‘Lynne always knew there was a big wide world out there beyond Kentwood. It was the English blood in her! She wanted to be like her mama and Britney’s grandma—a true lady’ said a life-long friend of the Spears and Bridges.

      This man doesn’t only know Jamie and Lynne but has a fond history stretching back to a friendship with Lynne’s parents, Barney and Lillian. During three different meetings, he talked of a family pedigree and its influences that offers intriguing insights into Britney’s make-up.

      The matrimony of dairyman Barney Bridges and his English war bride Lillian Portell means that Lynne Spears and her two siblings were half-Louisiana, half-London. Among the locals, there was a sneaking suspicion that such extraction left Lynne with a natural air of being ‘slightly better than the rest of us’ and that opinion wasn’t expressed in a bad way.

      ‘It’s in her genes!’ laughs the family friend.

      In deepest Louisiana, the sound of a British accent bestows on any such visitor the automatic assumption that one is classy and sophisticated; quintessentially proper. Unlike New Orleans, New York, LA or Orlando, Kentwood is no tourist hot spot. The sight or sound of someone from England remains alien to locals, as if they’ve just wandered in from the set of a romantic movie. Talk, and they break out in a smile. English people are viewed as a mesmerising delicacy from a faraway land. If that is the case today, imagine the reaction that Lillian Portell received when she stepped off the boat on Barney Bridges’ arm in 1946, with papers stamped in Tottenham.

      The lifelong friend recalls: ‘We thought British royalty had arrived. She was like Princess Margaret. She dressed and talked proper, and always called tea at four o’clock. She was a novelty but a wonderful lady’

      Lillian had been a typist at the Law Stationery Office when she met US soldier Barney at a dance in London. As he swept her round the floor in full uniform, he wooed her and projected a new life away from blitzed London, where he owned land in a little place called Kentwood. No one could have blamed Lillian for equating mass acreage with wealth back then; Louisiana’s equivalent of the landed gentry. But all romantic visions of Gone with the Wind must have died the moment she arrived at the farm, where everyone toiled and sweated in the intense heat of the Deep South.

      The family friend remembers her arrival: ‘If she hated it, then she said nothing. She might have seen land but it was worth nothing. It was dirt land, and the house was no more than a big shack. This was the great new life she’d left home for. That girl pined for home, but she stuck with it and worked damn hard.’

      Lillian’s sister Joan Woolmore views the situation somewhat differently, sensing that Barney was a ‘domineering’ man who wouldn’t allow his wife to return to Britain because of the fear she might never return.

      ‘Mr Barney didn’t encourage visits, let’s put it like that,’ says the friend, ‘but they had a dairy to run and there was no time. Lillian didn’t whine. She loved Barney, and she stuck around to raise a family and raise her calves.’

      There is no one in Kentwood who would deign to say a bad word about Lillian. Her Englishness and warm heart are fondly remembered. One lady, who often visited the dairy to share afternoon tea, remembers Lillian causing whispered disdain at Sunday church service when it was discovered that she breastfed Lynne: ‘Back then, breastfeeding was a no-no. It was not thought appropriate and was frowned on, but Lillian’s attitude was, “If it’s good enough for England, it’s good enough for Kentwood!” and she just carried on.’

      Breastfeeding wasn’t the only aspect of British life that she introduced: ‘She brought Lady Di into our lives. When she married Prince Charles, Lil had us all sat around a television watching the wedding. It took a lady to know a lady. Lil’s English accent was better than music,’ she laughed.

      Lillian introduced words like ‘bloody’ and ‘blooming’ into Kentwood’s vernacular, and people were fascinated with her intonation of certain words. ‘God’ became ‘Gawd’ and expressions of surprise such as ‘Oh My!’ became ‘Good Lawd!’ Even though she was from London, her accent might as well have been from Windsor.

      According to those who knew Lillian, young Britney was fascinated by her grandma’s accent. She was forever taking it off and disappearing into an English accent; it was all part of her repertoire. Lillian’s old friend said: ‘Britney thought there was something proper about being an English lady and, because of Lil, she listened to all those stories about Princess Diana.’

      What’s telling about this insight is that when Britney’s troubles were witnessed in 2007, paparazzi and television footage recorded her ‘speaking in a bizarre English accent.’ It was reported as a worrying indication of mental illness; Britney was somehow losing the plot. People in Kentwood smiled at such reportage: ‘Britney’s been doing that since she was a kid, putting on the old English.’

      ‘She’s an impersonator—it’s what she does,’ said the lifelong friend. Perhaps this also explains why, in later life, Britney would have a terrier dog called London.

      Those who remember Lillian suspect that she believed that her children—Sonny, Sandra and Lynne—should do better than she herself had done. In many respects, this is a normal wish for any parent, but Lillian’s belief was flavoured by her sure knowledge that there was more to life than Kentwood, the place that had failed to match her dreams.

      Back to the friend, and the opinion is clear: ‘Lynne was born with a silver spoon up her ass because she was English. She’s a great girl but she always wanted better, and that’s got a lot to do with Lillian. That belief must have filtered down.’

      Only Lynne and her siblings will truly know the influence of the private encouragements that were given, but when Lillian’s somewhat limited circumstances are taken into consideration, it rings true that their mama might have whispered a bettering belief in their ears.

      Naturally, when Britney was born, Lynne instilled in her daughter that she was capable of anything if only she had the passion to follow it through; if she wanted it badly enough. ‘There is nothing you cannot achieve’ was the message being gently drilled into Britney because ‘There is more to life than Kentwood’ was the subtle message Lynne herself had received.