Apologies to all visitors -
your webmaster was unexpectedly admitted to hospital on the 30th
November and has only just returned home in time for Christmas!
He will catch up with mail and messages as soon as possible. A
Happy Christmas and prosperous New Year to everyone - Peter,
Webmaster.
November 2009
New larger photo's of Winifred
& John's home at Admiral's House,
Hampstead have been added together with some photo's of the
surrounding area.
A theatre programme from the
first night of a 1908 play called 'Pinkie and the Fairies'
in which Winifred Fortescue acted at His Majesty's Theatre,
London has been added to the site in pdf format. Visit the pages about her acting career
to view.
'Escape to Provence', continues to receive good reviews. A
link to the latest, from The Riviera Woman, can be found
by clicking
here.
Futher information about
Elisabeth Starr together
with the tribute, 'Envoi', written by Winifred after her death.
Maureen Emerson, author of
'Escape to Provence', is now a member of
The
Society of Authors. Membership of the society firmly
establishes her credibility as an author. Congratulations to
Maureen. 'Escape to Provence', now in the second
edition, is an absolute must for anyone interested in Lady Fortescue, Elisabeth Starr and France in general between the
wars. Visit Maureen's page
for full details and to order a copy.
Maureen Emerson
The France Show 2010
Earls Court, London Maureen will be on the France Bookshop stand with her book!
1pm to 5pm on the 8th, 9th and 10th January 2010.
Larger pictures of
Ramatuelle coastguard/douanes
station near St. Tropez have been added together with two new
images, one believed to show Elisabeth Starr when the cottages
were intact around 1934. Larger pictures of
Elisabeth have also been
added to the site.
A new page added
with information about Winifred's connection with Spilsill
Court in Kent. It includes possibly the last picture of Sir John Fortescue
before his death in 1933. Click here.
A recent October trip to
Suffolk provided an opportunity to re-visit Winifred's home
village of Great Bealings. As a result the page about the village and her
father's church has now been updated. There are a number
of new
photo's, including one of the memorial to Mervyn, one of
Winifred's brothers, and many
of the originals have been replaced with better versions. Click
here to have look.
The News &
Magazine articles page has had some attention. There are 9
articles written by Winifred in the 1920's on a range of
subjects mainly under the heading 'Modes and Manners'. They
provide a wonderful snapshot of life in that period. The actual
articles have been re-scanned using Optical Character
Recognition, (OCR). The good news is they are very clear and
easy to read now, the file sizes are also much smaller so they
open quickly. The down side is OCR sometimes makes mistakes! The glaring ones
have been removed but please excuse any odd words
or punctuation - you will be able to work out what it
means!
Chailey Heritage School,
Sussex had a strong link with Winifred Fortescue who was a great
friend of its founder. The school caters for children with
physical disabilities. A new page has been added with some
information which also
contains a link to a pamphlet that Winifred wrote about a moving
visit to the school on Palm Sunday 1944. Fortunately a copy
survived and is well worth reading. Click here to
visit.
September 2009
Maureen Emerson's 'Escape to Provence',
now in its second printing, continues to receive good reviews.
Read the latest from Destination France - Autumn 2009 edition.
There is a link on the 'Escape'
page. Maureen is speaking this weekend, (26th September),
in French, at the Salle
Roumanille, Cabris Mairie in the
Alpes Maritime.
Visitors will recall that
Winifred Fortescue's original book, Perfume from Provence, was
re-published by Summersdale in May this year, nearly 75 years
after it first appeared. That achievement gives an idea of how
popular she was and still is! Shortly after the new edition was
released a review by Val Hennessey appeared in the national
press, (the Daily Mail actually), which was somewhat scathing in
its content. Maureen Emerson, author of 'Escape to Provence',
wrote a particularly good response which can be viewed in the
Visitor's Book.
Mathew Kneale, Whtibread prize
winning author, paints a much more accurate picture of Winifred
Fortescue in his article in the Financial Times of
Saturday 29th August 2009 entitled The idyll memoir.
Click
here to read the article.
A letter written to a national
newspaper in 1951 after Winifred Fortescue had died has recently
come to light. It is unsigned but it speaks for itself and
reflects the way many people viewed and still do view Winifred
Fortescue. It provides the perfect foil to the review. It is
reproduced for you to read below.
LADY
FORTESCUE
A
correspondent writes: —
To her host
of admirers both in this country and in France, Lady
Fortescue's death will have come as a personal loss and not
least to those about whom she wrote, for all found in her a
warm heart and generous mind. This charming writer's books
are well known, but possibly Perfume from Provence takes
pride of place with many thousands of Lady Fortescue's
readers.
Beauty for
Ashes perhaps reveals best her gay and gallant spirit,
accompanied always by a vivid imagination which transcended
everything which came her way. However simple the narrative
it reflects the writer in a marked degree by its
spontaneity, enthusiasm, gaiety, and sympathy.
An acute
awareness of the needs of others, especially those of her
beloved Provence, invariably followed up by constructive
action, characterized Lady Fortescue's whole life and we can
but echo her halting, though heartfelt, expression of
gratitude to Margharita for loving service, "Comment vous
remercier ? "
August 2009
A quiet month when we should
all have been enjoying a lot of sunshine. Not so much in the
U.K. but in the south of France the temperatures have been up in
the high 30's most days with lots of humidity. A couple of new
pictures of the little bar in Opio have been added to the
Opio page. More photo's of locations
not featured before will be appearing before too long.
July 2009
Maureen Emerson, the author of
'Escape to Provence', attracted the maximum permitted
audience of 60 people to her illustrated talk at Haywards Heath
Library in Sussex on Friday July 17th, a particularly stormy
night. A photo of the evening appears on the 'Escape to Provence'page.
The book is now available direct from Amazon U.K.
June 2009
REMINDER
Maureen Emerson,theauthor of
'Escape to Provence', is giving an illustrated talk at Haywards Heath
Library in
Sussex on July 17th. If you are in the south of England this is a
great
opportunity to hear Maureen in person. Full details on the 'Escape to Provence' page.
Another early aerial photo of
Opio Village has been obtained and added to the site. This one
is in colour! It shows the olive mill, Elisabeth Starr's home,
the Castello, and a tiny corner of Sunset House Click
here.
Maureen Emerson, the author of
'Escape to Provence', has written a fascinating detailed history
of the Sunny Bank Anglo American Hospital, (now demolished), at
Cannes. To read the article visit the Cannes
page.
May 2009
Perfume from Provence - as
promised, brand new, just published copies are now available in
bookshops, Amazon or direct from the publisher free of postage.
Click here for more details. If you do
not have a copy or just want a brand new shiny one to keep why not
treat yourself now! The website has been given a quote on the back
cover notes! Thank you very much to Summersdale for the publicity.
Remember that Sunset House follows in Spring 2010.
Apologies if you have had trouble
viewing the site recently. The hosting company has been migrating it
to their new hosting platform and it has not gone very smoothly!
Bits were missing for a few days and it was impossible to update for
nearly a week.
Set of 3 Black Swan edition
paperbacks in very good condition and 2 full length un-abridged
talking books on 6 cassette tapes each currently available to buy.
Click here for more details.
Pictures of the full cover of the
new 2009 Perfume from Provence edition added along with new
pictures of Sunset House and Trampled Lilies Talking
Book tape versions.
Maureen Emerson,author of
'Escape to Provence', is giving a talk at Haywards Heath in
Sussex on July 17th. If you are in the south of England this is an
opportunity to hear Maureen in person. Full details on the 'Escape to Provence' page.
Larger better quality PDF versions
of John & Winifred's birth, marriage and death certificates added.
April 2009
The Chemin de Fer Provence will
once again be operating the steam hauled service on Sundays
between May 17th and October 11th 2009. Full details and link to
timetable on CDFP page.
An interesting 1941 USA
magazine entitled, The Saturday Review of Literature, has
recently been secured. It contains a review of
There's Rosemary There's Rue shortly after it was
published in the USA. Click
here to see the review.
Contributor Mr. P. Martin has
sent a scan of his collection of books - click
here to see the covers. The
pictures are of very high quality but have had to be 'watered
down' to make the page open. Do you have any interesting jackets
that might be missing?
'Escape to Provence'.
New copies now available from author Maureen Emerson following
the re-print of her book. The price is now £10.99 plus £2 p&p.
To order direct from the author/publisher, click
here.
March 2009
The 2009 opening dates and
times for the garden at Villa Fort France, Winifred Fortescue's
original home, are now available. If you are in the area its
well worth a visit to see the lovely garden. The Fort France garden brochure
has been added to the added to site. Click
here for full details.
Black Swan editions of Lady
Fortescue's first three books are available to purchase at £18
on the book sale page.
A new review of Maureen
Emerson's Book, 'Escape to Provence', has been published
in the
West Sussex County Times. Click
here to see all the reviews
of this excellent book.
February 2009
The company
that hosts the website are in the process of moving to a new and
better hosting platform! As a result certain features may not
work as normal, for the time being. In particular, the forms
used for the visitors book and book order pages are slightly
problematic! If you experience any difficulty just send an email
by using the Contact Us link. There may be the odd page
hiccup from time to time but normal service will be resumed as
soon as possible. Please continue to enjoy visiting the site and
leaving your messages. - Peter, Webmaster.
UPDATE
- New form for the Visitors Book is now installed and works
well. It also has a nice anti-spam feature to prove humans are
submitting the form and not robots. Do give it a try. Most web
users will have seen it before. A similar form for the book
ordering page will follow.
UPDATE
- A new form has now been installed on the book order page.
Thank you for your patience. Any problems, do let me know!
'Escape to
Provence', by Maureen Emerson. A re-print is currently being
arranged and new copies, priced at £10.99, should be available
later this Spring. Maureen will be
promoting her book in France in April
2009. Click here
for details. A review by
the LMS Magazine of Sophia Antipolis has been
added to the site.
January 2009
I am absolutely
delighted to confirm that nearly 75 years after it first appeared, Winifred Fortescue's original book,
Perfume from Provence, is being re-printed and will be
available from May 5th 2009. Published by
Summersdale Publishing
Ltd, as part of the Summersdale Revival Series, this will be the first re-print since the Black Swan
edition of 2000. With 320 pages, and priced at just £7.99, it is sure
to become a best seller once again. This edition carries a
completely new cover design which is very fitting. To
add to this exciting news,
Summersdale have also confirmed they will be
launching a new edition of the the sequel, Sunset House, in
Spring 2010. What a marvellous start to 2009!
AVAILABILITY
The new 2009 edition will be
available from May 5th through
Amazon or direct from the publishers
www.summersdale.com.
An order form is available if you prefer to send a cheque by
post. Visitors to this site can obtain the book post free by
this method, courtesy of
Summersdale.
It will also appear in book shops and for the first time in its
history the book will also be available as an e-book
which means it can be downloaded direct from the publishers web
site in due course. What would Winifred Fortescue have made of
that? For full details click here.
Visit the
Summersdale
web site to see their fabulous range of products.
