Sixty Miles from England

July 06, 2016 by Alison

Sixty Miles from England chronicles the town I feel i have come to know well through Pigtails and Pernod - Dieppe. It describes the relationship between the English and the small Normandy town, the contribution of the community to its growing prosperity, to the building of its railway, to its tourist trade and to the its population. It was quite an irony that I finished reading Simona's account of the English expat community in Dieppe on the day the UK voted to leave the EU. My family were essentially economic migrants (why are the British always 'expat' and other nationalities 'migrant'?) choosing to live in France until the financial regulations no longer worked to their benefit.

The summer holidays

May 30, 2016 by Alison

The final section of Pigtails and Pernod takes place during the summer holidays of Simona's second year at drama school, at a time when the English community in Dieppe was diminishing in the years leading up to war. Families were returning to England, 'colonels were cutting down on their drinks...Marie was getting fewer orders for new dresses': it all paints a picture of a town in decline.

A Dieppoise Easter, 1930/31

May 02, 2016 by Alison

The second part of Pigtails and Pernod covers Simona's Easter holidays during her fifteenth year, and continues very much in the same vein as we have come to expect - eccentric characters, Johnny causing chaos, the women of the family very much in charge.

Pigtails and Pernod

April 05, 2016 by Alison

Pigtails and Pernod is an engaging, warm and funny read, outlining Simona's maturing from excitable pre-teen to a young woman on the verge of adulthood. At the same time it chronicles the changing political and social landscape both among the English ex-pat community in Dieppe and at home, and the burgeoning menace of Naziism and rise of Hitler.

Moving on to book two

February 28, 2016 by Alison

So I've finished Simona's book about Vaughan Williams and his music. I enjoyed reading it and discovered aspects of my grandmother that weren't apparent during her later years, as well as a lot about the music of Vaughan Williams. I will enjoy my continued musical education and will return to the book and Simona's subsequent friendship with Ralph and Ursula Vaughan Williams later in the year. But for now I'm moving on to Pigtails and Pernod, the account of Simona's teenage school holidays in Dieppe.

A tale of two Grandmas

January 01, 2016 by Alison

My two grandmothers were poles apart. My Mum's mother was a true grandma - grey hair in a bun, an ample bosom, fierce love and harsh criticism in equal measure. She served custard from a bowl and sliced parchment-thin bread and butter (tip: butter the loaf before cutting the slice). We spent half our school summer holidays at New Milton Grandma's, where we had beaches and the New Forest for our entertainment.

My Dad's mother, in contrast, was not a grandma. Despite the best efforts of my sister and me, she remained resolutely Simona;