19 December: Edith Piaf

Born on this date in 1915 was the French singer Edith Piaf. Here are some facts about her life.

1. Her real name was Édith Giovanna Gassion.
2. Her father was a street performer and acrobat from Normandy and her mother a café singer. There is a legend that Edith was born on a pavement in Paris, but her birth certificate gives a Paris hospital as her place of birth. Her mother abandoned her soon after she was born, leaving her in the care of her father. This pattern would repeat when, 17 years later, Edith had a daughter who she herself abandoned to the father's care. The daughter, Marcelle, died of meningitis at two. It is said Piaf slept with a man in order to pay for Marcelle's funeral.
3. Edith's father, too, abandoned her although not permanently. He enlisted to fight in World War I, leaving Edith with her grandmothers. Her paternal grandmother ran a brothel in Normandy, where the prostitutes who worked there helped take care of her.
4. She was blind between the ages of three and seven, thanks to a bout of keratitis, a painful eye inflammation. She was taken on a pilgrimage to the shrine of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux. Edith always believed she was healed of her eye troubles by a miracle.
5. At 14, she was performing in the street with her father, but by 17 had struck out on her own, performing with a friend instead. She was discovered in the Pigalle area of Paris by nightclub owner Louis Leplée, who persuaded her to sing at his club. It was he who gave her her nickname, La Môme Piaf (Paris slang meaning "The Waif Sparrow" or "The Little Sparrow").
6. When Leplée was murdered a year later, Piaf was questioned as an accessory. Although acquitted, this didn't do her career much good. To rehabilitate her image, she recruited Raymond Asso, who changed her stage name to "Édith Piaf".
7. She was only four feet ten inches in height, (1.47 metres) and slightly built.
8. In the Second World War, she was accused of being a German collaborator, since the occupying forces had allowed her, even encouraged her, to carry on performing, and many of them went to hear her sing. She also sang at German prisoner of war camps. These performances, although sanctioned by the Germans, helped raise the captured soldiers’ morale. After the war, Oiaf and her friends claimed that she'd actually been a member of the French Resistance, and had helped a Jewish friend to escape.
9. The love of her life was said to be the boxer Marcel Cerdan, middleweight champion of the world, died in a plane crash in October 1949 while flying to meet her. She married Jacques Pills in 1952 (Marlene Dietrich was her matron of honour). However, the marriage only lasted four years before she divorced him and married Théo Sarapo (Theophanis Lamboukas), a Greek hairdresser who was 20 years younger than she was.
10. She struggled with numerous health issues including alcohol and drug addictions, arthritis, insomnia, chronic stomach ulcers, a failing liver, and chronic pain from injuries sustained in three separate car accidents. She died of cancer aged just 47. Her last words were, “every damn thing you do in this life, you have to pay for.” So many thousands of her fans turned out for her funeral that they caused a traffic jam in Paris.

My Christmas Novella!

A Very Variant Christmas

Last year, Jade and Gloria were embroiled in a bitter conflict to win back their throne and their ancestral home. This year, Queen Jade and Princess Gloria want to host the biggest and best Christmas party ever in their palace. They invite all their friends to come and bring guests. Not even the birth of Jade's heir just before Christmas will stop them.

The guest list includes most of Britain's complement of super-powered crime-fighters, their families and friends. What could possibly go wrong?

Gatecrashers, unexpected arrivals, exploding Christmas crackers and a kidnapping, for starters.

Far away in space, the Constellations, a cosmic peacekeeping force, have suffered a tragic loss. They need to recruit a new member to replace their dead colleague. The two top candidates are both at Jade and Gloria's party. The arrival of the recruitment delegation on Christmas Eve is a surprise for everyone; but their visit means one guest now faces a life-changing decision.

Meanwhile, an alliance of the enemies of various guests at the party has infiltrated the palace; they hide in the dungeon, plotting how best to get rid of the crime-fighters and the royal family once and for all. Problem is, they all have their own agendas and differences of opinion on how to achieve their aims.

Not to mention that this year, the ghosts who walk the corridors of the palace on Christmas Eve will be as surprised by the living as the living are by them.

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