Au Revoir to Arsinoe

Ninety-four-year-old Arsinoe Wainhouse has been running the Wainhouse Awards for the past 12 years, but, following this year’s ceremony in March, she has taken the decision to retire.

More than 70 people gathered for a diner to mark the occasion at Le Bistrot Pierre restaurant in Stratford on Saturday July 14, which was approriately also Bastille Day..

Mrs Wainhouse, who also set up the Anglo-French Society in Leamington in 1964 and has been made MBE and the French equivalent of CBE for her services to Anglo-French relations, said afterwards: “I am sad, but I am ready to retire from this. I hold very dear memories since setting up the society in 1964. Across the years, I have made some very good friends.

“This evening was superb. Many of my old friends who had travelled from far were there. I am very thankful to all those who have helped me.”

Mrs Wainhouse, a Francophile Armenian, was born and raised in Egypt but has lived in England since 1944. She now lives in Newbold Terrace and continues to take pupils, free of charge, for French conversation classes.