Love from Venice is Gill Johnson’s utterly fascinating memoir of the summer of 1957 which she spent in Venice caring for the two older sons of the Conte and Contessa Brandolini in their magnificent 15th century palazzo on the Grand Canal. Gill had become romantically involved with David Ross, an architect, but when David left to work in Paris Gill decided to give up her job “shifting postcards, posters and calendars” at the National Gallery to look for an adventure of her own.
Gill entered into the glittery, luxurious life of the gracious and kind Conte and Contessa. Her charges were two impeccably mannered, always beautifully dressed little boys and her main duty was to make sure they spoke only English when she was with them. A thrilling, to me, part of the memoir was the friendship Gill struck up with my heroine, Nancy Mitford, at the beach on the island of Lido where Gill took the boys each day, accompanied by a retinue of servants armed with picnic baskets and whatever was necessary to make their cabana comfortable.
Gill has included extracts of letters she wrote to David from Venice and from Switzerland when she was there with the family. Gill also writes about her parents. Post WW2 London had left them feeling depressed; of their former servants only their old nanny remained and Gill’s mother mourned their former lifestyle, making her father feel inadequate while he drifted about “waiting for things to improve”. Gill’s escape to her “golden summer” was a brave step out into a completely different world and how lucky she was to have been able to take it.
Published by Hodder & Stoughton
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