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Let them eat meatballs

14th July 2007 by Helena Leave a Comment  

Today is the 14th of July and all over France people will be celebrating the overthrowing of the ruling classes and the beginning of liberté, égalité, fraternité. Not me. As a royalist I will be celebrating the birthday of Sweden’s Princess Victoria. She is 30 today and here we will be eating meatballs in her honour.

My most memorable July 14th was in 1989 when I was staying at the British embassy in Paris with my best friend Iona whose father was the ambassador. We were relaxing in the family sitting room after dinner when there was a knock at the door.

“Do you mind if I come in?” said a woman’s voice. It was Margaret Thatcher. She had with her a first edition of Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities which she was planning to give to President Mitterrand to mark the bicentenary of the revolution.

“I don’t want to devalue the book by signing it,” she said.

“I don’t think you would devalue it prime minister,” said the ambassador.

“Well, what shall I write?” she looked around the room. “You!” she said pointing at me. “You’re studying English. What should I write?”

MargaretI suggested something along the lines of ‘on this occasion of the bicentenary of the French revolution I have great pleasure in presenting you with Dickens’ book A Tale of Two Cities.’

“Perfect, now where’s my pen?”

“I think it’s upstairs,” said her personal secretary. “Shall I get it?”

“Prime minister,” said the secretary as she was leaving the room. “While I’m up there, is there anything else you need?” Upstairs at the embassy was about a four-mile hike.

“I don’t think so,” said Mrs Thatcher. “And if we do, we’ll just send you up again.”

Such a revolutionary spirit and one I intend to emulate.

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2007


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Helena Frith Powell was born in Sweden to a Swedish mother and Italian father, but grew up mainly in England. She is the author of eleven books, translated into several languages including Chinese and Russian. She wrote the French Mistress column The Sunday Times about life in France for several years. She is a regular contributor to the Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday, The Times, Daily Telegraph, Tatler Magazine and Harper’s Bazaar.

Helena has been the editor of four magazines, including M Magazine, a supplement for the Abu Dhabi based National Newspaper and FIVE, a high-end fashion glossy, also published in Abu Dhabi. Helena was also editor in chief of 360 Life, a quarterly glossy magazine published with the Sports 360 Newspaper in Dubai, part of the Chalhoub Group. She writes a beauty blog wwwbeautyorbeast.uk.

Her third novel, The Arnolfini Marriage, based on a romance that evolves around a van Eyck masterpiece came out in 2016. As well as writing regularly for newspapers and magazines, Helena is also working on a thriller called Welcome to Sweden that will be published in spring 2018. Her latest non-fiction work Smart Women Don’t Get Wrinkles is out in hardback and will be out in paperback in January 2018.

Helena was educated at Durham University and lived in the Languedoc region of France for eight years, where the family still have a home. She lives in London with her husband Rupert and their three children.

Bibliography

More France Please, we’re British; Gibson Square 2004

Two Lipsticks and a Lover 2005; Gibson Square (hardback)

All You Need to be Impossibly French; (US version of above) Penguin 2006

Two Lipsticks and a Lover; Arrow Books (paperback) 2007

Ciao Bella Gibson Square; (hardback) 2006

Ciao Bella Gibson Square; (paperback) 2007

So Chic! (French version of Two Lipsticks) Leduc Editions 2008 (also translated into Chinese, Russian and Thai)

More, More France; Gibson Square 2009

To Hell in High Heels; Arrow Books 2009 (also translated into Polish)

The Viva Mayr Diet; Harper Collins 2009

Love in a Warm Climate; Gibson Square 2011

The Ex-Factor; Gibson Square 2013

Smart Women Don’t Get Wrinkles; Gibson Square 2016

The Arnolfini Marriage; Amazon Kindle December 2016

Smart Women Don’t Get Wrinkles (paperback); Gibson Square January 2018

Welcome to Sweden; Gibson Square spring 2018

 

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