While I was in England I had a message from the woman who looks after the women’s club website; she’d had a message to ask me to contact a Patrick Mahue, the great grandson of Isabelle Mahue, who owned our house in the Gers earlier in the 20th century.

I got in touch with Patrick, a Canadian/French/Englishman and arranged that he’d call me when I was home.

What a fascinating call it was! I was intrigued to know how he’d found me; he’d been searching the internet for his great grandmother and had been led to my blog post about a writing competition that I won, with an article about our garden, including how we found a broken metal fireback, inscribed with “Isabelle Mahue, 1935”. Quite how he then found that I’m part of the Landes and Pays Basques International Women’s Club, I’m not sure.

We talked for nearly two hours; my memory is poor at the best of times, but there was so much information about Isabelle, her story and that of the house and family, that I can’t remember it all, but some of it stayed. Neighbours had told us that the fireback was probably bought to celebrate Isabelle buying the house, but no – the house had been in the family for generations. Other things that we were told, such as Isabelle being “as wide as she was tall” also turned out to be fiction. She’d been widowed during the war and had never got over her husband’s death, suffering from what I’m sure would now be diagnosed as depression.

It was amazing to hear Patrick’s story, all the way from Canada and he’s promised to send me more information on paper (well, email) as and when he continues his research into his ancestry.

So thank you Patrick, I look forward enormously to the next installment.