I cannot match the tales of far-flung places of other members, but have seen such rapid change in my chosen line of work that my challenge, rather than settling in different countries, has been to keep up with rapidly changing technology. Looking back, many strokes of good luck have lead to eventual retirement in the unspoiled countryside here, with so little traffic and walks on our doorstep.

My tale starts in post-war Britain, in Cheshire and Lancashire, where I was brought-up with one brother and started to explore a world in which telephones, and black and white televisions were new aids to modern living, not yet in every home. Friends were made at the local Church Tennis Club and the music-scene was dominated by Elvis Presley and The Beatles.

After a good education, I started off on a science path, studying Chemistry at Manchester. But for us ‘baby boomers’ new possibilities soon opened up. On graduating, I was offered the chance to get into early computing, mainly because I had chosen an easy programming option instead of a laboratory project in the summer term. This job with ICI Pharmaceuticals was on the most perfect research site, complete with lake and social club, in Alderley Edge in Cheshire. That was in the days when you punched out a program on paper tape and submitted it to be run, at a counter outside the new computer room.

It was at this time, in the early 70s, that I met and married, Jim: a good choice as it turned out. Computing then took-off and I became part of a team developing an early order processing system, using monitors that each cost the same as our new house! That experience set me up for years to come, because ICI was the first of 3 employments lasting 5 or 6 years each, which underpinned my career and wove around my family life
and a move ‘Down South’, to the Thames Valley, for promotion for Jim. After our son was born in the mid-70s I was able to be a part-time freelancer, sometimes going into London by train. For most of the 80s and 90s we lived in Harwell, a classic Oxforshire village. From there I could once again work full-time as a Systems Analyst in Oxford, in the world of book-selling and publishing. Next came a return to a research and testing environment (this time Castrol lubricants), again on a delightful site on a hill above the Thames. School holidays were not a problem, with a teacher husband.

When our son went off to University I moved to a small Consultancy, specialising in the development of systems using Lotus Notes (especially good for sharing information worldwide). I was taken on to ‘mother hen’ and reign-in the young consultants. This was rejuvenating for me and was very varied, involving designing systems for flower supply (Interflora) to heavy engineering. Before long I was making trips to Helsinki, where my team was outsourced by Hewlett Packard to develop a system for ABB. This started in early summer, when the Finns were celebrating the Crayfish season and it was light for most of the night, and ended when the department stores were packed full of heavy coats.

ABB really were ‘the client from Hell’ and I was glad to duck-out of a sauna session in the HP offices, at the end of the most frustrating of debriefing meeting. I did, however, enjoy the Scandinavian experience and discovering Sibelius.

It may interest you ladies to know that my experience was of genuine equality of opportunities between women and men in the computing profession, however the companies for which I worked each assumed that one promotion was sufficient. The compensation for me was to twice be chosen by Directors, during my longer employments, to evaluate new technologies, reporting directly to them, because I was seen as non-
political. I was not a trail-blazer for women’s lib, but I was happy to be told, in my early days, that I was the first woman to wear a trouser-suit in my division of ICI.

Of course the people that I worked with and the friends that I made were a major part of my life. The same applies here and now, in a more relaxed context, but I must first tell you about the stroke of luck, when I was 16, that 40 years later led to us choosing to retire here. Had a French lady not approached my parents, with her daughter Sylvie, in a Paris café, to ask whether we girls would like to exchange letters with a view to visits, I would never have thought of French as more than a school exam subject that I struggled with. A full month of total-emersion, the following Easter, transformed my linguistic ability. It was spent partly in their apartment in Paris, where I was taken to a Dior fashion show, and partly in a newly acquired holiday cottage in a country village near Chartres. I can smell the wood-smoke now and hear the pop-songs of that era, that I showed Sylvie how to dance The Twist to.

Though I returned to France with my husband, and later, son, 3 or 4 times, we favoured the lakes and mountains of Switzerland, Austria and Northern Italy for school summer holidays.

​Only when my young colleagues around the turn of the century talked of jetting off to Nice for the weekend, did I seriously think of exploring France with a view to escaping Britain. However, the idea of buying a property in France was probably formed during a break in a country inn near Orleans, where Jim and I cycled amongst fields of sunflowers and then watched the Hale-Bopp comet pass over, clear and bright because of the lack of light-pollution.

Settling here has brought so much pleasure in exploring and discovering parts of France that we knew little of. We have pursued hobbies, notably painting & art ; music for Jim, sewing and other crafts for me, whilst socialising with people from all walks of life, both anglophone and French. I have been grateful to the Dordogne Ladies Club for helping us to settle in here. Particularly memorable were day trips to Collonges-la-Rouge and to Toulouse, in our early days here. Now, I am most content when baking or attempting to turn pots on the potters-wheel.

I often say that Jim, who comes from Aberdeen, kept moving south, towards the warmer weather, and picked me up en route in Cheshire, but we no longer need to continue that migration. That is just as well, now that travel is fraught with difficulties. This process of looking-back has caused me to marvel at the fact that we can now sit in deepest France, with a smartphone the size of a punch-card in our hand, and look-up the year of Hale-Bopp’s passing or see and talk to people almost anywhere.