A Summer in Gascony is Martin Calder’s first travel book. It was inspired by one summer in Gascony that turned into an enduring love affair.
Martin Calder was born in the small market town of Ormskirk on the south Lancashire plain, growing up nearby in a landscape of big skies and rich black soil. After taking science A-levels at Merchant Taylors’ School, Crosby, he went to study Civil Engineering and Architecture at the University of Leeds, where he won a competition to design and build a structure to raise a crashed model aeroplane from a lake. He began to take an interest in all things French, travelled around France and picked grapes for the famous Blanquette de Limoux. He completed his engineering degree, but was convinced that structural design and fluid mechanics were not for him. He worked for a time for an architect's practice, before taking a second degree in French at the University of Nottingham, staying on to complete a masters and a doctorate in eighteenth-century French literature. His day job is senior lecturer in French at the University of Bristol, where he has taught since 1999. During his time there he has published a couple of scholarly tomes. A true Francophile, Martin Calder has lived and worked in Paris and other areas of France, but is always drawn back to Gascony, this far southwest corner of France appeals to his enjoyment of the simple pleasures of life on the land, the sights and smells of the country, good food and wine, and hard work. He likes outdoor sports, especially water sports, the Atlantic beaches of Gascony are great for surfing. He has yet to buy a home in Gascony, and is happy for the moment to be an itinerant “Mr Gascony”.