Sketching a world soon to be lost in the carnage of war, Faulks chooses an extraordinary subculture within a sleepy Picardie town-centre as a cipher for French petite-ville normality. A map shows over hectares in production, becoming even bigger in the 19C. A new breed of leisure gardeners after the war saved the day, gradually taking over from the professionals leaving to work in factories. One of just two water gardens left in the town centres, the other the delightful Marais in Bourges, today the Hortillonnages can be visited via traditional flat-bottomed boat, through 65km of canals or rieux , organised by an enthusiastic Friends Group.
Three hundred hectares of wild, uncultivated plots, tiny grassed-over islands with higgledy-piggledy weekend cottages for dedicated amateur gardeners β and just eight professionals, it is a popular destination for French horticultural societies.
Revenue gleaned from visitors charmed by the wildlife, iron footbridges, tiny idiosyncratic sheds, and folk art ranging from the sophisticated to the downright kitsch helps to fund the Forth Bridge-like attention the canal banks require. Retired electrician Daniel Delval is building an empire in the heart of the Hortillonnages. He has spent every waking moment of the past 28 years on his allotment, now covering three plots joined by wooden bridges built from reclaimed timber.
My uncle was a tenant on this plot, and when he died, I persuaded the owner to sell. Delval in the style of the French chateaux. A spectacular photo opportunity for the visitors sailing past, M.
During the s, Nisso Pelosoff discovered that the Hortillonnages were to be turned into a ring road; his plot first under the bulldozer. A native of Rhodes, but Amiens resident since after being the only member of his family to survive Auschwitz, he is passionate about the little patch of land he gave his wife in as compensation for the fact that they could never afford a proper holiday.
