Tuesday 22 November 2016

Le Maquis, Valescure, near Saint Raphael in the South of France


 Nancie was now, in 1934, Nursery-Governess to two children. Coulou was five and Hugh was a new baby. 'Fisty' as he was nicknamed, gradually grew stronger. Nancie grew very attached to them both and her friendship with their mother Eleonore was to last sixty years or more.
Many visitors came to Le Maquis. A lot of them were English aristocrats, such as Lord and Lady Ashcombe, the de Wintons, the Johnstone Douglases and the Rawlinsons. There was quite an enclave of English folk, with writers and artists in particular. It was near here that F.Scott Fitzgerald wrote The Great Gatsby in 1925.
Nancie made several friends of her own age such as Elizabeth Johnstone-Douglas (later Lady Craven) and sisters Winifred and Grisel de Winton.
Eleonore's cousin Anne Frauger and her husband  (known as Froggie) lived in a farm just up the road. He worked in the local bank and they had three children.Their scottish Governess was called Sylvia Mackintosh but Nancie hadn't got much time for her. Ebles de Chabannes, however, had taken rather a fancy to Sylvia. Scottish Governesses were preferred to English ones because of their accents.
Nancie's new friend Grisel de Winton never married but her sister Winifred later married Charles Chichester, adopting two children.
Eleonore treated Nancie more like a companion and friend than just a Governess.She met all her friends and was invited to all the social events, very much as she had previously, with the Warden Family at Cannes and Le Havre.

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