baby-sitters are usually the answer in the end and these, of course. are best (and cheapest) when they are trusted relativ es or friends. If relatives or friends are not available there ought to be other sources. but there are surprisingly few.
A new source in London is 'Babyminders' (39 James Street. WI; 55 ELbeck 3515), a baby-sitting service run by Mr. Charles -Rowe who seems to me to have all the right ideas. 'Babyminders' is not an agency. Its sitters are all employed by Mr. Rowe, who takes full responsibility for them. He has taken a lot of trouble to choose them well, and their references can be seen by anyone who uses the service. He has the idea that sitters should be reliable and he won't offer you either young students or old battleaxes. Many of his sitters are 'nannies with a lifetime's experience of looking after infants and small children, others are trained children's or hospital nurses, all are re-
sponsible experienced adults with abundant common sense,
a genuine fondness for chil- dren and the instinct to keep calm in a crisis.'
When one of these s'itler' comes to your home she notes where you can be found in an emergency and also notes the telephone number of sour doctor. If. in an emergency. your doctor is not available, the sitter will make use of a medical relief service which is on call twenty-four hours a day. If by chance—and this sounds a good deal more pessi- mistic than it is--the sitter were to break your baby's.`arm or steal a fur coat sou are covered by a third-party insurance policy.
Mr. Rowe charges a registration fee of 2s. the lirst time you use his service. The charge for baby-sitting is 3s. bd. an hour (minimum 9s. for two and a half hours). This applies to one, two or three children. With the fourth child there is an extra charge of sixpence per head per hour.
The same fee of 3s. 6d. an hour applies after midnight and at weekends. All-day and all-night
charges are on the basis of 30s, for twelve hours. Sitters can be found to look after ,a baby of two weeks or a boy of fourteen. There are no rules about taking a sitter home' or about providing meals. Mr. Rowe uses his head about this business' and expects you to do the same.
The service at present covers the whole of central London, which can be taken to mean an area bounded by, say, Hampstead. Hammersmith and Wimbledon.
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