- guardian.co.uk, Sunday May 11 2003 00.18 BST
- The Observer, Sunday May 11 2003
It could be a scene from A Year in Provence. On the wisteria-covered terrace of a twelfth-century chateau a retired farmer from Harrogate, his wife, a marketing executive, and two friends 'who have popped over from Yorkshire for the weekend', nibble olives from their own groves and sip the local Domaine la lieue chardonnay. Lunch is over and after a siesta under a battered Panama hat it will be time to cool off in the pool.
Charles and Kate Spencer fell for la vie provencale the moment they arrived in the village of Bargemon, 30 miles north of St Tropez. With its tree-lined square and stone cottages that cascade down the wooded hillside, it is so perfectly Clochemerle that if it did not already exist Gabriel Chevallier would have to invent it. The Spencers bought the chateau lodge for £200,000 two years ago, converted it, moved in and have not looked back.
Until last week, that is. While the French of Bargemon have welcomed the news that David and Victoria Beckham have bought a £1.5 million chateau just outside the village, it has left les Anglais shuddering at the prospect of being swamped by the values of the New Britain they escaped by moving to Provence.
Like the Anglo-Italians of Chiantishire, the olive-nibbling classes of Provence thought they had created a middle-class English haven. Not for them the glitz 'n' tits of St Tropez. Provence was the real France, a place where money and status come second to the simple pleasures of painting, literature, gardening and cheese. Now Clochemerle is about to get its first taste of Cheshire - and it is deeply unimpressed.
As the 'awfully good and only €3 a bottle' wine flows, the Spencers complain to their friends Hugh and Ruth that the new arrivals are too, how shall we say, arriviste. 'The English here are all professional people,' says Kate. 'They have degrees. They like painting and history. They go to the mill to see the olives being pressed. I'm not sure the Beckhams and their friends will really fit in. They don't even speak French.'
'What's French for Louis Vuitton, babe?' interrupts Ruth, mimicking Beckham's squeaky voice. 'Oh, I dunno, babe,' she continues in her best 'Posh' accent. 'Let's go to Hermés instead. At least that's in English.' As the table rocks with laughter, Charles says: 'We came here because we didn't want to be inundated. We get tourists as it is, but now the press are all over the place and they won't go away. I had three people from the Daily Express on my doorstep. We're not really a Daily Express place.'
A walk around the village confirms that the lunchtime banter is not the result of too much sun and chardonnay. Tonia Mees, an insurance executive, who moved from the Caribbean to Provence two years ago and now runs the Aux Mille Saveurs salon de thé, says she doesn't want 'Mr Hanky-Panky Beckham and his wife bringing all their friends here. They are hooligans. This is not a footballer's place.'
Further up the hill, Margot Griffin, wife of the award-winning London-based architect Edward Jones - one half of the design team behind the new Royal Opera House - is putting the finishing touches to the couple's £400,000 villa. 'My heart sank when I saw the word Bargemon in a newspaper on the plane over,' she says. 'You come to Provence to escape, to do something exotic. Two days ago almost no one knew Bargemon existed. Now everyone has heard of it and knows where it is.'
The arrival of the Beckhams in a small village would normally be greeted with ill-disguised glee. Having the most celebrated - and copied - couple in Britain on your doorstep gives a place instant celebrity status. Property prices soar, the holiday market takes off and local business booms. Everybody wants to be your friend. So why has Bargemon given the Beckhams nul points?
Blame it on Bardot. Ever since the French actress filmed Et Dieu... créa la femme in St Tropez in the Sixties, the South of France has split into two warring camps. The coast has become the sea-and-be-seen glamour capital of Europe, while those who think they are real Francophiles have colonised the mountains and valleys behind it. The geographical and cultural divide is absolute. You're either a 'Cute d'Azur' bunny or a Provencalier, and the two do not mix.
The split is at its sharpest now, as summer approaches. On the coast there are so many sunburnt facelifts that a walk along the beaches of Cannes and St Tropez is a modern-day 'Carry on up the Cote d'Azur' celebrity special. Kate Moss is lounging on the terrace of the Hotel du Cap Eden Roc with boyfriend Jefferson Hack, and friends Sadie Frost and Stella McCartney. Who's that stepping off a yacht moored in the bay? A quick flick through Voici!, the local Hello!, reveals it is Elizabeth Hurley on the arm of Green Shield stamps heir Tim Jefferies.
Formula One driver David Coulthard has left the hotel he owns in Monaco and is driving his £300,000 Mercedes to a party at Elton John's house in Villefranche-Sur-Mer, while George Michael has been spotted lunching at Bambou on Tahiti Beach with the Riviera's two Micks, Jagger and Hucknall. Up the coast Joan Collins paddles in the glitter-blue Mediterranean with her 'mari du saison', Percy Gibson. First one to spot Lady Victoria Hervey gets an ice cream.
Drive your battered Volvo an hour north, however, and you meet a very different type of Englishman abroad. He has no interest in being seen in the latest place wearing Dolce & Gabbana flip-flops under his Gucci sarong. In fact he wants nothing to do with the modern world - until it is time to return to Notting Hill Gate.
The names of the well-to-do Britons who holiday or have bought holiday homes in Provence read like the guest list for a Primrose Hill book launch. There's broadcaster Jeremy Paxman, the Conrans - Sir Terence, Shirley and Jasper - architect Rick Mather, Leon Krier, the Prince of Wales's adviser who built Poundbury village in Dorset, and former Conservative Foreign Secretary Sir Geoffrey Howe.
Royal furniture-maker Lord Linley and his wife Serena have a house near Aix-en-Provence as does art lover Janet de Botton. In summer one fifth of the population of popular villages such as Bargemon is British and the streets resound to the cries of Jillies and Sebastians as they bump into one another at the truffle stall.
Footballers' Wives it isn't. As Victoria Mather, travel editor of upmarket Tatler magazine, puts is: 'Rural Provence is fabulous and unspolit and there are some great sleepy villages. But it is a quiet arty crowd, not a Hello! scene.'
What on earth are Britain's flashiest couple up to? Didn't anyone explain that in Provence social baggage is much more important than the labels on your hand baggage? Surely they would be happier on the coast with Elton, whose regular house guests include Victoria's 'razzle-dazzle 'em' dressmaker, Donatella Versace?
A glance at the gate of 'Beckingham Palais' reveals the answer. Or rather it did until someone removed it. The entente may be distinctly lacking in cordiale in Bargemon but that's the way Victoria and David planned it. Workmen began disguising the entrance to their chateau yesterday and installing a new £1m security system to keep out curious locals and prying paparazzi.
Their new home may not be the grandest in the South of France but it will soon be the most secure. To make life even better for the couple, strict French privacy laws will make it almost impossible for photographers to take and publish pictures of them there.
When the party season gets into full swing next month all locals and celebrity watchers may see of Posh 'n' Becks is Posh's carefully practised new Jeanne Moreau pout hidden behind the smoked glass of a limousine as the couple speed in and out of the gates.
The mayor and the captain of the local football team may be disappointed but on their wisteria-covered terraces les Anglais de Provence will shrug with relief, Gallic-style, celebrate the 100 per cent hike in the value of their homes and raise a glass of Domaine la lieue chardonnay 'to Les Beckhams de Bargemon. Formidable !'
Old Provence versus Posh's Provence
FOOTWEAR:
OLD: Gap flip-flops (£5) and Birkenstocks
POSH: Jimmy Choo sandals for her, D&G leather flip-flops for him (£200)
READING MATTER:
OLD: Old copies of the Spectator, anything by Robert Harris
POSH: Nothing to read - 'you can get all the newspapers there'
CDs:
OLD: None, 'unless Harry brings his Buena Vista Social Club'
POSH: Madonna's American Life; at least five by Elton 'in case he comes round'
TIPPLE:
OLD: Litres of cheap local rosé ('you can drink it like water')
POSH: Lychee martinis at Club 55 or house champagne at Caves de Roy
SWIMWEAR:
OLD: Last year's M&S one-piece with matching sarong
POSH: This season's Pucci bikini plus his and hers Gucci G-strings
IS THE POOL HEATED?
OLD: 'Not bloody likely, costs a bomb'
POSH: 'You mean to say you can get unheated pools?'
AND THE HOUSE?
OLD: Nearly always rented 'from a friend of Daisy's'
POSH: Bought for cash. 'Why bother with anything else?'
