The Real Little England Is In Eymet, France
“HOW hundreds of ex-pats, fed up with obnoxious youths, incompetent councils and politically correct nonsense, have turned a tiny village into a very Brtish idyll.”
The Express is in the French town of Eymet, twinned with a vision of Britain rarely seen beyond the Mail’s Keith Waterhouse column and Polly’s Tea Rooms, Marlborough branch.
It is home to ex-pats buying cans of Heinz tomato soup (American), Weetabix (founded by South Africans) and Tetley Tea (produced Indian tea giant Tata) from Kevin Walls’ corner shop, the Magasin Anglais. There are tea rooms, market stalls selling stilton cheese and British newspapers. There are white men in cricket whites playing cricket. Of the town’s 2,600 residents, around one third were born in the UK.
Says the Express: “If you want to live in France but don’t speak French it seem this is the place to be.” Or there’s Euro Disney, that other theme park, near Paris.
In Eymet, the Express sees children playing hide and seek in meadows on the way to school. It sees unlocked doors. It sees knife crime only on the television.
“I like living here because it’s like England 50 years ago,” says Simon Colebourne. And just like in 1958, Mr Colebourne runs an internet cafe. As you’d expert the cafe is chock full with ex-pats sat indoors “using the computers to e-mail friends at home and regale them with tales of the good life”.
As the Express says in headline form: “WE FOUND A LOST BRITAIN…IN THE HEART OF FRANCE.”
Lost. And maybe it should be lost once more.
Years from now, when the Internet connection to Eymet has been cut off, the place will become overgrown and impenetrable from the outside. German anthropologists will hack through the undergrowth and discover a town of inbred locals communicating in a patois learnt from Terry Thomas DVDs, Test Match Special and Sacha Distel’s back catalogue.
Of course, it could all be a lie, a plot by the Express to deter the foreigners, those Rogarian masses, from coming to Blighty. Reading the Express is to discover that the UK is rubbish, a place where only devils should tread. No, dear Mr Nastasie, Mrs Olga and your million hungry mouths, the real England is to be found in France.
Go there and try your luck. You will find a warm welcome and a gollywog on every lamppost.
Bon voyage, as they say in Eymet-under-Umpire…
February 27th, 2008 at 3:01 am
“And just like in 1958, Mr Colebourne runs an internet cafe.”
There is literally nothing that could have been added to that sentence to make it better. I think you may have just won the Internet.
February 27th, 2008 at 5:43 am
Odd, isn’t it?
Immigrants to UK are criticised, in some quarters, for not integrating with the host community, not learning the host language, not adopting the customs of the host nation, of forming little foreign enclaves in our inner cities.
Perhaps the French should introduce a Citizenship Test for those wishing to settle in their country?
February 27th, 2008 at 6:23 am
DuncanR
According to Carl Jung the things you hate in other people are the things you unconsciously hate about yourself.
I think it’s true - I bet all Daily Mail readers are working-class 3rd generation immigrants with dodgy sex lives and all Guardian readers are greedy elitists who spend their working lives finding new ways to oppress and exclude the great unwashed.
February 27th, 2008 at 6:24 am
And what an elegantly designed, yet cosy place the café’s internet room is!
http://www.cafe-eymet.com/internet.html
February 27th, 2008 at 7:10 am
Farrow & Ball paint from ‘Broadleaf’, Walls sausages from The Panier Shop, then there is the Flower Arranging Society (members are reminded that subscriptions not paid by January will result in membership being suspended) the delivery service that will do all your shopping in John Lewis and Marks and Spencer and dump it in a garage in the centre of Eymet, the computer shop that will unscramble your dealings with Wanadoo France and turn them back into good old reassuring English………..even the French version of the Inland Revenue send an English speaker to the town every year to help the ex-pats feel at home and file their returns!
Curiously, on closer inspection, a large proportion of Eymet’s residents turn out to be ex-policemen on early retirement pensions, indeed I sometimes wonder whether Eymet isn’t solely responsible for the lack of policemen on the streets in England, which is allegedly the reason for so many ex-pats moving to Eymet!