A French Interlude

Radio silence for the last couple of weeks I'm afraid, due to IT problems in France - how dependent we have all become on our technology and how bereft we are when deprived of it!

But an interesting and enjoyable time in the eastern Pyrenees, despite the incredibly high temperatures that made getting around a bit of a trial at times. There were a number of visits I wanted to make to follow up on some ideas and to do some research for a couple of forthcoming projects. Definitely the most moving visit was that to the memorial at the internment camp at Rivesaltes; the camp buildings now lie in ruins but the recently opened exhibition centre there tells the heartbreaking story of so many lives lived and lost over decades of the twentieth century.

Rivesaltes lies 40 kilometres from the Spanish border and early in its history housed some of the half a million refugees crossing into France during the Retirada in the Spanish civil war. It later incarcerated gypsies, Jews and French "undesirables" during the Vichy regime and subsequent German occupation; after Algerian independence many Harkis and their families were sent to live there. Through recordings, film and photographs each group tell their own extraordinary story in the exhibition. With the present refugee crisis, our visit was a timely reminder of the horrors man inflicts on man.

Less troubling (except for the precipitous drops from the single track road!) was a visit to the tiny mountain hamlet of Montalba, the setting for a planned short story. I always try to research settings carefully - they are "characters" in writing as much as the people who live out situations within them and I find that taking extensive notes and photographs really helps when it comes to recreating them on paper.

My setting ...

And talking of settings, another really good trip was to Carcassone. One of my favourite books read last year was Kate Mosse's "Citadel" and it was fascinating to visit the area in which she set her tremendous WW2 story. Another one to reread, I think.

...and Kate Mosse's!

One communication that did get through on our trip was news of the Gloucestershire Writers Network competition results. I was delighted to find that I'd won the poetry section and consequently will be reading again at the Cheltenham Literature Festival next month. My Picaresque colleague Judith van Djikhuizen, who also guested on this blog earlier this year, was a runner-up.The "locally sourced" event will take place at the Town Hall on Sunday October 16th at 19.00 when the winners of both the poetry and the prose sections and the runners-up will be sharing their work. It's always a very good evening so I'm really looking forward to it.