Today, we said farewell to our dear friend Lisette Hitchen, who sadly died a week ago on her 87th birthday, after a bad fall. Thanks to the wonders of technology, we were able to participate in a celebration of her life directly from the south of France via Zoom.
It’s now just over 27 years since we first met Lisette and her husband Neil (who predeceased her last September). This happened when husband Michael and I first moved into the village of Long Preston at the beginning of 1994 and Lisette and Neil became our next door neighbours. They gave us the warmest of welcomes, and we quickly became close friends.
Our recollections of those early days in Long Preston are filled with memories of the Hitchens. Indeed, one of the first village social events I remember was a celebration of Lisette’s 60th birthday, when we were introduced to many of their friends in the area. We also met their own family, including Neil’s father and brother Paul, together with daughters Marianne, Aline and Claire, and Aline’s children Antoine, Pierre and Rosanne. My parents became friends too, with Lisette and mum bonding over their interests in crafts and quilting.
By that time, Lisette and Neil were firmly established in the village, having moved there in 1964, when Neil took a post teaching modern languages at Settle High School, a job he held until ill-health forced his retirement twenty years or so later.
Lisette was born in June 1934, in the village of Marsillargues, situated roughly halfway between Montpellier and Nimes. One of her earliest memories as a little girl was seeing her father going off to war in 1939 – for the second time in his life – as an officer in the French Air Force, the Armée de l'Air France.
Following the armistice with Germany in 1940, though, he returned home, and was there when the German army marched south to occupy Vichy France in the autumn of 1942. The family was obliged to accommodate a soldier from the occupying forces, and Lisette told the touching story of this young officer, who turned out to be from Vienna, asking her mother in halting French if there was a piano in the house. There was, and the household found themselves listening to a performance of a Schubert impromptu. The performance of a sublime piece of music in your own home by somebody who is your enemy has always seemed to me to be a powerful image of those times and the subsequent attempts to heal the wounds in Europe.
Lisette first met Neil in the early fifties, when he spent a year at the University in Montpellier as part of his undergraduate studies at the University of Manchester. Later, Lisette obtained a job as an au pair and came to England. She stayed and they were married in 1957.
It was under Lisette and Neil’s auspices that Michael and I made our first visit to the south of France in September 1999, staying with them at the house at La Romplude, the holiday home (now permanent residence) of their daughter Aline, her husband Francis and the children. We immediately fell in love with the area, and were hooked by the magic of the region.
Thus, it was no great surprise, though a great sadness, when they told us in 2003 that they had decided to move back to France – undoubtedly the right thing to do for Neil’s health, and to get away from the excesses of the Yorkshire weather (something which also drove us southwards, though not quite as far, in 2019).
Their destination was Bagard, a small village between Ales and Anduze but also within striking distance of the bigger cities of Nimes and Montpellier. They quickly settled into their new home and soon had a wide circle of friends in their walking group and the local English Circle. There was family too, especially after Lisette’s sister Thérèse moved south from Paris and then Aline and Francis made La Romplude their permanent home.
We kept in touch, making the first of what became annual visits in 2005 and the last twelve years later in 2017. Our trips felt like real adventures, travelling south on Eurostar and the TGV, changing trains in Lille, latterly also in Lyon and then at Nimes for the local train to Alés.
They are also full of golden memories – sightseeing visits to amazingly beautiful places full of history, parties with friends and family, and long leisurely meals on the terrace or in the garden at Bagard. The days would be punctuated by fiercely contested games of Scrabble – a couple a day, usually – played, weather permitting (and it usually did), in the garden under the cedar tree.
And there were the chats – fascinating conversations about everything under (and even including) the sun – often needing reference to Larousse and latterly to Google. The latest news from Long Preston was always high on the agenda, together with the latest political developments on both sides of the Channel, which rarely gained our approval! Lisette and Neil’s copy of The Guardian Weekly was read avidly, so they were always up to speed on UK developments, even if we didn’t always share the same perspective!
My main memories of Lisette can be summed up in two words – love and warmth. The warmth of her smiles, of the welcome she always gave, and the love she had, for Neil, for her family and her friends. We were so fortunate to be amongst them.
The last time we spoke was on a video call with Aline from La Romplude in early April – it was the first time that Lisette had been permitted to leave her nursing home for several months. She was full of smiles that day, and we had a lovely chat. It is a happy memory which we’ll both cherish.
So farewell, my dear, dear Lisette. As I said last year in my tribute to Neil last year, I shall always be grateful for the fates which brought us all together for those nine years in Long Preston, for your warmth and kindness to us and to my parents, for all your hospitality and for the friendship and the fun we enjoyed.