A RARE memento of the extraordinary life of a Victorian nanny who served the royal families of Europe will go under the hammer next week.

The boxed set of silver cutlery was created by celebrated jeweller Carl Faberge for nurse Annie Bell, who left her home in rural County Durham to work in the courts of Europe for 50 years.

Tomorrow, the gift, given to Nanny Bell by an unknown royal patron, will be auctioned at Anderson and Garland, in Newcastle.

Annie Bell was born in Wolsingham in 1863 and trained as a nurse at the Town Moor Children's Hospital, in Newcastle. Aged 23, she became a nanny for the family of Sir David Drummond, the distinguished Newcastle surgeon, and stayed with the family for three years, before her life took an exotic turn.

In 1889, she embarked on her career as a nanny to European royalty when she was hired by Prince Radolin, the German ambassador to Constantinople, in what was then the Ottoman Empire and is now Turkey.

When the ambassador was ordered to Russia, Nanny Bell went with the family and moved on to serve two Russian aristocrats - Baron von Dervies and Prince Bellossky.

In 1901, she moved to a new family. Grand Duke George and Grand Duchess Marie of Russia, a cousin of Czar Nicholas II and daughter of King George I of Greece, engaged Annie as nurse to their daughters, princesses Nina and Xenia.

For the next 22 turbulent years, she was constant companion to the two princesses, during which time the family lived through the Bolshevik Revolution, in which Grand Duke George was killed.

She left the family once the princesses had reached adulthood and went on to care for young King Peter II of Yugoslavia, then the family of Count Coudenhove of Czechoslovakia.

In 1930, aged 67, she returned to England and contemplated retirement in Harrogate, North Yorkshire, where she owned property, but her restless nature drove her on to one last adventure. She was engaged by Don Antura Edwards as nanny to his two children in Paris and then, when the family returned to Chile, she went with them to South America.

Julian Thompson, silver specialist at Anderson and Garland, said: "She was still in Chile when she celebrated her 73rd birthday and was thrilled to be inundated with cards, letters and photographs from her former charges around the world expressing their fond memories of her as their nanny.

"Sadly, little is known of Nanny Bell's final years of life - even by surviving members of her family. They were surprised, however, to learn from us that the box of cutlery she had once owned and which has remained in the family since her death, bears the monogram of Russia's most famous jeweller and silversmith, Faberge.

"Only one of her royal patrons is likely to have been wealthy enough to afford such an extravagant gift, but which one remains a mystery which may never be solved."