Invincible Summer

Cynthia Spillman shares how she overcame personal family tragedy to find hope and happiness in Nice

- Cynthia Spillman

My story is one of overcoming tremendous adversity and tragedy, culminating in a new beginning in our historical house in le Vieux Nice, which my husband Peter and I are currently renovating.

If I can make this lifelong dream come true after all I’ve endured – then anyone can! I was born in Glasgow in 1959, to a French Catholic Niçoise mother and a father of Russian Jewish extraction.

As a child, I spent two months in Nice every summer. My first language was French and I remain bilingual. The French Riviera was the biggest love of my earlier life and it was my firmest of intentions to go and live there when I was 19. I had even found a job as an interpreter. But my authoritarian parents had other ideas about my future and I was married instead, to a much older man, totally shattering my hopes and ambitions.

UNIMAGINABLE LOSS

As if our extreme incompatibility were not enough, tragically, my five-year-old son Anthony died in 1987, after my car was hit from behind by a lorry. My seven-year-old daughter was also disfigured in the accident, necessitating many years of major reconstructive surgery.

I was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) the following year but managed to study part-time for two A-Levels and won a place at the University of Cambridge to read law, while also nursing my daughter through five major operations during the first year.

My first marriage broke up five weeks before my second-year university exams, resulting in me having to bear my ex-husband’s large debts. I obtained my law degree in 1992, but after leaving university I became clinically depressed.

I knew, however, that I had no option but to carry on, because my daughter needed me. She had nobody else.