Growing up with Dali

SALVADOR Dali has been painted by the media - especially in the US - as an eccentric artist whose persona was as interesting as his art, if not more so. But he was in fact extremely shy, and putting on that eccentric front seemed to be his way of dealing with strangers, feels Christine Argillet. And she should know, as she practically spent every summer staying opposite Dali's house, from the time she was five years old to her late teens, because of her father's work with Dali.

"He was perfectly normal with people he was familiar with, and he was friends with everyone - from the children to the fisherman, or old ladies who crocheted their lace in the village of Cadaques, in Spain. In fact, what impressed me was that he had no airs whatso…