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FINDING THE MRS ARMSTRONG
PAPERS

On October 16, 2018, Francine Olnay was driven in twilight along this road to Craggam Lodge, an elegant house by the side of  river in County Mayo, west of Ireland.

This narrative carries on from Chapter 3 of MRS ARMSTRONG AND THE TRAP OF TECHNOLOGY.

In this, the fashion photographer, Bill Wright, finds, in Paris, a print of Francine half nude.

It might be the model Francine who has been photographed many times, some of them when naked.

Except that it is not Francine. It is a woman in the 1930s who looks just like her. And that woman turns out to be her grandmother. The grandmother was known to Francine as Sonia Olnay. This was someone different, a Miss Sykes who became Mrs Armstrong.

How Francine went from this photograph to the west of Ireland is wound into the main Mrs Armstrong narrative.

This is designed to give Mrs Armstrong's concerns about technology a contemporary perspective.
And it deals with a painful aspect of underground work -- how this affects the family of someone living in part secretly.

Francine's grandmother was, effectively, both parents to her after her real parents abandoned her. Then she discovers in Ireland that Sonia had been Nathalie until she was 31 and the birth of Francine's mother who was, for ever, bitter that Sonia lied about the father.

Dress designed by Madeleine Vionnet, worn by Nathalie Armstrong. Francine Olnay, in spite of being effectively Sonia's daughter, was not told that Sonia had for 31 years been Nathalie.

Craggam Lodge among its mature trees and by the river. Where Francine read the first Mrs Amstrong papers during short autumn days in 2018 and where the Vionnet heirloom dress was also found.

 

 

 

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