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# In 1950 the French weekly Elle ran a long feature on the childhood of Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret, signed with the name of their governess, Marion Crawford
- URL: https://theparnassian.com/en/v-1950-godu-frantsuzskii-ezhenedelnik-elle-vypustil-bolshoi-material-o-detstve-printsess-elizabet-i-margaret-kotoryi-byl-podpisan-imenem-ikh-guvernantki-merion-krouford/
- Published: 2022-09-10T09:09:40.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-01T05:37:57.000Z
- Author: Alexandr Radayev
- Tags: In the Press, London, Monarchies, Mores

Marion relates how she came to meet the Duke and Duchess of York, son and daughter-in-law of King George VI, quite by chance, at the home of one of her pupils in Scotland; two weeks later the Yorks offered her the post of governess to their daughters, aged six and two. In the family the new governess was known as Crawfie. Everyone in the household was very kind to her, and the 31-year-old Duchess treated her simply as a girl who had come to call.

Responsibility for the children, their health, clothing and hygiene lay with Alah, their mother's old nurse, while Crawford's duties were chiefly to give lessons.

Little Lilibet was playing horses on her bed, as she did every evening, when Marion came in; she greeted her and asked: why have you got no hair? They soon became friends. Marion's first impression of the princess was that she was very well-mannered, pretty, sensible and energetic. The former governess did not, however, think it superfluous to mention the rumours that the Yorks' younger daughter, Margaret, was deaf and dumb, and explained that they had most likely arisen because she spent the greater part of her time in her own room.

Every day the princesses began with wild games in their parents' bedroom, and this went on even after the girls had come of age.

Somewhere in the park stood a miniature cottage brought from Wales, in which the whole interior, the furniture and even the appliances were made to a child's proportions, so that Nanny Crawfie had to move about in it on her knees. Above the little fireplace hung a tiny portrait of the Duchess. In the small sideboard stood a diminutive porcelain service with golden monograms; in the kitchen, minuscule tin canisters; in the little cupboard lay a small insurance policy, and on the shelves the collected works of the storyteller Beatrix Potter. Lilibet tidied this cottage herself, wrapping the miniature silver in newspaper so that it would not tarnish, putting dust covers over the furniture and tucking in the blankets.