Why we're on our 11th nanny

As Katie, our tenth nanny, slammed out of the house shouting, "I can't take it any more!" I did ask myself: could it be us? Was I a terrible boss? Are my children - two-and-a-half and nearly five - unlovable? I couldn't blame my huge turnover of nannies on my husband, Paul; he's a lawyer in the City, he's never at home. He had had no dealings, even, in the hiring of Katie, a 28-year-old from Sydney, having found the whole process too stressful way back when we were on nanny number six.

We are on our 11th now; we've been through eight in the past two years. The children, Toby and Harry, no longer bother to learn their names and just call each one "the new lady".

In despair, I have thought about dispensing with nannies altogether, but we need one, if only for a few hours each day.

The problem, I think, is that I work, as a novelist, from home. Nannies like sole charge so they can do what they like without you knowing about it. But I am so desperate to hang on to one of them, that I let them do what they like anyway.

But they have smashed the car (Katie, Judy, Clare); run a taxi service for members of their families; set off the smoke alarm by illicit smoking; taken days off sick and been spotted within the hour healthily shopping in town; ruined the children's clothes; and fed them, day in, day out, on chicken nuggets for lunch and fish fingers for tea.

I am so cowed by my nannies I now say, "If you could make them shepherd's pie, occasionally ... You only like heating things up? That's fine, super, thank you." So long as the nannies are nice to the children. Because I adore my children and feel guilty that I am not spending every minute with them.

It's true that Harry's scream could wake the dead and Toby answers back, but handle them properly and they are like lambs. Well, sometimes.

The day Katie walked out, she'd taken to sticking Harry in his cot for an unwanted nap so that she could watch TV for a couple of hours.

The day before she quit, she had taken the day off. Her grandfather was sick in Australia, she said, and she had to wait by the phone. I expressed sympathy, before suggesting she give our number to her family and come in.

"Don't you understand? I am upset. I can't leave the flat," she said.

When she appeared the next day, I asked after the grandfather. Grandfather, she mumbled, was "okay".

Then Toby refused to put his jumper on. He ran away from her calling her a "poo face".

"That's it!" she yelled. "I've had enough of his abuse. I am out of here!"

Katie had lasted 10 weeks. She'd seemed like such a nice girl at the interview. But then they always do. To be fair, some are. Michele, our first nanny, was with us for two happy years. Then came Sandy, 22, a cheerful Canadian nanny, who lived in. Sandy was fun but she was a secret smoker.

"Ooops, burned the toast again," she'd call when the alarm inevitably went off.

Super-experienced Mary, 31, also sought to conceal her smoking. I had taken Toby to a party, leaving six-month-old Harry safe in her hands. When I got back the glazier was leaving. Mary had broken a window because she had stepped outside to cough, she said, and the door slammed, leaving Harry inside.

Clare was next, only 19 but she seemed very mature at the interview and keen to stay with us for two years. We had her for four sulky months. She used to pick up her boyfriend from work with the children on board, and take her Nan on outings with them.

When I found out and confronted her, she couldn't see what my problem was. "You saying there's something wrong with my Nan?" she asked. She stayed long enough to smash up the car before stalking off to pastures new.

Anne, a quiet 23-year-old Australian, came for three weeks as a stop-gap but we loved her so much we begged her to stay, which she did for five months because she loved us, too. You see? We can't be that bad.

After Anne, there was Sarah, who was fantastic with the children but wouldn't do what we asked. And she couldn't drive. Nicole, our seventh, was great, but another temporary.

We were worried about the effect our nanny turnover was having on the boys although they seemed to relish each new face. We thought we'd struck lucky with Sally, who was 24, fullytrained, with bags of experience. But her quiet manner hid a temper. She bore grudges. If Toby called her Yucky in the morning, she still wouldn't be talking to him in the afternoon.

Nanny number nine was Judy, a 23-year-old from the United States. She was a dream at the interview.

Tickling the boys, reading them stories, complimenting them on their looks. She herself was a "beautiful person". Her agency told me so. I checked her referees. I paid the agency £1,800 and Judy arrived, in beautiful clothes.

"Thanks a lot," she grumbled when little Harry placed a grubby hand on her shoulder. "Ugh," she said, flinching when he smeared her bronzed arm with poster paint.

It was unfortunate that her obsession with her appearance didn't extend to her work. She didn't think boys' clothes needed ironing, or even much washing.

She was deaf to my pleas to keep the playroom tidy. The only thing Judy devoted herself to was time off.

In the four months she was with us, she took five weeks' holiday (all paid; we were desperate to keep her) and three weeks' sick leave. Then she announced that she was leaving because the boys didn't love her enough.

I kept my temper. I was a month away from finishing my novel. I pleaded. I begged. She handed in her notice anyway.

We're on number 11 now and she seems - fingers crossed - terrific. But my new book, Close to Home, tells the story of a nanny accused of` shaking a baby to death.

None of our nannies have done that, thank God, but I do owe them a debt of gratitude: I didn't have to step outside my front door to do any research into what nannies get up to.

Close to Home by Eileen MacDonald, £9.99, has just been published by Simon and Schuster.