The Forbidden Zone 1940

A gripping account of a young Scottish lass caught up in the German Occupation of France. The Forbidden Zone 1940 by Anne Angelo is a heartwarming tale of Survival under terrible conditions. Welcome to this edition of Newsgram.  Today you’re going to meet Anne Angelo. A very brave woman who escaped from France in 1941. France was a very different country back then. In 1941 the Nazi’s occupied northern France and France’s Atlantic coastline all the way down to the border with Spain. It was a significant portion of the country and she lived in an area called “The Forbidden Zone”  an area that Hitler had cordoned off and used as his springboard to invade Britain.  Anne is no longer with us but thankfully she took the time to write down her experiences back in 1949.   Hugh Hyland – She died in 1999 and then Covid came along three years ago and I was just rummaging through stuff and I came across a briefcase full of her manuscript.  That’s Hugh Hyland, Anne’s son who recently published her manuscript with the help of Xlibris. It contains a very detailed account of her life. Here is Hugh with a quick overview of his findings.  Hugh Hyland – It was divided into two sections. The first one was her being brought up in Scotland and having to escape from the clutches of her wicked father to France as a Governess in the 1930’s. The second chandre was her actually being in the Northwest of France. In 1940-1941 the Germans came through and she joined the French resistance and eventually she had to escape to get back to Scotland. That’s the basis behind everything  The two sections of her manuscript have now been compiled into two different books. The first one is called A Sprig of White Heather and a Scottish Lass where she talks about her childhood in Invergordon, Ross-shire, in the Highlands of Scotland where she lived until she was twenty. It was not a happy childhood. In fact, she says it was one of hatred, heart-break, fear, disillusionment and despair which is why she left and went to France.  Hugh Hyland – Getting out of her clutches of her father and going to Lille in the Northwest of France in the 1930’s.  And for a moment all seemed right with the world. She enjoyed France. It was there that she fell in love in a rather unusual way.  Hugh Hyland – One evening she was in a motor accident. She got run into by a British Army vehicle and that’s where she met Gerald. She fell in love with him there while the Germans were still on the other side of the border but then he had to get back to England once the Germans crossed over and the British withdrew. She was left stranded there but she was unsuccessful.  So she stayed, taking care of the house which turned into a hotel but it was still home. She also joined the French resistance. In chapter one she writes about how “Gerald came and went and life dragged on…” She saw the skies black with planes all day long and she knew she was going to lose her home one day.  Hugh Hyland  – The stories got a bit of everything. Part of the story is her upbringing. finding a new life in France and also throughout Europe and the second part of the story is actually in the war and the escape and all the horrendous things that happened during the war and also the love story  that intermingled with all of that.  Another thing I found interesting about this story was the various themes she explores. One of them is Nature vs. Nurture. How our lives are shaped by circumstances beyond our control. Is all this a preordained fate that we are destined to live out? Are we consciously or unconsciously in control of our lives? Are we being shaped by our environment and the choices of our parents? Here’s an