Rascals Nursery
Brenda went Rascals Nursery School after weaned at 9 months. The nursery was far away home and very expensive, but that was the only one available, all others had a waiting list up to one year.
I was a cleaner in Saint Brendan's Cream Liquor factory, paid for £6.0 an hour, so 8 hours work, I could earn £48. but nursery fee was £24 a day! So half of my wages went to the nursery, another half was paid for rents and food, electricity.
It was a pain to leave her in the nursery, she always cried during the first months.
Two Child minders
Because Rascal was so expensive, we withdrew after giving one months notice. Brenda changed to childminders, she has two childminders at the same time. One was Indian who was my wife's colleague's wife Mrs Sidiki, another was local who was my colleagues' wife Sharon.
Sharon drove to our house to collect Brenda in the morning, but Mrs Sidiki lives in Coleraine near the Ulster University, my wife took Brenda early in the morning, even in very cold dark winter, we woke her up, put her in the pram, my wife pushed her and rushed to the train station. They need to change another line halfway, and took about 1 hour by train. Sometime missed the train, they had to wait for the next in one hour later. In one occasion, my wife watched the train moving out of the station, she was so furious that she launched a complain at the spot, she wrote a complaint letter, asked other pessengers to sign on it.
Bremda with Sharon
Brenda with Emma,Indian girl
Child Care Vouchers
My wife registered with Busy Bee to arrange child care vouchers, because child care voucher paid from wages (salaries) before tax, which can save us up to £1154 a year.
Any company can offer its employee child care vouchers, but the company need register with child care voucher scheme. My company never heard of that, don't know how to do, so I gave the accountant some leaflets of Busy Bees, let them read. But child care voucher can be used only for registered child care. Brenda was withdrew from Rascals soon, Although Sharon was a registered childminder, but she only accepted cash, even no checks in order to avoid the tax man. Mrs Sidiki was under application for registered childminder, during Brenda's stay at her home, inspectors came twice to check the eligibility, but we thought she was quite difficult to get the license because of her Indian minority and muslin background.