In a previous life, Miranda was an admiral in the British Navy. She believes that what small children need is fresh air, very few toys and no telly except 20 minutes of The Clangers before bedtime. There is no such thing as ‘bad weather’, just ‘inappropriate clothing’. Boss Mum is found in Clapham or the more affordable parts of West London, and if she could train her four children to respond to a bosun’s whistle, then she would use one. As it is, her foghorn voice can be heard the length of Oxford Gardens, W10, booming: ‘Come on, chaps, we haven’t got all day!’ Nobody is allowed to eat their cottage pie in front of The Clangers and she would rather die than let her children use her as a climbing frame. When she worked, she ran a small catering company and she often muses that it was good preparation for motherhood. Her idea of childcare is turning the children out into the garden — a tangled mess of brambles and hydrangeas — and telling them to make a den. Her Dubarry boots and English Pointer, Bojo, are constant companions; she can’t remember the last time she cried, even when her husband Jasper came back from his last long posting. But don’t think Miranda is an unsympathetic meanie: her beaten-up kitchen table is home-from-home to a stream of mum ‘muckers’ who seek her out for tea and sympathy. Her children — Jonny, Billy, Cecily and Kate — on the other hand, live in constant fear.
