SHORT BIO
Since 1960 … From North to South
What a strange place this world we call “Earth” is. I can remember weeping when I arrived at N°1 rue Sadi Carnot in a little town called Lesquin in the north of France on 18 January 1960. I must have felt straightaway that this imposed training period that was called “existence” was not going to be a sinecure. Well, it was 4.15 am whoever heard of waking up a small boy so early in the morning to go this school of life! And what a school! As beautiful as it was enigmatic. Unless it was beautiful because it was enigmatic?
The first word I remember concerning myself was “Pierrot”. Then I learnt that my name was Pierre, then Antoine, and finally Courouble. So they said. But right from my earliest childhood I always doubted this was my identity, and that my parents were really my parents, and that my brothers and sisters were really my brothers and sisters. As time passed, I became reasonable and adopted this family in which I was the youngest – the pet, so they say …
Lesquin. At the time it was still a large country village in spite of its metal works and its railway station, and above all, its airfield, which had been a military base before becoming civilian, going on to become the Lille-Lesquin airport. Soon after, housing estates sprang up all over the neighbouring fields and pastures, and an impressive industrial estate sprouted around the Regional Transport Centre.
When I grew out of the first sensations and emotions of hunger, fear and pain, as well as satisfaction, warmth and gentleness, I very soon discovered the joy of playing.
Ah, playing! I imitated those I thought were grown up, I recreated another world with my little cars and electric trains, giving orders to all the little soldiers, who were no longer tin, but were now made of plastic. And I have remained playful throughout my life.
Strangely I was fascinated (even haunted) from a very early age by history, and especially war. But not just any old war. The Second World War. And not by just any aspect of it. The only point of view that interested me was that of the Germans! Rather strange for the grandson of a French soldier who died in the First World War from a bullet in the head, put there by a Kraut. Strange also for the son of a man who spent five years in captivity in Nazi Germany. But let’s not dwell on that. A session with a therapist at the age of 40 gave me the key to this strange obsession, and thereby cured me of it.
After the Jean Mermoz village infants school, I went to Lille to “study the classics” at the Saint-Pierre Institute. Oh yes, Lille! My first great love.
My father was in charge of an agricultural administration centre in rue Jean Sans Peur (this name, which meant “John without fear” has always fascinated me). He stopped work at 6 pm and every day I would come home with him. The Catholic school I attended (from primary up to secondary) was a half hour’s walk from the town centre. Since I finished at 4 pm, sometimes at 4.30 pm, and could walk up the rue Nationale quickly in a quarter of an hour, I had from an hour to an hour and half to kill in the best temple of culture that I have ever come across, a true Ali Baba’s cave of literature: the Furet du Nord bookshop. What a marvel! It was the largest bookshop in Europe. It was full of levels, sections, shelves, in short BOOKS. Of course, the Furet was like the FNAC (a national chain of stores for books and music), in that it was first and foremost a place of commerce rather than a place of culture, but for the little boy I was then, if was a place of discovery, of knowledge of the world, of men, and of oneself …
Over the years, I never knew what I wanted to do in life. Almost everything interesting me, from the army, to the priesthood, medicine, architecture, the cinema, archaeology, history, astronomy, the conquest of space, philosophy, psychiatry … After bobbing between medicine, law and social sciences at university, I finally found my vocation in the task of developing the humanity in man: as a teacher! It is a job I love, primarily because it enables me to be in contact with children, and I believe I have remained a grown-up child. Next because it allows me to put my fingers into a plethora of wonderful fields: history, poetry, science, citizenship, creativity, sport, geography, etc.
In 1990 I moved to the south of France for good. My professional vocation was to bloom in the marvellous region of the Ardèche, which has become my second love. After living for a few lovely years as a militant green in the Cevennes, I finally settled down happily in a town full of history and legends and sporting the predestined name of Joyeuse, which means “joyful”. And it was in this town that the love of writing awakened in me. The teacher became the local press correspondent and then a writer. A book about Joyeuse, followed by one about Boissel, and then one about the French Revolution. And then the stars called out to me …
