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.

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.