The Real Little England Is In Eymet, France

The Express is in the French town of Eymet, twinned with a vision of Britain rarely seen beyond the Mail’s Keith Waterhouse column and Polly’s Tea Rooms, Marlborough branch.

It is home to ex-pats buying cans of Heinz tomato soup (American), Weetabix (founded by South Africans) and Tetley Tea (produced Indian tea giant Tata) from Kevin Walls’ corner shop, the Magasin Anglais. There are tea rooms, market stalls selling stilton cheese and British newspapers. There are white men in cricket whites playing cricket. Of the town’s 2,600 residents, around one third were born in the UK.

Says the Express: “If you want to live in France but don’t speak French it seem this is the place to be.” Or there’s Euro Disney, that other theme park, near Paris.

In Eymet, the Express sees children playing hide and seek in meadows on the way to school. It sees unlocked doors. It sees knife crime only on the television.

“I like living here because it’s like England 50 years ago,” says Simon Colebourne. And just like in 1958, Mr Colebourne runs an internet cafe. As you’d expert the cafe is chock full with ex-pats sat indoors “using the computers to e-mail friends at home and regale them with tales of the good life”.

As the Express says in headline form: “WE FOUND A LOST BRITAIN…IN THE HEART OF FRANCE.”

Lost. And maybe it should be lost once more.

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