Treasures at dawn
I live in a ruggedly beautiful and fairly undiscovered area of France, the foothills of the Cévennes mountains. For millennia people here have lived in balance with nature - we have rivers, chestnut forests, mushrooms and game, with the Mediterranean coast not too far to the south. Summers are scorching though, winters short but bitterly cold, and the daily chores necessary in the past for simple survival were considerable. Then they discovered coal. The sparsely populated hills filled with miners from around the world, industrial architecture and dormitory towns sprouted everywhere. The local small farmers left their few goats on the hillside to go down the mines for a regular salary and heated, sanitary new homes. With these salaries came the delights of modern life, fashionable clothes and jewellery. If nothing too fancy on a miner's meagre wage, there was usually enough at the end of the month for a treat or two. Then the mines closed and the volume turned down, back to summer cicadas and winter gales. The Cevenol people, now with their new wives and husbands from around the world - Italian, Arab, Polish, Kabyle - reverted to the old ways. Souvenirs of their former lives from France and beyond had little sense, and were relegated to dusty attics.
But that is the story of my adopted home, and not my own.
One day a long time ago now I found myself on the streets of Delhi with rather a lot of rupees and a visa that had nearly run out. I needed testimony of this bewitching area of the world to take back with me, so I dashed around the markets and then on to Nepal, trading my pennies for a little local soul. When I came home to England the pattern was in place - I had to carry on retrieving the old and forgotten. I started frequenting the auction houses, rubbing shoulders with burly junk dealers and grabbing the dusty boxes their creaky backs wouldn't allow them to bend down to. I salvaged, cleaned, shared. Never having developed an acquisitive instinct, my finds were passed on to others who saw their value and who could offer them a new life.
So many years on here I am with the dusty boxes of Cevenol homes, unpacked on the flea-markets of remote villages as the sun rises - 'ça fait de la place' - let's make some space. It takes a lot of searching to come across the rare find, and I must get up early as I'm not the only one out to save the past... but there is something for everyone and it's Christmas every weekend.
If you are ready for the commitment of adoption, visit my shop from time to time, there will always be something new. But old.
