Upon entering the town, without fail I remember a line from that wonderful and highly acclaimed film, Monsieur Hire, based on the Simenon novella by the same name. Monsieur Hire, balding, overweight, middle-aged and possibly a murderer, tries to persuade Alice – young, beautiful, sexy and manipulative -- to go with him to Switzerland.
He says, in lugubrious tones -- as if deep down he already senses some impending tragedy -- that she will never join him. Nonetheless, he persists in great earnest, with something like, “They paint their houses in spring.” Hope against hope he adds, ”And in their window sills there are flower boxes.”
No one in the audience ever expected sexy Alice to ditch her hoodlum of a boyfriend. Why do I think he’s a hoodlum? I’m not sure, but don’t nice dames often fall for hoodlums in the movies?
Be that as it may, the words stuck and every time I enter Darling I remember the lines. Why? Because this is what the good people of Darling do. They plant seeds on the verges and wild flowers adorn these verges throughout the year with a dazzling array of colours. And this reminds me of a fictional little village somewhere in Switzerland that may or may not only have existed in Simenon’s mind.