NC for this.
As a child back in the 1980s I was living in NW London with my mum. We would often go up to Hampstead High street as that was the nearest place for shopping. My mum had a habit of talking to everyone and there was one woman she came to know reasonably well, to the point of going for coffee if they bumped into each other and putting the world to rights.
This woman, Kinny, was a nanny and had worked for families in that area for a while. She was basically retired when I remember her, but occasionally she would ‘help out’, sometimes just a bit of baby sitting, other times something more formal.
I don’t remember that much about Kinny, but I seem to recall that she had an accent and was Jewish. She may have been Israeli, but she had certainly been in the UK for many years. Kinny was, incidentally, absolutely lovely.
Kinny would occasionally work for Jonathan Ross and Jane Goldman, I believe she said she had been Jane’s nanny when she was young. Jane Goldman certainly had an unconventional childhood and I think Kinny was the most grounded influence in her life. According to her Wikipedia entry Jane left school early and went to the USA when she was 15 to follow Boy George on tour. Coincidentally, at the time he lived a 10 minute walk away from her in Hampstead!
Kinny was very fond on Jane Goldman, and I think this was mutual, the youngest Ross daughter is called Honey Kinny.
Now, this something I heard from my mum, so it may be that she mis-heard or that I mis-remember - and either way this is third-hand anecdote, but the tale she told of how Jonathan and Jane met is not quite the same as the one recorded in the press.
Google how did they meet and there are interviews with Jane Goldman saying she approached Jonathan Ross at an industry party when she was 16 and working for a music column in the Daily Star (?) possibly at Stringfellows. Apparently Jane pursued Jonathan.
But the story (possibly) from Kinny was that Jane Goldman had started work at Just Seventeen and was sent to interview Jonathan Ross as one of her first assignments. I got the impression this was alone, and near where he was living at the time, possibly at his home. That’s not uncommon for celebrity interviews, certainly wasn’t during the 80s and 90s.
And yes, you could leave school at 16 and go out to work then. But for an employer to send a young female reporter to interview a man ten years older than her - and on her own - at 16, seemed a bit off, even then.
I wasn’t privy to my mum’s conversations with Kinny, I only heard snippets, much edited for my young ears, but my mum wasn’t that impressed with Jonathan Ross, I guess based on what she’d heard. She definitely thought the age gap was a bit dodgy given he was already a known media personality (which gives a power imbalance as well) when they met.
The popular male entertainers of the 1990s and early 00s give me the creeps - Jonathan Ross, Russell Brand, Noel Fielding, Chris Evans, John Leslie, John Barrowman etc. Brand may be the only convicted rapist but the others all gave the impression of being rather unpleasant.