The Languedoc boasts more hours of sunshine than any other region in the south of France. It also boasts its own language – called, surprise, surprise – the Langue d’Oc. Not many people speak it nowadays – but a few words have managed to battle their way through into modern French. One such word is ‘estranger’ – its meaning in English not at all difficult to detect – and it refers to an outsider. Laurie and Alex Hussey might very well own the most prestigious premises in the picturesque hamlet of Viols-en-Laval – the historic Chateau de Cambous - but English that they be and Londoners to boot, they are and will surely remain, the mother-of-all-estrangers. This is their story.

"It’s a tiny village", says Jean Porte, who earns his keep running a fast turn-around film and development unit in a shopping centre on the outskirts of Montpellier, the handsome capital of the Languedoc region. "Which of course makes it a charming and delightful place in which to live. But in many respects it’s a double-edged sword – because with it you get tiny village mentalities. Goodness me, I’m hardly a foreigner – I grew up in Montpellier, which is only a 20 minute drive away. But if you don’t have roots and you don’t have land – well, you are going to have a battle on your hands to be accepted by the locals."

A battle which is won with the passage of time? Hardly. Enter Greta Pepin, a 47 year-old Belgian woman who has lived and worked in the village for 28 years. Not only that – her local pedigree was enhanced considerably by marriage to a former Mayor’s son and by her running the commune’s one and only auberge, named Lou Sounal, with an efficiency and orderliness more familiar to the Flemish than French.

"I am at ease here now", she affirms, "but I am still very much the outsider. This is just the way things are down here in the south of France. Not that anything is said to me – but there is a very strong feeling which comes across that you don’t really belong – however long you have been here. I don’t think that it’s meant nastily – it’s just that you are different. It probably goes back to the religious wars which took place in the area. Goodness me - the locals dish out the same treatment not just to Parisians who buy here but also to the people from the village down the road called Viol-le-Fort. These were fortified villages – and fortified attitudes remain."

If the Belgian and the businessman are to be believed, then the prospect of the village’s handsome chateau, which dates back to the fourteenth century, falling into the hands of les Anglais was likely to be greeted with - ‘ow you say in Englisch? – a distinct lack of enthusiasm.

The Husseys, however, were not exactly wet behind the ears when it came to the buying and selling of chateaux. For the Chateau de Cambous is Chateau numero deux. Now grandparents in their late fifties, for the best part of a decade they were the proud owners of the equally magnificent Chateau La Roche Hue, which stands within its own 60 acres of park and woodland in the Loire Valley. Rebuilt in the style of Louis X111, the Husseys had painstakingly converted the chateau’s 80 rooms into 15 self-catering apartments. But the renovation of a single chateau was apparently not enough for Alex in particular – "let’s just say he enjoys a challenge", Laurie chips in. Besides, both husband and wife were anxious to set off in search of the sunshine of the south of France, selling their dream chateau replete with stained glass windows and rich oak panelling to a Dutch consortium – and making a pretty penny in the process. The message was simple enough: life is slipping away – let’s go and do something different. But blissfully unaware, it seems, that along with sun, sand and sea, there awaited a less attractive package of suspicion, hostility, and downright obstruction.

"I just think its scandalous that part of our French heritage should be allowed to fall into foreign hands", says Fabienne Bestieu, whose husband Martial is Deputy Mayor of the commune of Viols-en-Laval and whose recently completed census listed just 177 inhabitants. "Why wasn’t the Chateau bought by French people, that’s what I would like to know – after all, its laden with French history and French traditions."

But the truth is that the French are not particularly keen on acquiring their own chateaux, however grand or prestigious, as Laurie Hussey is quick to point out.

"We only bought the Chateau de Cambous a couple of years ago, in the Spring of 1997 – but we had seen it advertised in a magazine several years before. It was on the market for around £1.5 – far too expensive for us – and so we kept on looking around for other properties. But gradually the price came down – for the very simple reason that nobody else wanted it. A local doctor had converted the chateau into a lavish 29-bedroom hotel cum health and beauty centre. So lavish, in fact, that he had gone bankrupt in the process with the bank stepping in to reclaim it. People had seen the property hit hard times and knew that it couldn’t work as a hotel – nor did private purchasers want it because it didn’t quite fit the image of a lovely old chateau. It was empty for four and half years, for heaven’s sake. But the chateau happened to suit us just fine – because we knew that not too much work would be required to turn it into self-contained apartments – the business with which we are familiar. Besides, it was a great shame to see a fine building going to rack and ruin. We felt confident that we could restore it to its former glory and, in the process, turn it into the most wonderful home. I am not going to tell you exactly what we paid. Suffice it to say that over the years we saw the price tumble and we got it for a snip."

All of which might lead one to believe that the Husseys are part of the silver spooned landed gentry, born into a life of luxury which, had the idea of living in France not come along, they would have happily pursued in a country mansion on a large and rambling estate in the heart of rural England. An accurate assessment? Pas exactement. For Alex is from Bermondsey, Laurie is from Lewisham – and you barely have to engage them in conversation for more than a minute or two before they are revealing an aunt in Dagenham here, an uncle in Barking there, not to mention an elderly mother who hails from Canning Town. Not that either of the Husseys is intent upon covering up their working class London roots. Quite the contrary.

"Alex lived in Eltham on a council estate when we met", she recalls, "and their bath was in the kitchen. He thought that I was quite posh because I lived in a semi with an outside loo!"

One can almost hear old Bruce Forsyth egging his audience along. "Ladies and Gentleman – from Lewisham to the Languedoc – from Canning Town to a Chateau – didn’t they do well?" Yes indeed - but how? "Bloody hard work", Alex pipes up. Which is, of course, the truth. Although perhaps not the whole truth.

The Husseys careers were proceeding along smoothly enough – she in a managerial position with Carreras-Rothmans, the tobacco firm – he as a backroom boy with the BBC. But a near-fatal car back in 1980 led them to re-evaluate their lives. Alex was forced to stop working and, anxious to spend more time together, they decided to go into business on their own – the living embodiment of the Thatcherite dream. Enterprise, initiative, energy – the Husseys had not only the drive and ambition but an accurate assessment of the market into which they wished to tune in: the leisure industry in general – and self-catering in particular. Cashing in their modest savings they invested in a holiday park near Barnstable in North Devon, where they remained for four years. Confident that there were greater things to come, they ploughed the money back into a bigger site on the Isle of Wight.

"We bought 9 acres of prime coast land with it", Laurie relates. "The people who sold it to us hadn’t taken the trouble to read the island’s ten year plan. We did. Whereupon we designed another 101 caravan park – had the plans drawn up – and make a huge killing on selling the site and the plans within just two years." If Laurie relates the story with a broad grin on her face, it is not too difficult to see why.

It was not as if the Husseys were leading the high life at this time. They barely qualified as Lord and Lady of the Caravan Park, living as they were in a modest mobile home. Their dream was simple and straight-forward enough : to re-invest the cash into an elegant English country home, a property in which they would then stick to their winning formula – conversion into a series of self-catering apartments. The only problem was the price, for even during the early eighties properties were going for over the million pound mark.

"I was in hospital recovering from a minor op", Laurie continues, "when I spotted an ad for a manor house in France. It was going for £89,000 and I said to Alex I couldn’t believe how cheap it was – you could barely get a semi in the UK for such a sum. I decided that the best thing to do was to go and have a look. Of course when we got there we saw a much bigger and better property – which is when we splashed out £100,000 on our first chateau in the Loire Valley. We did much of the restoration work ourselves."

But whereas the Husseys had been well received in the Loire Valley, they soon realised that in the south of France, where conservative values remain deeply engrained in the local psyche, they were in for a rather rougher ride. And that was before they had even moved into the Chateau de Cambous. The Hussey’s notaire, responsible for overseeing the legal aspects of their impending purchase, sent an urgent fax through informing his clients that the Mayor of the commune had put a blocking order on the chateau.

The Husseys insisted upon an urgent meeting with the Mayor to find out what was going on. And they found themselves sitting opposite one Monsieur Gérard Desplos who, when he is not being a clinical psychologist in Montpellier, doubles up as the Mayor of Viols-en-Laval.

"He made it quite clear that he was none too keen on the English", Alex explains. "And he asked us a couple of weird questions like how old we were and what we thought of Jean-Marie Le Pen, the leader of the National Front. The Mayor has been a problem from the outset. He did not want us here, he tried to block the purchase and there has been bad feeling ever since."

Neither of the Husseys would wish to attribute Alex’s recent ill health to their on-going battle with the Mayor. After all, he had been a heavy smoker for several years and had previously undergone surgery to repair damaged veins. But the relationship between stress and health has been well documented – and in the March of this year disaster struck – with Alex having a stroke, and a thoroughly French stroke at that.

"Things were just beginning to go rather nicely for us", Alex relates. "We were having breakfast – I had my mouth full of croissant at the time, when all of a sudden it just hit me, a blood clot shooting up into my brain. I heard this noise in my head. ‘Can’t you hear that noise’, I asked’?"

No. They could not. Alex’s stroke left him physically handicapped, although regular physiotherapy has seen him make enormous strides, in every sense, since last Spring – although he is only too well-aware that he has some way to go in terms of fully recovering his ability to speak. And the Mayor, to his credit, went out of his way to visit Alex when he was in hospital.

"It’s most frustrating for me – although I can now mow the lawn again – with my left hand and left leg. My mind is fine, fortunately, the problem is getting mind and body to properly co-ordinate."

It had been a dream had come true. To live in France. And to have as their home an elegant chateau. A dream, surely, which has now been soured by the twin problems of ill-health and a frosty reception on the part of some of the locals, including its most high ranking officials?

"Absolutely not", the Husseys retort. "This is our way of life. And it’s most exciting. "In fact if anyone else is thinking about doing as we have done, we would say ‘go for it’. Of course there are challenges along the way – but living the life we do is something which was beyond our wildest dreams. Wouldn’t change it for anything in the world. Never in a million years."