I have been focusing quite a bit on war recently so I thought for this month’s blog I would choose a subject that is closer to home and of a lighter aspect. A love story. This true story is set along the Côte d’Azur, the Blue Coast, but it began in the north of France in Lille.
Miró fountainIn 1908 in the town of Hazebrouck near Lille a boy, Aimé, was born to a railway employee and his wife, Monsieur et Madame Maeght. At the outbreak of WWI, Monsieur Maeght set off for the war never to return. Worse, the family home was destroyed. Aimé, now six years old, along with his mother and three siblings, was evacuated to the Gard in the south by the Red Cross. Aimé was bright and he was passionate about art, poetry and music. After a brilliant school career, he attended art school in Nimes, but he decided he could not pursue his artistic ambitions because he had the responsibility of his family to consider. He turned instead to the printing trade and decided to study lithography. Once he had gained his engraver’s diploma, he had no difficulty finding himself a job with a printer in Cannes. He was twenty-one years old with, it is reported, “spades of charm”. He joined the choir in the church in the Suquet.
Within a year, he had met a local girl, Marguerite Devaye. She was the daughter of wealthy trades people. They married the following year. He was twenty-three. She, nineteen. In 1930, Adrien, their first son was born. Their lives were blessed. Aimé was bursting with ambition and plans. In 1932, whilst still empoyed at the same printer’s, he opened his own shop near to the famous seafront, La Croisette, and christened it Arte. He began exhibiting paintings in the window. Soon, Aimé’s print shop was also a gallery. Pierre Bonnard, who lived in the…
It is that time of year again. Late September. The season of ‘mellow fruitfulness’. There are no mists here at this time of year in the south of France but there is a great deal of mature sunlight oozing its warm beams for long hour after long hour. I love this time of year and…
I am frequently asked about good wineries to visit as a day trip from our Olive Farm in the south of France. The fact is there are dozens to suggest. So I thought it would be fun this month during these very hots days – in French we call such a heatwave la canicule – to offer…
I am trying to keep away from the computer at present to avoid this most obnoxious, recent invasion to Europe, “Black Friday”. Instead, I have been out on the land, working in the sunshine harvesting our olives. I know that I have written at length in my series of Olive Farm books, particularly the two…
A day or so ago I watched, for the first time in many years, Louis Malle’s wonderful film, Lacombe, Lucien. I don’t think I have seen it since it was first released in 1974, when I was a young actress living in London. I would have been audience at the Hampstead Everyman or that wonderful…
This year in France, our very own Iron Lady has reached her 130th birthday. Le Tour Eiffel. Receiving close to 7 million visitors a year, it is the most visited monument in the world, but like so many other artistic endeavours it was not an easy birth. The plan to build a 300 metre high,…
“When I dream of an afterlife in heaven, the action always takes place at the Ritz, Paris.” Ernest Hemingway wrote. I wonder whether he would offer the same opinion today, or perhaps he would consider some of the latest episodes in this new era of the Ritz as definitely worthy of a novel. I am…
