Every Friday afternoon I used to wait for my mother outside my boarding school, buttoned up snuggly into my Petite Madeleine uniform, a double breasted navy coat with shining brass buttons, a sailor hat trimmed with white ribbons, and knee high white socks. I usually held a posy tightly in my sweaty little hand, to give my mother as she swooped down to kiss me. At the worst of war times in Paris people sold flowers and I always saved my little bit of pocket money. She smelt lovely, better than my favourite snow drops. Her soft blond hair tickled my neck, her velvet skin stroked me, her large blue eyes enchanted me. She was so beautiful and fair, and I was her dark little changeling. I wondered how she could love me, but love me she did. I had proof of this seventy years later when, peering at a photograph taken of me then, she said in a puzzled voice: “But I thought you were so beautiful!” I usually had a gleaming white and gold medal pinned on my chest: best in my