Dinard revisitée par Kate Barry et Jean Rolin

“I entered the world in Dinard, in 1953, during a news projection – slightly delayed – featuring the crowning of the Queen of England. Through an extremely rare phenomenon, that I will not elucidate here, I was given birth by my grandmother (my mother, who was living in the Congo, was unable to give birth that day in Dinard), and already a few years old: three or four, I lost count, furthermore I attach little importance to these details. On the other hand, it is essential to know that the crowning of Elizabeth II was the first show I saw as a newborn – I still remember, as clearly as if I were at the ceremony itself, the beautiful dresses on the balcony worn by either the Queen herself or her accompanying demoiselles – or that the program featured a documentary about “Life in the big ponds”. My childhood, and in some ways throughout the later stages of my existence, featured the duality of an uncomfortable love of English – in as much as it is so difficult to love a nation that so despises us – and of a pronounced, if non-exclusive, attraction to water animals: in particular birds, but also fish – throughout my early years, I fished for zebra-fish and pike, either spoon-bait or by hand (most often by hand), amphibians and all that follows. It is also noteworthy that from my grandmother’s point of view, and perhaps that of other people, that I was considered, from birth, at least at times, to be the possible reincarnation of one of her children (a marine officer) that she loved the most and who had just perished in Indochina.”