Wednesday 15th July 2009

Here I am at Shiroka Luka  (I checked the spelling).  Can you imagine?It is a tiny village in the Rhodope mountains of Bulgaria – cooking fires even in summer, characteristic lumpy stone roofs, cowsheds beside the houses, which are white with wooden casement windows – pretty and far, far from Harvey Nicks, La Pont de la Tour and all my glittering existence.

A sheep arriving at Shiroka Luka

We are here because of the orphanage. Anthony Mottram has sponsored a drama festival for the orphans (many of whom are actually abandoned Roma, with living parents, aged between five and twenty) for the last seven years. It is in progress and will reach a climax on Saturday with a performance involving all sixty of the children. This year it is a Bollywood theme.  

In our party, Stoyan, one of Anthony Mottram’s former young men, now almost thirty, Robert Nevil, the writer, myself, and the actual Anthony Mottram, still with ghastly, port de mort cough. I was anxious on arrival yesterday evening. Will we not be conspicuous in a rustic setting with our odd configuration, frockage and general impossible air? But we are upstaged by some excellent cows making a grand return from the fields to their sheds up the main street.

Do you know, it is a relief to be simple, in a two-star hotel with buzzing fridge in the bedroom, and bathroom, shared with Robert Nevil, a tiled cave with shower stuck in one corner and lav in the other. My outfits are here and my labels, but the agonising edge has gone.

And  no danger of running into Robin Smallmeal!

Today we examined the wild flowers. Robert Nevil photographed them all and knew the names. What a marvellous array!  There are many Alpine-like meadows such as Maria von Trapp might have twirled and swirled in at the beginning of The Sound of Music.

At five there was a mime show for the orphans. Anthony Mottram loved the Mud Fairy (the story took place in Iceland where there are geysers) and made mud-noises along with the children.  An older boy of about twelve sighed with sophisticated exasperation. It was too young for him. He lay down across several seats and sucked his thumb.  Later we encountered another orphan, of almost Indian appearance, an older boy, perhaps fourteen. He seemed in one way almost adult, yet when Anthony, who remembered him from previous years, tried to communicate with him, he became a helpless, troubled child. There was more to this than not being able to speak English.