Lavende: A rare French connection

When Callington restauranteur Christine Wilkinson was a young English girl growing up in London, she did not feel English at all. She knew her grandmother, Colette, was French and when she went to France for the first time as a teenager, she felt at home. “Then when I went to France, I sang in a night club and said “Hey, I feel French!’’,’’ says Christine.

Much was to happen to Christine before that same feeling manifested after she migrated to Australia in her early 20s.

Another 40 years slipped by until Christine created the lovely Lavende French restaurant, within a courtyard of a grand old stone building, which was once the Callington Police Station.

“We fell in love with the building and bought it by what can only be described as “divine providence’,’’ explains Christine, her two-coloured spiky hairdo belying her certain age.

We knew nothing of Christine’s extraordinary story when our table of four wiled away a wonderful Sunday afternoon dining at Lavende… until Christine joined us for coffee to explain the French connection.

From the moment she migrated to Australia, life threw in roadblocks to her following her sense of Frenchness.

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