Known to all of us in the Twinning group as ‘Madame la Baronne’, we are sorry to learn of the death in her eighties of this amazing lady.

On our very first visit to Chevilly, when four of us [Jenny Jordan, Jenny Ludgate and the Hamlyns] went for a brief weekend to see if Chevilly would make an appropriate ‘Twin’, we were invited to the Chateau by Madame.  She had taken the initiative by inviting representatives from all the Chevilly Associations to meet us to explain their hopes for a link with England.  In the kitchen of the Chateau we were served wine and listened in amazement to the speeches from around the room. How could Curry Rivel match this?  As events and our deepening friendship links with Chevilly turned out, we need not have been concerned!

Madame la Baronne then showed us around the Chateau, its chapel and stables which housed some beautiful coaches.  Since then there have been frequent visits by English groups to the Chateau, the most memorable of which happened on the 10^th Anniversary in 2008.  Madame, in very frail health by then, came to the door to see us for a few moments.

Her great fondness for the English stemmed from her days at a finishing school in Kent, I believe.  She talked of her experiences here in England and also told me that the Chateau had been commandeered by the Germans during the war and she had seen her brother shot in the courtyard. They had been hiding Allied escapees in the stables right under the noses of the Germans. Those were difficult and painful memories for her.

She loved her horses and during the first visit, when she discovered a fellow horse-rider in our group, she introduced him to her favourite mount. We also remember her antipathy to the rabbits around the gardens and the pistol she carried to give them a shock!

She joined one of the early Twinning visits to Curry Rivel and often talked of how she had spent the night on the ferry lying on the floor!  She was always interested in the development of the Twinning friendship and greeted us warmly whenever we met, be it at one of the formal gatherings or in the baker’s shop in Chevilly.

We are sending an expression of our appreciation of all she did to promote the Twinning and our condolences to Madame’s family.

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