G. Good Manners
I have to say that after some eleven years of living in France the welcome we have received from our neighbours, the tradesmen and the people we deal with on a day to day basis has been both warm and unaffected. I often wonder if, say, I was a Frenchman living in the English or Scottish countryside would the welcome I’d receive there measure up in the cordiality stakes. I have a strong feeling we would suffer in comparison. You see something of the difference in the small formalities of everyday behaviour that are commonplace in France but are still somewhat baffling to the English. The handshake, the kissing, the salutations on parting—“Bonne continuation,” “Bon fin de l’après midi”—the Messieurs-Dames acknowledgement as one enters a crowded shop. This quotidian politesse is very marked — but we British notice it because it is lacking in our own daily lives.
H. Hunting
Many of our French friends and neighbours in France are avid hunters. The most ardent kill migrating doves in October, luring them to feed on acorns and then shooting them from palombières, extravagant firing-platforms cum tree-houses in the oak woods that surround our house. Our local palombière is a deluxe version fitted out with a kitchen and a dining room some twenty metres above the forest floor. Hunting in France is classless, it seems to me — insofar that it’s for everyone: rich and poor. Hunting in Britain is steeped in class: it’s designed to be socially exclusive. Perhaps no one concept better illustrates the divide between the two countries. A book could be written on it.
I. Immensity
My English life is lived in the south-east of England, the most densely populated place in Europe. By contrast in France, even in the height of summer, I often feel isolated, a solitary presence. You forget how big France is compared to Britain — how easy it is to find yourself in an unpeopled landscape. One August, driving back from the Côte d’Azur we were caught up in a massive traffic jam on the autoroute. We decided to take the backroads home — the C and D roads — and drove across the Hérault and the Aveyron in the general direction of Cahors and then on westwards to the Dordogne. I had an impression of great tracts of emptiness, with a few signs of cultivation and the odd ancient village. It took a full day to make our journey home but when I looked at a map of France to see the way we had come it didn’t seem that great a distance — just the crossing of a corner of the hexagon. You can, of course, find a similar sense of remoteness in Britain but you have to go looking for it. In our case we just turned off the motorway from the broiling hell of the Mediterranean holiday traffic and there it was — and we followed the minor, single-track roads through a virtually untouched wilderness.
J. July
23 July 1993 to be precise: this is the moment when I date the beginning of my French life. This was the first night that we spent in the old farmhouse we had bought and renovated on the Monbazillac plateau, south of Bergerac. We had bought the house two years previously, spontaneously, not really able to afford it but captivated by its perfect location. It’s a solid, thick-walled farmhouse with a large stone barn, surrounded by woods, set on a hill overlooking a quiet valley, with a winding drive one kilometre long. It answered all our wishful dreams about the kind of house we imagined living in.
Having bought it and having planned to do it up piecemeal — room by room, as we could afford it — we were then visited by one of those strokes of luck that everyone needs from time to time. In 1994, the following year, a film was made based on my novel, A Good Man in Africa, and suddenly our cash-flow problems were eased and we were able to instruct the builders to go full steam ahead. I looked on this as a good omen, not just because it linked my old African life with my new one in France but because Sean Connery had agreed to play the role of the Scottish doctor, “Doctor Murray,” one of the two “Good Men” in Africa that the title alludes to. “Doctor Murray,” moreover, is a portrait of my father — who died in 1978. I took all these auspicious biographical congruencies to be a form of blessing on this new French life we were embarking on — a choice that has never prompted a moment’s regret ever since.
K. King’s Road
Our life in France is largely rural; our nearest town of any size is Bergerac. Occasionally we will visit Périgueux. Such a tranquil life has mixed blessings for a writer: there is plenty of uninterrupted time for the imagination to work but there is an absence, nonetheless, as the weeks roll by, of the stimulation of the passing parade. You cannot be a novelist without being a compulsive observer of your fellow human beings and I find myself, for example, as the summer wears on and July gives way to August, hankering for London, for Chelsea, for the King’s Road. The King’s Road is not as bohemian as it used to be but I spend a good portion of each day, when I am in London, wandering up and down it. It never fails to deliver something surprising, strange, beguiling, intriguing. If I want to witness the full gamut of human types the world has to offer the King’s Road has them in abundance.
L. Lunch
When we were having our house renovated in France the builders would work from eight to twelve, then they would stop for lunch. There would be an aperitif (Pernod, usually) then a full three-course lunch with a hot main course (provided by the wife of the head builder) served with wine and as much bread as you could eat. Work would start again at two and go on until six.
When our house was being renovated in London the builders would go out at odd times of the day to buy fizzy drinks, sandwiches, hamburgers and chocolate bars. They ate them fast, often not bothering to sit down.
M. Manifestations
The French are much better at political protest than the British. I was once in Marmande where a mountain of fresh tomatoes had been dumped in front of the Marie. I was denied access to Bergerac because local ambulance drivers were protesting about an insignificant pay rise. I’ve missed planes because lorry-drivers have blocked motorways. There is an easy formulation that claims some countries make bad citizens and good soldiers and others where the inverse applies. It seems to me that being a good citizen — caring about your rights, protesting about your rights, trying to safeguard your rights against an overpowerful government — is more valid in this day and age.
N. Nice
I first went to France when I was seventeen. I stayed in Paris for a week before hitch-hiking to the Mediterranean. I spent my last few days in a cheap hotel in Nice and came to like the town enormously. This drew me back two years later when I had the chance to study at a French university after I left school. I chose Nice unhesitatingly (I could have chosen Aix, Montpellier, Tours, Grenoble). When I lived in Nice as a student in 1971 there was a protracted postal strike in Britain which lasted many weeks, meaning that no money (my allowance) could be sent out to me. I have never been so poor and so alone. I could afford to eat one frugal meal a day at the restaurant of the Fac de Lettres. I lived in a small room above a cafe. The cafe owner took pity on me and every evening allowed me to eat what remained of his croissants, chocolatines and pizza — free of charge. So I survived pretty well until the strike ended. I was away from my family, friends, language, country and culture. In many ways I think Nice was the making of me.