Growing up in South Africa, many of my generation were cared for by nannies – black ones, light-brown ones or white ones. Our nanny was Hester, a white woman of indeterminable age who came to work for our family before my birth. My mother didn't take her labor pains seriously and remained at home until, suddenly, I was born. Hester and our maid, Nelly, presided over my birth and after the doctor arrived at our house, my mother and I were taken to the maternity home. After I heard that story, I asked Nelly how they had tied the umbilical cord. 'I cut the string off the flour bag, boiled it up in the kettle and used that,' she told me matter-of-factly.

There was no moment in my childhood in which Hester – and Nelly – did not play a significant role. Hester was a placid, stout, stern-looking woman. In the pictures I have of her she is dressed elegantly in tailored tweed suits and always wears a hat and gloves and has a leather handbag clutched in her hand. In some of those pictures she looks smarter than my mother.

 Hester was born in the small town of Knysna on the beautiful Garden Route of the Cape.  Her father was a carpenter and there was a younger brother in the family who my mother thought might have been Hester's illegitimate son. She lived in our house and sometimes went back to Knysna to visit her family, and I used to write loving letters to her and she would always reply. When an envelope arrived in the post addressed to me in her scratchy handwriting I would rush to my room to read and treasure it.

She had soft, sweet-smelling skin and small, sharp eyes, and I don't think she ever raised her voice at me. When I was naughty, she'd purse her lips to show her dissatisfaction and lecture me into obedience, finishing her lecture with an embrace and a kiss. She was my anchor and my friend and part of our family and our lives and I could not imagine a world without her. Sitting on her soft, accommodating lap was like being enclosed by a warm band of love which kept all else at bay. She was an avid reader of popular magazines, and while I sat on that lap we paged through magazines and she'd read the captions of the photos aloud and explain the stories to me. Murder trials and the royal family were staples. When she'd had enough, she'd set me down on the floor next to her chair and disappear into the kitchen for 'a nice cup of tea' and some Tennis biscuits, her favorites and mine.

Sometimes we'd take a bus to visit her relatives in Ebeneezer Road, near the City Tramways garage. Hand in hand, we'd walk down from the bus stop on the main road till we reached a row of semidetached red brick houses. There was no front garden so the door leading into the house was right on the street: it was the only house I'd ever been into that was built like that and it fascinated me. I loved visits to that house, minute as it was. It was crowded with knick-knacks, crocheted doilies, pictures of Jan Smuts, the royal family and souvenir mugs and plates of various coronations, royal weddings and other auspicious occasions. I'd edge my way around the tiny room examining everything with interest and pleasure until a tea tray was brought in and carefully placed on the table. I was fussed over and spoiled and pressed to 'take another piece of cake, dearie, there's plenty more in the kitchen.'

My sixth birthday party is the clearest and most dramatic memory I have of Hester.  I'd come home from school and found Nelly busy in the kitchen, preparing the trifle in a cut-glass bowl. It was her specialty and I've never eaten one as good as hers. It was to be the centerpiece of the table; sandwiches, cut into dainty triangles, were arranged on paper doilies and covered with shredded lettuce to keep them from drying out; iced fairy cakes, decorated with glacé cherries, and bowls of jelly beans, wine gums and toffees were ready to be taken through to the dining room. We carried everything from the kitchen – 'Careful, now!' Nelly admonished, and after everything had been arranged on the table, I closed the door so that my friends wouldn't peek till the right time arrived when I 'd open the door and they'd be overcome by the sight of the goodies on the table, and I'd invite them in to help themselves. But a second before I felt that time had come the door was opened by one of my friends and everyone crowded in leaving me aghast in the passage, robbed of my moment of glory. I burst into tears and rushed onto Hester's lap, firmly enclosing myself in her warm embrace as she dried the tears from my cheeks and whispered loving words into my ear and held me tight. When I finally ventured into the dining room, the bowl of trifle was empty: only a desolate pool of cake crumbs and slivers of canned peaches lay at the bottom of the dish, while some streaks of custard and whipped cream clung to the sides; the plates on which the fairy cakes had been piled were empty; the sandwich trays held only scraps of lettuce leaves starting to turn brown; and the empty glass sweet-dishes lay carelessly on their sides.

Soon after I began school a nanny was no longer needed and Hester left us to work for a family with a disabled child. On her afternoons off she'd come to visit, she and my mother settling down comfortably at the dining room table with tea and biscuits to sustain themselves while discussing her new job, our family, my progress at school and other burning issues of the day. Soon after she began that post the family traveled to England to seek treatment for their son, and Hester went with them. It was her second overseas trip as she had accompanied my mother abroad with my brother and sister before I was born. She was away for several months and wrote to us frequently. In one of her letters she described meeting a man on a park bench in London and soon after that she wrote that they had been married in a registry office. When she returned to Cape Town she showed us their wedding pictures. The groom was dressed in a suit and bowler hat and they both looked solemn, as if overcome by the seriousness of their important step in life. My mother gave her a silver tea service for a wedding present. Hester told us that he'd be coming out to South Africa 'soon'.   But the weeks stretched into months with no visit in sight. Eventually, she told us that she had stopped hearing from him and was considering a divorce. She even asked my advice, and I told her I thought she should stay married even if it was in name only. 'After all, you've always wanted to be a married woman,' I advised her, all of about eight years old.

As adults we all went on a trip to the Garden Route, and visited her at the house in Knysna. She was bedridden and overjoyed to see us. We kissed and hugged her and knew it would be our last time together with Hester. When we got back to the city we bought some nightgowns for her, and when I parceled them up and wrote the address on the stout brown paper I knew I'd never be writing it again. She died shortly afterwards.