THIRTY SIX THOUSAND WISHES

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In the early 1970s, the Green family piled into an old Mini, and later, a Renault 16, setting off for our summer holiday in the south of France. The cars were hot and reeked of vinyl and petrol, but to us, it felt unbelievably glamorous, leaving the London suburbs behind for the promise of southern France.

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Months before the trip, we’d pick our villa from a badly printed brochure, a couple of vague photos hinting at what awaited us. These villas, mostly from the 1920s, looked grand from the outside but were basic and ramshackle inside.

It was an adventure that shaped my view of the world. Our family's connection to the area was rooted in my mother’s past—born in the south of France to English parents. Her father had stayed on after the First World War, working for the War Graves Commission before returning to the UK in the late 1930s.

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Years later, after forty-odd years away, I wanted to see if the place matched my memories, though I knew it wouldn’t. I searched for the house where my mother was born, but the rural outskirts of the small town had been overtaken by new developments. A street was now named after the old farmhouse, a nod to the past. Next door, on a busy road, a huge, dusty marble yard stood, with giant lumps of stone scattered on brown grass.

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The essence of these places felt as vivid as if I had been there yesterday, but the relentless march of the new and bold was evident, promising leisure and luxury at every turn. I remembered a well-known café from my childhood visits to the coast, where we’d sometimes go for coffee or at least Orangina and chilled chocolate for my sister and I.

Today, the entrance has a rope barrier, and people queued along the road for a seat. Instead, I head for the nearly empty café around the corner where locals have a coffee and and a single fried egg served on a saucer, likely cooked by the owner or his wife for the past thirty years.

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The title “Thirty-Six Thousand Wishes” comes from a French children’s book I found among my mother’s things, dated inside the front cover the day she was born in 1929. It tells the story of a young girl who travels to a magical land where she can have as many wishes as she wants. But the more she wishes, the worse things become in the magic land. Eventually, she longs for the home she knows and wishes to return there instead.