VILLAGE STUDY - INTERVIEW WITH LUCIEN AND IRENE
Lucien et Irène Lacoude
Lucien moved here from morocco in 61 - when he arrived there was only one other family living in tarrac, and they left in 66 - after that, he and his wife were alone till 88 when Patrick and Mary France moved in.
Dad was French but lived in morocco, mother was Moroccan - on fathers side, arriere grand pere was named Thompson, donc he was probably English of some sort
When they arrived there was no road and no indoor plumbing, and the land was harder to farm than the land in morocco - they actually were a lot better off in morocco, apparently - they had more equipment, a lot of it american, and the land was flatter.
Thought about moving to Quebec instead of France but didn’t like the idea of the winters.
At first they kept sheep and sold them, but they didn’t like that business much - comme lucien a dit, ‘je ne suis pas commercant.’ Apparently at first everyone had always paid in cash, but the government didn’t really like that because they couldn’t monitor that type of transaction very easily, so they made everyone start paying in checks, which made everything infinately more complicated.
After quitting with the sheep they moved on to cows, and sold milk up until they retired. They kept the cows in a stable in what is now Dominique’s (artist Dominique’s) house.
Irene came from a family who lived on the other side of the mountain and also kept cows and sold the milk, sauf what they kept for themselves - they didn’t, apparently, make either butter or cheese. Life was apparently even harder there because the mountain was even more steep - everything had to be harvested with a scythe, and everything had to be carried up the mountain on one’s head, presumably because it was too difficult to use something like a wagon on a mountain like that.
They built their house using one wall of an ancient house that was burned in 44 - apparently the Germans knew that there were lots of insurgents in these mountains
Historically there weren’t many artists here but there were lots of artisans, people who worked with iron or made wheels
Lots of different ethnic groups came through here - the berbers and moors came up from spain and there are by consequence some villages with Arabic names - also the celts/ anglais a long time ago, and the visigoths, also autres I have to ask
Now, they get more settlers from northern Europe, Belgians and germans, etc
Prices started to go up in the 90s - people who come in aren’t really serious farmers, a lot of them are in the tourist industry our work some sort of business from their homes (like the belgian famille who ran their chambres d'hote where the other dominique is trying to start hers)
The bird that lives in the wheat is called gibie or something like that and its gone partly because no one farms wheat anymore and also because the pesticides people put on the wheat make its eggs sterile
Hunting got rid of a lot of animals, not many lynx anymore, and not much of some animal I forget the name of that sounds more or less like a badger (badger is blaireau, I'll have to ask)
Lucien moved here from morocco in 61 - when he arrived there was only one other family living in tarrac, and they left in 66 - after that, he and his wife were alone till 88 when Patrick and Mary France moved in.
Dad was French but lived in morocco, mother was Moroccan - on fathers side, arriere grand pere was named Thompson, donc he was probably English of some sort
When they arrived there was no road and no indoor plumbing, and the land was harder to farm than the land in morocco - they actually were a lot better off in morocco, apparently - they had more equipment, a lot of it american, and the land was flatter.
Thought about moving to Quebec instead of France but didn’t like the idea of the winters.
At first they kept sheep and sold them, but they didn’t like that business much - comme lucien a dit, ‘je ne suis pas commercant.’ Apparently at first everyone had always paid in cash, but the government didn’t really like that because they couldn’t monitor that type of transaction very easily, so they made everyone start paying in checks, which made everything infinately more complicated.
After quitting with the sheep they moved on to cows, and sold milk up until they retired. They kept the cows in a stable in what is now Dominique’s (artist Dominique’s) house.
Irene came from a family who lived on the other side of the mountain and also kept cows and sold the milk, sauf what they kept for themselves - they didn’t, apparently, make either butter or cheese. Life was apparently even harder there because the mountain was even more steep - everything had to be harvested with a scythe, and everything had to be carried up the mountain on one’s head, presumably because it was too difficult to use something like a wagon on a mountain like that.
They built their house using one wall of an ancient house that was burned in 44 - apparently the Germans knew that there were lots of insurgents in these mountains
Historically there weren’t many artists here but there were lots of artisans, people who worked with iron or made wheels
Lots of different ethnic groups came through here - the berbers and moors came up from spain and there are by consequence some villages with Arabic names - also the celts/ anglais a long time ago, and the visigoths, also autres I have to ask
Now, they get more settlers from northern Europe, Belgians and germans, etc
Prices started to go up in the 90s - people who come in aren’t really serious farmers, a lot of them are in the tourist industry our work some sort of business from their homes (like the belgian famille who ran their chambres d'hote where the other dominique is trying to start hers)
The bird that lives in the wheat is called gibie or something like that and its gone partly because no one farms wheat anymore and also because the pesticides people put on the wheat make its eggs sterile
Hunting got rid of a lot of animals, not many lynx anymore, and not much of some animal I forget the name of that sounds more or less like a badger (badger is blaireau, I'll have to ask)