JESSICA is pummel pummel pummelling Lucia’s bare feet, her face creased with concentration. She reaches over for a bottle and, splosh, pours orange and cinnamon oil onto her hands and returns to her massaging.

Jessica is two-and-a-half years old. And Lucia – who was wearing Ninja Turtle slippers before they began – is much, much older. She’s three and a half. Jessica is giving Lucia a reflexology massage in the sunny garden, touching points in her feet to get a balance in the body’s energy, but not quite understanding this yet. Some of them laugh when they’re having their feet done, learning to do it two pairs at a time.

These are little people at Little People, London’s first – and only – holistic nursery school, where they have daily massage from a grown-up and reflexology and organic lunches, along with a combination of Montessori and traditional education. Where touch is allocated as much time as pre-reading, pre-writing and play.

Downstairs, through The Messy Room and past four knee-high loos in a room with no door, is The Quiet Room. Alexander, just two and wearing nappies, is listening to taped dolphin and whale sounds mixed with wind instruments and getting an all-over body massage from a big person called Molly Molloy Madigan. (She’s Irish.) He’s being gently stroked with orange oil to aid his digestion and lies there sucking his thumb and occasionally giving a mini grunt of satisfaction. It lasts 20 minutes and he falls asleep.

If a child is finding it difficult to settle into a project, Molly picks him up for a massage. One didn’t like it initially, but soon got into it. ‘Sometimes another watches. Teaching them to do it is very important, so they can care for each other,’ says Molly.

She had the idea for her school four years ago, and opened it last September. We’re now sitting talking on wooden chairs that stand probably eight inches off the ground, made by a religious community in Surrey who dedicate their lives to making furniture for children.

Little People was formerly the ground floor of Molly’s home – light, spacious and jolly – in her Victorian house in Archway. The nursery smells of essential oils which she burns every morning, rosewood and bergamot today. They are summer smells which help to lift the spirits and keep us happy, she says. Certainly the atmosphere is calm and cheery, no tears even as the children are dropped off. (They don’t have a pick-up service.) Molly’s wearing Japanese massage sandals – you know, those funny things that have rubber spikes that stick up into the soles to do good works on your feet – and tartan-pattern cotton trousers. She is telling me about her brainchild.

‘I needed to go back to work after having my daughter Sarah. I wasn’t happy with what was available in the line of full day care, so I decided to set up what I would have liked to have found.’ Sarah is four now and has another year there.

Instead of running the short hours of nine until four, Little People suits big working people and is open from eight until six, five days a week. It costs £125 a week – which Molly swears is standard – but she negotiated a reduction for the twins and says she has helped parents with financial difficulties.

‘I didn’t go into the project with views on whether it would be a good business deal, but rather just wanting to give other children what I hoped to give my own daughter.’ There are currently 14 children and capacity for 25; half are male and the rest wee girls, aged from two to five. The infants are called names like Sasha, Jacob, Romilly and Zachary. All English and local to the area, they’re the sort of kiddies, she explains, who go to osteopaths and use herbal and homeopathic remedies. (Molly herself uses Bach Flower Rescue Remedy if they have a little bump or bang.) And their mummies and daddies are things like graphic designers, journalists and teachers.

And the staff? Well, there’s Molly herself, 35, from Galway and a state registered nurse; and Kris, a man with long blond hair, batik shirt and Montessori and early-years training; and Ann, a traditional junior and primary school-trained teacher; then Maria, who’s an artist, and then Patsy, the Jamaican cook who is also wearing Japanese massage sandals and does cooking projects and things like tie-dye too. The whole place is Right On, in the nicest possible way.

Molly came to England when she was 17. A non-practising Catholic and the eldest of 10 children – a fact she reveals with evident pride – she’s used to looking after little ones. She worked for 12 years in nursing, ending up at the Royal Free Hospital.

‘I was unhappy with nursing because I felt it was losing a lot of the care and healing, which is what I like to do now.’

She went to work in her husband’s architectural practice, got pregnant, started having massage herself, learned baby massage, thought about starting up a natural health clinic for children . . . and ended up opening Little People. ‘It’s hard work. But with nursing I was used to that.’ An average day at the Little People involves breakfast, then singing, games and noise followed by creative work, toilet visit and handwashing; then lunch, teeth cleaning, free play, rest and massage. Depending on the day, there will also be messy activities or rhythm and dance or something. Which brings us to their food. It contains neither colourings, preservatives nor any other gunk. Take Monday: ‘Vegetarian moussaka with roasted pumpkin seed and wheat salad followed by silk tofu and strawberry whip.’

Or Wednesday: ‘Mixed-bean casserole with wine, mashed potato with ground almond, black olives with avocado salad, stewed apple with soya sauce.’ If it sounds like a baby boom parody of the health boom (the minor Mung Bean Set?) the children apparently adore it. And they cheerfully set the tables, acting as two and three-year-old waitresses and carrying the food from the kitchen. Then they serve each other.

They don’t have a discipline problem. ‘Parents tend to ask how we handle children expressing their positive and negative feelings. Basically I let the child express what he needs to. To deal with a temper tantrum, you need just see where it’s coming from.’

If its origin is a dispute with another child, Molly – who’s done something called Parent Link, which helps in these matters of major litigation – shows them the best way of handling the problem among themselves.

She did a lot of research when formulating her ideas for Little People. She found many nurseries ‘disgusting, with appalling food and a poor quality of care’. But her philosophy is to develop the whole character of the child, so he leaves with his trust and self-esteem not just intact, but enhanced, and an inner confidence.

Are there any disadvantages to her new approach to childcare? ‘The only thing parents worry about is the atmosphere being too cosy and too cuddly and too loving.’ This sounds like a great problem. ‘But they wonder what’s going to happen to their child when he goes to his next school . . .’