Martin Amis and the hunters’ lunch

Down here in southwest France, the ripple effect of the war in Ukraine has become oddly visible. Normally the fields around our house are planted with sunflowers and maize – but not this year. Wheat and barley stretch to the horizon. As you drive around, the roadside fields all bear witness to the marked change. The faltering supply of grain from Ukraine has made French farmers wake up. Grains are the new cash crops and for this summer, at least, the Dordogne will look subtly different.

The awful news of the death of Martin Amis in May prompted a rush of memories for me. Extraordinarily, I first met him when I was 17, in Paris, in 1969. I was in the first year of the sixth form and my friend Charlie Bell and I had the idea of hitchhiking from Inverness to the Côte d’Azur, in the fond hope we might meet some French girls on the way.