Nina Stibbe’s Love, Nina was one of the publishing coups of 2013 – a collection of letters written to her sister when she was an incredulous Leicestershire country girl who had fetched up in the heart of literary London in the early 1980s. Hired to look after the two small sons of London Review of Books editor Mary-Kay Wilmers, 20-year-old Stibbe found herself taking cooking tips from Alan Bennett (who he?), borrowing – and losing – a saw from Jonathan Miller and spotting Samuel Beckett in the audience for his own play (“people talking nonsense in dustbins and making funny noises” – you know, that one).

Priceless anecdotes about the literati pepper an affectionately observed account of bohemian family life in a five-year correspondence which has become one of the comic milestones of the decade, launching Stibbe – now a fiftysomething mother of her own two children – on her very own literary career.

Dear Nina

I’m writing to wish you all the best in your new life in London – knowing how much you like a letter – and to offer guidance from the 54-year-old you (me) for the months and years ahead.

Many things will be different in London but the number one immediate thing to get to grips with is “supper”. You will be expected to sit there, at the table, long after the meal is eaten (when any normal person would put the pans into soak and switch the telly on) and expected to make small talk for hours on end until bedtime. Unless A Question of Sport is on.

You’ll be expected to chat quite a lot, about everything, to everyone, including some right weirdos. But you’ll come to enjoy it and it’ll soon seem perfectly ordinary.

You’ll meet new friends and though they’ll seem a strange bunch to begin with, some of them will be important forever. So, be a good and loyal friend – but bear in mind that Stella Heath and Sam Frears remain your best friends forever – so go easy on the birthday gifts, price-wise (precedent-setting-wise).

You’ll also meet a lot of educated young people who have a confidence you’ve not seen in young people before. These confident types will try to convince you of things that just don’t seem right. They’ll sound as if they know what they’re talking about – but they often won’t. Trust your instincts at these times. You do not have to alternate between three different types of shampoo for healthy hair, you don’t need 11-12 hours sleep every night to avoid problems later and Monopoly money was never legal tender in Greece.

Regarding drugs and alcohol: I understand the reasons for your abstinence, of course, but, for God’s sake, have some, occasionally. Not a huge amount, be careful and don’t go crazy but join in. Maybe. Actually, I don’t know.

You’ve spent your life, up to now, on your own behalf (and on your mother’s) worrying about blokes – the lack of them, how to find them, how to manage them, how to trick them into having a baby, how to get rid of them and so forth. Your new London friends will dismiss all this as unimportant, a side issue, and won’t discuss blokes unless it’s to say they’ve been flashed at by one or bullied or exploited etc. Though it’s undoubtedly healthy having these things out in the open don’t start going around saying “all blokes are cunts” because a) not all blokes are (eg that troublesome neighbour turns out to be a marvel), and b) you’ll get a bad name, and c) you’re the nanny to two wonderful boys and, by the way, d) you’ll have a little baby son in 2002, and he’ll be wonderful too, so, y’know …

Enjoy being a nanny but don’t think for a moment that it’ll prepare you for parenthood. It won’t. You will have children but it won’t be like your nannying days, and it certainly won’t be like your own childhood. You will not be allowed to be the carefree, hippy type mother you imagine you’ll be – even if you wanted to be, which you won’t. Sometime in the early 1990s that kind of thing stops being allowed.

It’s called parenting now. And it’s a fucking headache. You can’t push your kids into swimming pools or send them out to buy drugs or ask them to act out vignettes from your play. You won’t allow your kids to roam in the woods or play football in the car park. You won’t even let them out of the house without going with them or paying someone else to. You will buy endless blueberries and line-caught coley and beg them to drink water. I ought to add that in spite of chronic dehydration they become very helpful around 2008 when you suddenly don’t know how to work the television by yourself.

You get a dog. But see above. It’s not like having a dog in the old days. It’s different. It’s like parenting. By the time you get a dog, having an ironic dog name isn’t enough. The dog can’t leave the house unless you go with it or pay someone else to. You must abide by a whole new set of dog-owner rules and have an elaborate insurance policy so that the vet can keep the dog in overnight and you need it to pay for the dog-yoga that’s strongly recommended. But getting the dog is still in the top 10 things you’ve ever done (up to now). Ditto the kids.

Dos and Don’ts

Do keep a diary.

Do start eating blueberries as soon as they hit the shops but don’t overdo Brazil nuts.

Do write that review for Sue Townsend’s The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole for the LRB.

Do keep writing letters to Vic.

Do make yourself seem a bit nicer and be a bit more positive about classical works.

Do get a better camera and take photographs of the boys planting seeds and decorating cup cakes etc.

Do predict that Leicester City will one day be league champions.

Don’t show off.

Don’t think you know everything.

Don’t look down your nose at cat lovers (it turns out some cats are v nice).

Don’t rinse and repeat.

Don’t tell people it’s your ambition to become a “lady jockey” (just say “jockey”).

Don’t become addicted to fizzy water (because in 25 year’s time people will think you’re evil for having it and you’ll have to hide it).

Try not to have a weave perm.

In many ways the world gets better. There are still curmudgeonly types who like to say things were better in the old days but they’re only saying that because they knew the value of everything and we now only know the price, apparently. Nurses and teachers are taken for granted, libraries are closed but on the plus side women are allowed to talk about pay equality and wear eyeliner without being called Bolshevik slags. And you can actually no longer even be called a slag – except on social media, and that’s a whole other subject.

One last important thing. I want you to know everything’s going to be alright. And that alright is actually two words (all right) not one word (alright). Apparently.

• Love, Nina starts on BBC1 at 9.30pm on Friday. Paradise Lodge by Nina Stibbe will be published by Viking on 2 June.