I was standing within the lengthy queue of a rural French boulangerie when it occurred. The solar was simply arising and the wonderful scent of freshly baked baguette stuffed the daybreak air. I drank it in and shuffled ahead, awaiting my flip, conscious I used to be getting “appears” – and it wasn’t tough to see why. I had pushed all night time from acting at a comedy gig in London to get to my residence within the Loire valley, and I used to be nonetheless in my work garments. My stage put on included a examine tweed Edwardian frock coat with matching weskit, navy blue gown trousers, brogue monk footwear, a sensible Oxford-collared shirt and a knitted blue tie, barely loosened. Below regular circumstances, I might not invade my native boulangerie dressed as a cross between a late 60s dandy and a roaring 20s duellist, nevertheless it had been a protracted drive, and I used to be too drained to tone it down.
Plus, I had by no means actually slot in regionally anyway. We had moved there about 10 years earlier, in 2005 – a catastrophic choice, in keeping with my agent, however a contented one for me, my spouse and our then four-year-old son; the tempo of life was much less frenetic and we felt much less hemmed in. And, as I typically mentioned solely half-jokingly, it was the closest place to London we might afford to purchase a home. Issues had gone fairly nicely: my spouse, being half-French and fluent, was working regionally as a instructor, and my son had picked up the language extra shortly than I can change a automotive tyre. We had two extra kids and I used to be … nicely, I used to be doing OK.
In reality, I used to be discovering it laborious. My French, on the time, was barely satisfactory and spoken with a Michael Caine accent in what I’ve come to name “frockney”. However that was solely a part of the issue. Though I desperately needed to soften into the background, my Englishness felt painfully in distinction with the sheer Frenchness of the vine-growing, goat-farming bucolia the place I now lived. It doesn’t matter what I did, I at all times felt as if I stood out a mile. Initially I had seen my mod stagewear as a defence at comedy gigs, a go well with of armour for the laconic efficiency. It was solely as I grew to become extra skilled and my stage act started to extra carefully mirror my actual character that I realised it wasn’t armour – it was me.
I had seen how the locals regarded the second-home-owning Parisians who flock to the Loire valley on the weekends of their costly 4x4s and their too-new wellington boots, and I felt in peril of being seen the identical method: a diffident interloper, not one in every of us. In the long run, I not often went out. I grew to become clumsily mute, dreading any interplay with neighbours and acquaintances. The social minefield of what number of cheek kisses have been acceptable left me a gibbering wreck. However standing within the boulangerie queue, wanting like I’d simply flown in from a Mod Weekender crossed with a Physician Who conference, proved to be my salvation.
Regardless of my exhaustion, my clothes gave me the sort of stage confidence I solely often had in entrance of a paying viewers. I greeted everybody warmly, hearty “bonjours” throughout; I laughed off the cheek-kissing once I acquired it incorrect, ordered my baguettes and croissants and strode out. I didn’t realise it on the time, however I had made my mark. I grew to become identified regionally as Monsieur So British – an affectionate moniker which, sarcastically, meant I began to really feel extra at residence.
Mods name it peacocking – gown up, really feel good, parade – and, regularly, I began to do it extra typically. A part of the rationale I’d been hiding away, I realised, was my very own misguided stubbornness. Mod garments are a part of my identification and to dilute that look to slot in had felt incorrect. So for a lot of the final decade, I had compromised my look, and peacocked indoors. Standing in line to order my baguette, I realised I needn’t have bothered.
The agricultural French, I’ve discovered, not often do formal put on themselves – however they do like to see the British gown up. I’ve since attended native funerals the place solely the undertakers and I’ve been sporting fits – although mine is high-collared, eight-buttoned, double-breasted, and my tie is rarely loosened. On Armistice Day, a public vacation right here, with avenue parades, it’s sometimes simply me and people in uniform who abstain from informal apparel. I wore a pair of two-tone, basket-weave loafers on one in every of these parades to the native cenotaph and a high-ranking officer from the native airbase mentioned how happy he was to see an Englishman becoming a member of the commemorations.
“How do you know I used to be English?” I requested in my frockney accent.
He chuckled and pointed at my footwear.
C’est La Vie by Ian Moore is out now (£7.99; Summersdale)