says Pat Gordon-Smith.
Ten years ago, when my younger son was very new, I used to pass the same childminder every morning as I took my elder son to school and she led a pair of three-year-old charges to nursery. We would nod our hellos, as you do, but she would carry on her laughing conversation with the children or chase them squealing across the grass.
When I eventually needed childcare for that babe, she was the person I wanted. I felt I had seen daily evidence of a professional yet loving mutual interest between this childminder and the children in her care, and my feeling was confirmed by childminder friends who knew her. Over the next four years she proved my instinct right again and again.
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