Georgina Howard

Journalist and linguist Georgina Howard recounts her life as a single mother raising a daughter in a remote Basque community full of smugglers and rituals with pagan origins.

Howard describes how she moved to the wild mountain community in the Pyrenees to escape a drab suburban life. She gave birth to a daughter after an unhappy affair with a local miller and founded an international travel company from an isolated sheep shed. She charted the World War II Comet Line escape routes over the Pyrenees and integrated into the heart of the Basque smuggling community. Her memoir is full of local characters, from the enigmatic shepherds to the wise grandmother, Amatxi, and the butcher, gravedigger and justice of the peace, Isidro.

Howard moved to the Spanish Pyrenees in the 1990s. Her company, Pyrenean Experience, offers walking, culture and language holidays.