I was returning home from shopping and before I’d even got out of the car my neighbour came running up, which for a man of 87 was unusual to say the least. He said that a lady was unconscious on his settee, and because we live in France I assumed he meant his equally elderly wife as in French ‘femme’ can mean either ‘wife’ or ‘woman’. In fact, once inside I found that his wife was in her usual rude health, but there was a lady lying on the settee who they had managed to carry indoors. The old couple explained that when she roused slightly from time to time and mumbled something they had the impression that she was English.

After a quarter of an hour an ambulance arrived, and two cars with seven Gendarmes! Knowing it’s important to keep people as conscious as possible we tried to rouse her by keeping talking to her and it was clear she was in fact an elderly English lady who had taken an afternoon stroll from a nearby village when she suddenly felt unwell. To help with translation I went in the ambulance to the local hospital, and the patient was admitted, clearly gravely ill but at least still alive.

Once the initial excitement of the incident wore off, I forgot all about it but then the other day a car pulled up at the house. As it happened I was already outside with our dog Sophie, because I was about to walk her round the lake near to us. It was the lady and her husband, and when they saw Sophie the lady said “Your dog saved my life”. It transpired that while I was out it was Sophie’s barking which alerted our neighbours who went out to find the lady unconscious in the road, and as it was dusk she was at serious risk of being run over, apart from anything else. The lady had remembered that during semi-conscious moments there was a black Cocker Spaniel licking her face.

So here’s a picture of the heroine herself!