First Dishes from a Basement Flat

As far back as my memory takes me, which is to my first school in Belgium when I was four years old, I have loved singing and in an early report the teacher wrote, ‘Fosceline a une très jolie voix.’ From the first time I sang a solo, aged nine, in the Christmas carol concert at boarding school, singing became known as ‘my thing’. In rehearsals for school plays the producer would always say, ‘Everyone must raise their voices - except Jossy.’ I loved writing too, which is why I have a lifetime of densely scribbled diaries today, but I found cookery classes dismally dull and I rebelled against the teacher, Miss Gregson, known as Dregs, who put me at the bottom of the class.