Practically perfect in every way

In praise of the Mary Poppinses of the field, those sporting nannies who foster in their charges a love of the countryside and its pursuits that will last a lifetime

- MADELEINE SILVER

YOU WON’T notice them at first, those suspiciously well-plaited ponies at the Meet, the mothers unfathomably laid back and the bonnie child on board just a bit, well, bonnie. But as things start to unravel in your camp, it will dawn on you that those tearless, warm, gung-ho smalls have at their fingertips the most coveted of things: a sporting nanny (SN). And here is a breed of nanny that really does know best.

Take Pea Wallace’s childhood Mary Poppins, Jo, who on autumn hunting mornings would savvily lay out kit on the Aga for her charges to slide into half awake, before setting off with school uniform and a box of Frosties preloaded in the car. “She definitely played a part in my love for country life, animals and sports,” says Wallace, now in her forties. She recalls the time that having delivered the children to school post-hunting, Jo got a call from her teacher to say that six-year-old Wallace was slumped at her desk (the Ribena had been unknowingly switched for port).

But this blip was a small price to pay for helping ignite a lifelong love affair with fieldsports. “Between her and mum, they really instilled how to make the most of life and ‘getting on with it’, an invaluable lesson that has put me in good stead. Jo juggled school runs, riding, cooking, grooming for my mum who was competing, shopping, taking us hunting, swimming. There wasn’t anything she couldn’t do.”