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Sporting loyalties

16th June 2012 by Helena 4 Comments  

Whenever people ask me where I come from, I say England. This is of course not strictly true, but the truth would take far too long, and when people ask you where you’re from, as is the case when they ask you how you are, they don’t really want to know the truth, they just want to have enough information to put you in a certain compartment in their brain. And I am quite happy to fit into their ‘London’ compartment, as London is my spiritual home.

I am biologically Swedish/Italian. When I was two my mother married an Englishman, and from then on I was brought up between England and Sweden. Italy and my Italian family only came in later on in my life when my mother and I ran away to Italy in her purple Ford Cortina. I was 12 at the time. If you’re interested in this, the whole saga is told in my book Ciao Bella, which is being re-released this summer.

But the point of this blog is not to sell books. At least not just to sell books. Ten years ago, we (my English husband and first-born daughter) moved from England to France. Two of my children were born there. And four years ago we moved to Abu Dhabi. So there is a bit of a mix going on.

Last night I watched England play Sweden in the Euro 2012 competition. As a child I was rather generous with my sporting loyalties. I could just as easily be singing Heja Svergie, as Forza Italia or even Allez les bleus. This has now changed. There is only one national team for me: England. I remember the words of the commentator: “If Waddle misses this, England are out of the world cup” as if they were yesterday. They were in fact in 1990. I spent most of my honeymoon in 1998 watching football, we raced back from the ferry from two weeks in Sweden in time to see Beckham get a red card.

So to me it was not odd last night to be yelling, praying, suffering for a side that really is not mine on the face of it. I am no more English than a Swedish striker. But I can’t help it. If (when?) we get knocked out of course, it will be fair game. But you know what? I think I might actually support Spain. Because that’s where Torres is, and we all know who he plays for? You don’t? Well, it is a London team called CHELSEA. So sporting loyalties don’t just come with your biological roots, they are obviously nurtured over years of supporting a team, or watching a team. My children of course are far less complicated, they have much more English influence, as well as English blood, although Bea and Leo, who are born in France do have some loyalty to Les Bleus. But whatever else, they support Chelsea, and there are no divided loyalties there whatsoever. Viva Espana!

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2012


Filed Under: Chelsea FC, Sport Tagged With: loyalties, sporting

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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.

Helena contributes regularly to UK-based newspapers and magazines and holds a Masters in Creative Writing from the University of Cambridge. She is working on a thriller set in Sweden as well as a novel about the relationship between Virginia Woolf and Katherine Mansfield called Sense of an Echo.

In 2022 her short story The Japanese Gardener came second in the Fish Publishing Short Story Prize. One of her stories was also shortlisted for the Bridport Short Story Prize. When she’s not writing, she works as a headhunter for the media and entertainment industry for the Sucherman Group. 

Helena, who was educated at Durham University, lives in the Languedoc region of France 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 spring 2018

The Longest Night; Gibson Square spring 2019

 

 

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