AS pretty as a picture – a cliché, I know. But excusable perhaps when it portrays the presentation some years later of my own watercolour painting to the character I first captured on camera fishing in his colourful waterside cottage garden. I could claim this came about with the help of Marie Grouette, the wicked witch of the Audomarois, …
IT took Michael Morpurgo’s tear- jerker of a book, and the subsequent Steven Spielberg film and stunning stage version of War Horse, to convey the carnage suffered by horses drafted into service in World War One. Eight million horses and countless mules and donkeys died overall. Britain alone lost over 484,000, one for every two men. One-quarter of all deaths …
PERHAPS not the ‘sweet smell of success’ more ‘ a pong of perfection ’. Either way, Maroilles cheese can craftily worm its way on to your plate irrespective of the time of day. And it’s not the only one dating back to the Middle Ages when French cheese-making became the domain of the monasteries. Another regional contender, Vieux Lille – …
WHAT sets the Boulonnais, little known in Britain, apart from other draught horses ? Two words: Their ancestry. Originally descended from horses imported by Julius Caesar’s legions to Pas de Calais, France, ready to invade the British coast, it was left to the Crusades and the Spanish occupation of Flanders to introduce a considerable amount of Oriental and Andalusian …
TALK about giving a dog a bad name … in this case two of ‘em – Kent and its cross Channel counterpart Nord- Pas de Calais which, along with Aisne, Oise and the Somme form part of Hauts de France. In much the same way the South East Tourist Board includes not just Kent but Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, East Sussex, Hampshire, …
ON September 7, 1914, Herbert John Ruler, an eager young reservist, from Barming, Kent, joined the British Forces in France. He died, aged 18, on October the 26th in a field hospital after a shell fractured his skull six days earlier. If it had not been for a strange coincidence, I would never of known he even existed. I do …
HISTORIAN and hotelier Philippe Gorcynski is a man in love with a tank called Dorothy. Not any old tank but a rusting relic from World War One which I first saw one freezing February morning tucked away in an old barn in the village of Flesquières in Le Nord region of France close to Cambrai. And Philippe was desperate …
Ports are places to pass through, which is one good reason why Calais, and the surrounding area have tended to lose out. Now, helped by the World War One commemorations, the full richness of which was once just Nord-Pas de Calais – but now along with Picardy forms Hauts de France – is gradually being recognised for its true worth. …
Benoît Diéval Public Relations & Marketing, Pas de Calais writes: John’s extensive knowledge of the Le Nord – Pas de Calais region is reflected in both his Bradt guide to Cross-Channel France and the best selling companion guide to the World War One Battlefields, of which he is joint author. Freed from its subterranean lair, Le Dragon of Calais – …
Ports are places to pass through, which is one good reason why Calais and the surrounding area have tended to lose out. Now, helped by the World War One commemorations, the full richness of which was once just Nord-Pas de Calais – but now along with Picardy forms Hauts de France – is gradually being recognised for its true worth. …
