Anyone remember this book - teenager becomes nanny to London family

[EllieQ]

I'm trying to find a book I read as a teenager (between approx. 1988 & 1995). The main character is called Coral and takes a job as a nanny/ mother's help to a middle-class family in London and falls in love with the father.

I can remember the following:

• It was contemporary - set in the 1980s/ 90s
• Coral likes to imagine herself in Victorian times (she grows up on a council estate and feels like an outsider).
• She was named after the betting shop.
• The job is advertised in The Lady or a similar magazine.
• The father writes writes books/ short stories with characters named after shipping forecast names)
• On her first day she has to go shopping and doesn't know what taramasalata is (neither did I!).
• She ends up making friends with a young single mum and moves in with her and (I think) gets a job in an antiques shop.

If anyone can name this book, I'd be very grateful!

If no-one here can help, the website AbeBooks (a second hand book site) has forums where you can ask this sort of question - the members there helped me track down a book I read as a teenager, but couldn't remember the name of.

Good luck!

Thanks, I'll have a look if the Mumsnet mind can't identify this one

Was this a Jacqueline Wilson book?

It's This Girl by Jacqueline Wilson

Just looked at it on Amazon and I think that's it - the cover looks familiar. Would never have guessed Jacqueline Wilson - must be one of her early books. Thank you so much!