Claire Delorme-Pégaz
Joséphine Fletcher
Claire, French native, was born in Aix-les-Bains in 1955 and grew up in Brison Saint-Innocent. She is married with two children and a Franco-British grandson.
Claire taught English in secondary schools for 25 years. In 2008 she created a board game, “The Swan Game”, dealing with British people who had a specific connection to Aix-les-Bains and to the traces of them that can still be found in Aix-les-Bains today.
Claire has been a member of the Grapevine Association since its inception in 1992 and served as president between 2006 and 2016. This association serves as a meeting point for English speakers and Anglophiles in the area. Its aim is to encourage the use of the English language and to promote and preserve the heritage of longstanding cultural links of the town with the British.
Jo is British, born in 1955 in Birmingham, England and currently living in Berlin, Germany. She is the mother of five children and has two French-English bilingual grandsons living in Quebec, Canada.
Jo lived in Tresserve from 2008 to 2015. Prior to this she lived in Glasgow, Scotland where she was a member of the Scottish Tourist Guides Association and where she developed a keen interest in Queen Victoria.
She made a large contribution, through research and translation to Geneviève Frieh-Giraud’s book " La Mairie de Tresserve demeure et Jardin d'Ellen Willmott".
How the book about Jacquot came about
Claire Delorme-Pégaz and Joséphine Fletcher are the authors of the book "Victoria en Savoie, trois séjours d’une reine à Aix-les-Bains", written in French with précis in English and prefaced by Sir Peter Ricketts, British Ambassador to France, which came out in 2013.
Up until 2015 Claire and Jo together developed and conducted, on voluntary basis, guided tours the theme of the British heritage in Aix-les-Bains. Since 2016 this has been taken up by the towns under its recently acquired official designation as a «Ville d’Art et d’Histoire». Claire is assisting in the training of the new guides.
May 2016 saw the appearance of their second book, "Jacquot l’âne de la Reine / Jacquot the Royal Donkey". This is an illustrated children’s book, dedicated to their grandchildren. It is based on the true story of the donkey Queen Victoria bought in Aix-les-Bains and appears as a dual language edition.
Book 2 Jacquot Returns Home
The new bilingual book tells the story of Jacquot's return to the place of his birth in Savoie and his joy at coming home. This book is issued on the occasion of the bicentennial commendation of the birth of Queen Victoria.
Research in Scotland
Book Signing : Victoria en Savoie
Preface by Sir Peter Rickets to the book Victoria in Savoie
