Reunited after 62 years: nursery maid and the baby who became lord of the manor

It was 1940 and Ivy Read, then almost 17, was about to start work in the Upstairs Downstairs world of Norton Conyers Hall, set in acres of grounds and the home of generations of the Graham family for just over 300 years.

She became a nursery maid, helping to look after the baby who grew up to be the present Sir James Graham, and this week the two were reunited at Norton Conyers for the first time in 62 years.

She is now Ivy Read Roselle, 80, and she travelled from her home in America with two of her five children to share memories of Norton Conyers with Sir James and his wife, Lady Halina Graham.

Mrs Roselle has kept in touch with news of Norton Conyers over the past seven decades through articles in newspapers and magazines shown to her by English friends in America.

She has made previous visits back to Britain but was inspired to revisit Norton Conyers for the first time after reading a magazine article by the present Lady Graham on the number of staff once employed at the hall.

As well as a host of indoor staff of various grades, the family employed a chauffeur, gardeners, woodmen and other outdoor workers.

Mrs Roselle spent two years at Norton Conyers, leaving to become a WAAF radar operator. She moved to America in 1946, having married a ground crew member serving with the US 8th Air Force in Britain. She now lives in New Jersey.

The war had just started when the young Ivy, whose home was in the Don Valley, left Pontefract High School, having gained her certificate.

She was doing office work when she noticed a newspaper advertisement seeking someone to help Lady Beatrice Graham at Norton Conyers. Lady Graham was the mother of the baby James, and her husband, Sir Richard, was serving as an RAF intelligence officer.

She applied for the job and received a letter asking her to attend an interview in the main hall at Norton Conyers with Lady Graham and her mother-in-law, Lady Katherine Graham.

Mrs Roselle said: "Lady Beatrice Graham said she was going to take care of the baby James herself. She was very firm about that, which was very unusual in families of this nature.

"But she needed some support staff and my job description was as a nursery maid whose work included such duties as bringing bottles up."

The teenage Ivy earned about £2 a month, inclusive of board, lodging and uniform, and slept in an unheated bedroom. But she has many happy memories of Norton Conyers.

She said: "I figured that as Norton Conyers was still in Yorkshire I could commute back home. Someone picked me up at Ripon railway station and when I came up the front driveway I was in storybook land.

"I loved the house, the grounds and the area. It was all so romantic for me as someone from an industrial area.

"The countryside was just so beautiful. I used to ride a bicycle around it and walk into Ripon.

"In those days the house was alive with servants and there was a lot of activity. I can still remember little details about the patterns on the draperies and where things were.

"The grounds haven't changed since I was last here, but the main thing I notice now is that the house has no staff.

"Over all these years in my scrapbook I have had a picture of me holding the baby James outside the hall. I spent my 17th and 18th birthdays, and two Christmases, at Norton Conyers. Lady Graham was very kind to me.

"It was only two years out of my life but no one will know how much it affected me. It is as if I was meant to come back.

"I still feel as if I am in part of a movie. I am 80, married to an American and have had a good life. In America they call me the English girl but over here they call me the American girl."

Sir James Graham said: "Ivy's letter to us telling us that she would like to visit was completely unexpected and I am delighted that we were able to have this meeting.

"I obviously could not remember her because I was so young at the time, but what Ivy remembers about Norton Conyers more than 60 years ago has been most interesting."