We are delighted to launch a new series about ‘exiles’ who have left Derbyshire to create new lives across the world. Here, Graham Baldwin explains how he and his ‘Tiller Girl’ wife Val ended up in La France.
IT ALL STARTED with a television programme around the year 2000. Carol Smillie was presenting a popular TV programme in which viewers could phone in and win a house! The idea was that the “crew” would select and make habitable a small property in Brittany, in north-west France. During the programme, viewers were invited to phone in with their name and number and at the end a name was selected and that person was contacted on the show and actually given the property. The thought of Sunshine, Cider and Crepes – and a slower way of life – sowed the seeds in our minds…