My father was Belgian and came to England as a 14-year-old refugee at the beginning of the first world war. Mother came from Bradford. I was born in 1931 in Romford and spent the first eight years of my life in England. I did my secondary studies at the lycée in Liège and then took a degree in German Honours at the University of Sheffield.
My husband was Italian and a sales manager for Pirelli. We lived several years in Brazil and Argentina, where my daughter, Pilar, was born. I returned to Belgium and settled down here in the Ardennes. Pilar married a Belgian who works for Médecins Sans Frontières, and they currently live in Nairobi, Kenya.
The Guardian Weekly followed me on and off almost everywhere and helped me to stay in touch with the world, and Europe in particular, when I was living in South America.
I have been a Guardian reader ever since it was the Manchester Guardian when I was studying at Sheffield in the 1950s. Considering the vast amount of news that is poured out every day, it is a miracle that the Weekly encompasses all the necessary information I might require regarding the state of the world.
I think the articles of Nature watch are little jewels of English prose. Take for example: “All ear and eye, the rabbit was as alert as an exclamation mark” (Paul Evans) or Mark Cocker’s description of the passage of a flock of swifts as “a ravelling ball of anarchy burning across the heavens”.
Last summer when my eight-year-old granddaughter Yasmin Roveda-Verhoest came to visit from Nairobi, I caught her reading my Guardian Weekly. I trust she will follow in my footsteps and become one of your faithful readers.
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