Hankering after 1950s Venice
LOVE FROM VENICE
A golden summer on the Grand Canal
GILL JOHNSON
368pp. Hodder and Stoughton. £25.
OH, TO HAVE BEEN IN VENICE during “that halcyon age”, 1957, “suspended between the last days of the European Grand Tour and the arrival of mass tourism”, as Gill Johnson writes in Love from Venice. Her memoir is about the memorable seven months she spent with a seriously wealthy family in Italy, working (though not very hard) as a part-time nanny for their two young sons. It was inspired by the discovery in 2015 of a bundle of love letters she wrote from Italy to her fiancé, David Ross. Reading her letters to him led Johnson to “a richly digressive series of reminiscences”, and the publication of her first book at the age of ninety-two.
In 1957 she was twenty-five years old, living with her parents and working in the publications department of the National Gallery in London. A promotion seemed likely, but the prospect of a demanding career did not appeal (“I didn’t want to risk ending up a spinster wearing out my days”). When Ross, then a “penniless” architect, informed her that he was moving to Paris for work, she impulsively seized the opportunity to embark on an adventure of her own. She applied to the upmarket recruitment firm Universal Aunts (still operating today, amazingly), and it so happened that the Contessa Cristiana Brandolini d’Adda was looking for a suitable person to speak English to her children. After being interviewed by the Brandolinis’ interior designer, Oliver Messel, Johnson got the job.
In the prologue she describes travelling to Venice by first-class train from Paris and being whisked in a spotless white launch (“motoscafo”) to the family’s opulent, newly restored palazzo overlooking the Grand Canal. There was much to admire. “In every room there is a lovely Venetian glass chandelier – very ornate and highly coloured – which would look vulgar anywhere else, but wonderful here”, she wrote excitedly to Ross. “There is a lift which is lined with silk brocade, gilded mirrors and velvet!”
Renamed “Giulietta” by the kindly Conte and Contessa, Gill had minimal au pair duties, mainly consisting of playing with the children, and she had her own maid. “I can just step out of my clothes and leave them lying on the floor if I feel like it! Clean dresses every day!” There were beach excursions with picnic lunches served on the Lido by white-gloved butlers, trips to St Moritz and the family’s residences on the “ritzy” Lignano Riviera and in their private vineyard. She met European aristocrats and members of the international “jet set”, including Aristotle Onassis and the American Philip Van Rensselaer (who would later repay the Brandolinis’ hospi
