For me life began in the attic of a manor west of Paris, a grand house with a sweeping stone staircase, fancy dormer windows and a parc. My first memories are of reading curled up in a worn leather club chair and picking dandelions for salad in the lawn. Our landlady, the beautiful Comtesse Brio-de-la-Crochet was a chic Parisienne and I adored her. The other woman in my life was my nursery school teacher, Mademoiselle Chardon (Miss Thistle.) Our school was an old town house wrapped around a small yard with a statue in the middle. My early childhood was magical.

I fell from this Eden the day the government gave my mother – a primary school teacher – ‘un appartement de function,’ a sterile eagle’s nest overlooking acres of concrete. On my fifth birthday, my schooling began and stretched out… grey and impersonal for twelve long years. One cannot put down roots in concrete, and I never knew where my school friends lived.

It was not all bad. When the A1 highway took shape below our balconies, our roller-skating track expanded. From our kitchen window, the Eiffel Tower was as big as my thumbnail, the Seine was not too far, and I could walk to Josephine’s chateau de la Malmaison. Small and intimate, it is a jewel you really must visit. 

I was only ten when my father sent me to Kent, ‘to build Europe.’ England! I loved everything about it. When I returned home at the end of the month, my future was sealed: I was going to be English. 

Looking back, I can see that roots, and a certain ‘longing for belonging’ pervade my writing. So does the thrill of being elsewhere, ‘ailleurs’, a word the French pronounce ‘ah-year…’ their dreamy gaze lost on the horizon. If your perfect ailleurs is France, pack your bags. Leave the world behind and come on a journey with me…