THE ROYAL NANNIES
With the late Queen Elizabeth focused on her duties throughout Charles’s formative years, it was left to nannies to mould and care for the future King – and, as a new book reveals, there was one in particular to whom he became especially close
Of all the nannies who’ve worked in the royal household over the years one really stands out: Mabel Anderson. Now 98, Mabel spent more than 30 years of her life helping to raise the Royal Family’s children and became a firm favourite with both the Queen and her children, particularly Charles.
A policeman’s daughter from Elgin, Scotland, she took on the vital role of shaping and caring for our future King from when he was a baby. Mabel is now enjoying her well-earned retirement in a grace-and-favour apartment in the grounds of Frogmore House in Windsor Great Park having stopped work in 1981. She will have no doubt been greatly concerned to hear about Charles’s recent cancer diagnosis. She was once at the epicentre of Charles’s life and he’s described her as ‘a haven of security’. In fact, he was closer to Mabel and spent more time with her in his early years than he did his mother, who was often busy with royal duties.
Mabel’s career as a royal nanny began in early 1949 when she was just 22. She applied for a job as a nanny advertised in the ‘Situations Wanted’ section of a nursing magazine, unaware it was placed by the royal household. When she got to the interview and found Princess Elizabeth herself conducting it, she could hardly believe her eyes. Elizabeth, who would become Queen three years later, was a new mother and at that time was also just 22 years old.
When Mabel was offered the position, she was even more amazed. But it turned out to be a wise choice – she later became such firm friends with the Queen that she often would be invited to Windsor Castle to watch television with Her Majesty, and in 2010, the Queen personally invited her on the Hebridean Princess Ship for her summer cruise.
Mabel started working for Princess Elizabeth when Charles was a newborn and was usually on duty for six nights a week. Elizabeth’s firstborn arrived on 14 November 1948, almost a year to the day after her marriage to Prince Philip. The Princess breastfed baby Charles and he spent the first month of his life in a round wicker basket in the room adjoining hers at Buckingham Palace.
A midwife, Sister Rowe, who attended all the births of Elizabeth’s children, helped care for him. That time was cut short when Elizabeth contracted measles and the doctors advised she and the baby should stay apart as there was no vaccin
