HELLO! has invited acclaimed writers to entertain readers in these testing times. This week, a new arrival shakes up village life in Vichy France in this story by Mara Timon

Ariver ran through the village, allowing it to boast of two bridges, a pair of mills separated by a V-shaped weir, and now a Zazou, sent to us from Tours.

I’d heard about the Zazous, young people who used fashion and music to protest against the ultra-conservative Vichy government and the laws they passed to constrain us.

He was the first one I’d ever seen and he was a sight to behold: long, oiled hair, a yellow tartan jacket that fell to just above his knees in a cascade of awful and more belts circling his slim waist than several men would need.

Mother claimed that he was here because “someone, somewhere, wanted him gone” and I was forbidden to associate with him.

I couldn’t take my eyes off him; dancing like a spasming frog and still quite the handsomest man I had ever seen

I adhered to her directive, until he carried a gramophone down to the river, just upstream from where my friends and I congregated in the evenings.

The jazz he played was unfamiliar, but I couldn’t take my eyes off him; dancing around like a spasming frog and still quite the handsomest man I had ever seen.

“Hello chums,” he greeted us in heavily accented English, sweeping his hand around and bowing in an odd courtly manner. “I’m Rodolphe. Please, join me.”