Play in Progress: BACK TO FRANCE

The new play by Maria Vigar is based on a true story which begins in 1930’s Paris and ends in the height of the Pandemic in Dagenham, Essex.

A boy born to a German mother and English father, was given to a French family en nourrice, from the age of six months. His parents travelled extensively with their jobs and he saw more of his beloved Godmother who adored and spoilt him – a wealthy Jewish, high society beauty living in Paris but originating from Austria. He lived an idyllic country life with his French family in the grounds of a chateau outside Paris - the couple’s son Paul, being a constant companion. His early childhood was a very happy time in the French countryside – never to be forgotten – a place returned to at each moment of crisis in his life.

When war broke out, he was on holiday with his Godmother in her villa in Arcachon but had to return to his parents. He was eight and a half and this was the first time he was about to live with his mother and father. They found a house near Lyons.

As an English-German family living in France, they stood out in the community and became a target for anti resistors’ suspicion - with tragic consequences. At the age of fourteen he was sent to school in Leicester. He couldn’t speak English and no one spoke French. But his language skills and personal charisma, were to stand him in good stead professionally. He joined Special Branch, moved on to the American Secret Service in France, escorting top dignitaries and their families visiting France. Before Kennedy’s assassination, he was due to transfer to the US.

His professional life was glamorous. His own personal story was compelling. The questions he carried with him from childhood: where do I belong? who am I? who are my family? - vibrate throughout his life and invariably lead back to France.