FORMER Pittsworth resident Susan Walter never imagined she would end up in an 800-year-old property and running a specialist tour company in France.
But that is what she did.
And just how did a small-time country girl end up in a small country town on the other side of the world?
Susan’s family moved to a dairy farm at Irongate, just outside Pittsworth, when she was 11 years old. After some years the farm was sold and the Walter family moved into a house in town, where her parents John and Ruth Walter still live.
“My father took a job in a local hardware store and my mother was one of the Blue Nurses,” she said. “After I graduated from Pittsworth State High School with a Senior Certificate, which included five years of French, I went on to attend the Queensland Agricultural College (nowUniversity of Queensland, Gatton Campus).”
Susan studied for a degree in business and hospitality management. After living and working at the Sunshine Coast for a couple of years she returned to Pittsworth.
“After a brief spell running my own arts and crafts shop I then did a 10-year stint as a public servant,” she said. “It was while working for the government as an administrator that I met my husband Simon Brand, who was born in England and had transferred to Toowoomba from Canberra.”
During this time she established a reputation as a talented craftswoman, making quilts, costumes and embroideries. In 1996 she noticed an advertisement for a summer school at Manchester Metropolitan University in the costume and textile department.
“I was unhappy in my job and unable to get the time off work to attend the workshop in England, so I resigned,” she said. “We put our furniture in storage, rented out the house and moved to London.
“Once there, I got a job with the National Trust and Simon studied music technology. “After eight years in a job I loved, the Trust restructured and offered me a redundancy package.”
Although Susan said it was very sad to leave, she saw it as an opportunity to go back to university to study field taxonomy, which is about conducting biological surveys of sites so the people who manage the environment know what species they have.
Susan’s expertise is in lowland grasslands, flies, bumblebees, dragonflies, sedges and rushes, umbellifers (wild carrot, celery, parsley, Queen Anne’s Lace) and more recently terrestrial orchids.
The couple also started looking around for a new home after living in London for 12 years.
They bought a former grain merchant’s premises in the small country town of Preuilly-sur-Claise in central France in 2006 and then moved into the granary in May 2009.
“We very quickly established friendly relationships with our neighbours and local businesses,” she said. “Preuilly is a village that is remarkably like Pittsworth, except the buildings are older and made of stone and everyone speaks French.
“It is a small town acting as a hub for a large rural area of broad acre and mixed farming. Peoples’ attitudes and concerns are very similar to Pittsworth.”
Susan said the ancient stone house was completely different to the weatherboard colonial style house they left in Australia.
Challenges crop up every day such as passing electricity cable through solid stone walls a metre thick and lifting a manhole cover and discovering an 18 metre deep well in the backyard.
“When we bought the medieval granary, with attached three-bedroom house and stable, it had been empty for about 15 years and was in urgent need of repair if the building was to be habitable,” Susan said.
“There was a large hole in the roof over the staircase and the granary roof was about to cave in.
“Following a couple of very wet years the staircase was irreparable and a beautiful new one was constructed by a local joiner after the slate and terracotta tile roof was replaced.”
Susan said the next project was to call in the mason to put in a simple reclaimed stone fireplace.
“The stone used in Tourangelle houses is a soft limestone called tuffeau,” she said. “The masons can shape it using hand saws and rasps. Fine interior surfaces are finished by gently sanding.
“We now have an efficient wood burning stove in the new fireplace just in time for an unusually cold winter and will heat the entire house once modern insulation is in place.
“At the moment, the house is being replumbed ready for two new bathrooms and completely rewired.”
The couple admit the occasional confusion caused by their imperfect French can hinder progress, but it normally ends in laughter all round and work goes on.
“It seems the whole town is taking an interest in the restoration of one of their oldest buildings and people often come forward with information about its history and advice on traditional building techniques,” Susan said.
“It is tremendously satisfying to slowly develop the potential of this old place and we feel that we are making a home we can be proud of.”
Susan and Simon now run Loire Valley Time Travel a specialist tour company offering visitors to the Loire Valley the chance to see world famous châteaux and less well known places of interest, travelling in their French classic car, a 1953 Citroën Traction Avant.
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