The Mayor That Was Me

A young lady called Kris Darquis talked to me for a while at the book sale at Rennes-le-Château in August, and bought a copy of The Mayor That Was Me.  She was particularly interested in the idea that my previous life had met Bérenger Saunière, the priest who found a fortune.  And she took a photo of me.


Later she e-mailed me and said;  "I just finished your book. Your spiritual journey with Jules Azema is really touching. You have been so fortunate to be led by an 'invisible hand' to this lady who indicated his grave."
  Kris writes for a French web-site called the Gazette of Rennes-le-Château.  And a few days later she had written a review!  Here's my translation of it into English;  A journalist by profession, the British lady Val Wineyard describes herself as an ordinary woman destined to live in the Languedoc.  After travelling extensively in France, she "installed herself there definitely" in 1995 and indulged her passion for the history of the region and the Occitan culture. Val has already written and published several books in English about the Visigoths, and Mary Magdalene and Jesus in the south of France and at Rennes-les-Bains.  Her latest work, The Mayor That Was Me, abundantly illustrated, is nothing like the previous ones for it is the fruit of a personal and spiritual voyage which pushed her to retrace the life of of Jules Azéma, (1869 to 1936) the mayor of the village where she lived, who was a close friend of Prosper Estieu, the Occitan Poet.   It was a journey through Languedocian time and space which passed through the Razès.  (The region named after Rennes-le-Château.)  Val has preserved her English sense of humour and says that for nothing in the world would she return to her native England.
  I was moved by Kris's real interest in my book.

Here's Kris the journalist, on the right, hard at work interviewing.

 Saturday, August 17, 2013
Book-signing at Rennes-le-Château!
Every year at the mysterious Rennes-le-Château (to the south of Carcassonne on the way to Quillan) is held a "Day of Books and Strangeness" with many conferences and talks, and an open-air sales of books on all subjects under the sun, but mostly about the mysteries of the region.  This year it was held on 17th August.  So I went to sell books but mainly to launch The Mayor That Was Me and present it to the world.


I know Rennes-le-Château well, after writing about it for many years and making friends there.  (Click here to see more.) I enjoyed the atmosphere in the book sale part and found it interesting to meet people who were self-publishers like myself, and so there was a lot of "shop-talk" going on.
  Toni, who works in the bookshop Atelier Empreinte, was most interested, especially as my previous life had visited Rennes-le-Chateau.  Toni was thrilled because he had bought a book published in 1936, which proved that people were already visiting the village in the 1930's to search for Bérenger Saunière's treasure, and I was thrilled to read this too, for it's possible my previous life and his friends were among them.  I had been told by an old lady that Rennes-le-Château was a popular place to visit in the 1930’s and that my previous life went there with his lady friend . . . .
 
    I was particularly moved by the reaction of my friend Luke, who has his artist's gallery in Rennes-le-Château.  "Val, I want to read this book," he said. 
  I sold more copies than I expected, and for my other books too.  For those visiting the region, "The Mayor That Was Me" is now for sale in the bookshops at Rennes-le-Château.  
  Me at 18 - so innocent!
  If anybody had told me then  that in later life I would be living in lovely Languedoc, with its incredible richnesses of climate and countryside and mysteries and Mediterranean life, and that I would love it so much, I would never have believed them.  But it's true.

Your own copy of the Book
“The Mayor That Was Me” is size A5 and well illustrated in black-and-white and colour. The front cover consists a picture of the funeral of my previous life, and an inscription made to him by a fellow Occitan poet. 

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Many thanks!