My Year Abroad

I Went There On My Bike: Part 5 -

I decided that it was pointless spending a lot of money on train and boat fares, so I prepared myself for a 500 mile journey from Wymeswold to Besonçon on my bike.

I went to Besançon on my bike

After two terms at Manchester, we had to spend the third term at a French University of our choice. Montpellier and Grenoble were the favourites. I chose to go to Besançon, partly because I liked the area and partly because I hoped to meet Josette, whom I had met at Crissey, again. Besançon proved quite popular with my fellow students, because it had the best language laboratory in France. So there were five or six of us who went there from Manchester, including my friend Bryn James. Bryn and I decided to try to get a flat together, which we did.

I decided that it was pointless spending a lot of money on train and boat fares to get to Besançon. I was going to go on my bike. So, I put my bike on the train from Chorlton-cum-Hardy to Loughborough and proceeded to prepare myself to cycle the 500 miles from Wymeswold to Besançon. My parents were quite worried about this, especially as my bike was quite old and bulky. My dad offered to buy me a new bike, but I declined. I was not sure that a so-called touring bike would be any better. In particular, all the advice was to have a small hard saddle, whereas I had a soft wide saddle. I read a book and did take advice on another matter: this was to build up gradually to a cycling tour. So, in the ten days before I left, I built up from five miles a day to 45 miles. Thus I was able to bore my children afterwards by saying “I went there (i.e. anywhere within a 20 mile radius of Wymeswold!) on my bike.”

I joined the International Youth Hostels Association and planned my route so that I could spend as many nights as possible in youth hostels. (Other than Crissey, which I discovered was not at all typical, I had never been near a Youth Hostel.) I decided I wanted to take my tennis racket. So I bought an attachment and fastened the tennis racket to the front wheel. I already had a decent saddlebag, but I bought a pair of panniers to attach to both sides of the back wheel. I had battery-powered front and rear lights and my faithful Hercules 3-speed gears. I was very careful to ensure that I didn’t get my clothes wet. I had a cape and hood and persuaded my mother to make me a water-proof covering for my shoes. I would wear shorts so that my trousers would not get wet.

On Sunday morning the ninth of April 1960, I set out from Wymeswold for Market Harborough and on to Greens Norton in Northamptonshire, where I spent the night in the Youth Hostel, as planned. So far so good! The next two days did not go according to plan. I had hoped to take minor roads as far as possible, but my next planned stop was in central London. So, for much of the Monday I had to ride along Watling Street (the A41), which got increasingly busy the nearer I got to London.

I reached the Youth Hostel in London in late afternoon. There were a large number of young people with suitcases milling around and it was fully booked. I was told that there was no point in trying the other London youth hostels, as they would be full as well. So I set off for Cudham in Kent. Until then I had thought that Kent was a flat county, but the Youth Hostel, which I reached late in the evening was on the top of a hill. Instead of the planned 50 miles a day, I had cycled about 90 miles that day.

On the Tuesday, there was a ferry from Folkestone at about 4 o’clock in the afternoon. I set out in the morning, but I was determined not to spend the day riding along the main roads. So I bought a local map and sketched out a route across country. Unfortunately, this meant that I had to stop at every road junction to decide which way to go. The result was that I missed the ferry at Folkestone and had to cycle over the Downs to Dover Youth Hostel. It was a wet and windy evening and there is a big hill between Folkestone and Dover.

I went down to the port on the Wednesday and bought a ticket for me and my bike on the ferry to Calais. My bike was attached to a winch and was carried through the air on to the boat. I arrived in Calais. Almost immediately I came upon a large French square. In those days, the norm in France was for traffic from the right to have priority. So the drivers came into this square from all directions, knowing whom they had to give way to and whom they didn’t. I had no idea, but somehow, I managed to get to the other side. With hindsight, I was quite lucky to survive. It was only some weeks, months or years later, that I learned that the rule in France, unless there is a sign to the contrary, is that any traffic coming from even a minor road or a field on the right has priority. In those days there were hardly any ‘give-way’ or ‘stop’ signs.

It was just as windy in northern France as it had been in Dover. Having got out of Calais, I rode along the road to St. Omer. The land there is flat. The wind was blowing from the west. With my tennis racket and panniers attached to my bike I was leaning into the wind. When I went past a house at the side of the road, I was suddenly sheltered from the wind and I fell off my bike. The inhabitants of the house all came to their window to laugh at me! I got back on my bike and found my way through St. Omer to the youth hostel at Arques. The youth hostel was attached to a café. I remember I had egg and chips. I think I was the only guest that night. The following morning, I had breakfast in the café. There were working men in the café drinking their glass (or two) of red wine for breakfast. In those days there were warning posters in cafés and other public places, urging people to limit themselves to a litre of wine a day!

The previous year I had ridden a moped in France. I had decided that the trick for riding on the right side of the road was to start off on the correct side. After that there would be no problem. However, the youth hostel was at the end of a track. When I got to the end of it, I set off on the left-hand side, but fortunately realised my mistake before too long. There was a more or less direct route from Calais to Besançon, but again I decided to take the byways. I bought a map for 1.10 New Francs (just under 10 pence) and I set off eastwards. I discovered that the towns and villages in that part of France have Dutch-sounding names of which the first was Hazebrouck. I also discovered that most of the roads were still cobbled. A French friend told me later that there is a cycle race (or part of a race) which is referred to as l’enfer du Nord. A feature of the map was that it showed a lot of broken bridges – bridges which had been destroyed during the war, but which had not yet been repaired when the map had been printed. At the time, I found that strange as it was fifteen years since the end of the war – three-quarters of my lifetime. With hindsight, I realise that it was only fifteen years since the end of the war! As I cycled through the flat countryside, I rode through village after village. Each village had its church, its mairie, its post office, its café and a number of farm-houses, each with its fumier (manure heap) alongside it. I was surprised to see that in some of the fields the ploughs were still drawn by oxen.

I had lunch in a place called Estaires. Each day for lunch, I either bought some ham and a baguette or went to a restaurant. The standard price for a three or four course meal was 5 or 6 New Francs (about 50p). A cup of coffee was 50 new centimes. Earlier that year de Gaulle had created the new franc. One New Franc was worth 100 old francs. However, until the introduction of the euro 42 years later, most people of my generation or older still counted in old francs. So mille balles meant 10 New Francs! In the course of my journey, I soon learned that French restaurants opened at 12 noon and closed at 2 o’clock. So there was no point in turning up at a quarter to two and expecting to be fed.

One of the real bonuses of cycling in France was the milestones (or more correctly kilometre stones!) There was one every kilometre on the side of the road. They had red tops on National roads and yellow tops on Departmental roads. They showed the distance to the next town and the distance to the next village. In addition, there was a smaller white stone, numbered 1 to 9, every 100 metres. So it was easy to break down the journey into manageable chunks.

I spent the next night in a youth hostel in either Douai or Cambrai. I had heard that French youth hostels were grotty, but to date that had not been my experience. That was about to change, so it is perhaps as well that I can’t remember now where I stayed or whether I stayed in both of them on successive nights. Nor do I remember much about it other than that it was … grotty!

During my training period in Wymeswold, I had developed a rash on my (bare) legs. I went to see Dr Robinson, who said he thought it was an allergic reaction to some tinned salmon I had eaten. By the time I got to a place called Bohain, the rash had got worse and so I decided to go to a doctor. He said that it was probably an allergic reaction to the wind or exercise. He gave me some cream and advised me to rest. That would have been a bit difficult, given that I still had another two or three hundred kilometres to go. The doctor did not charge me for the consultation.

My journey took me next through the small town of Guise. On the way there, my three-speed cable broke. I found a small garage in Guise and the owner said he could repair it for me. But it was almost mid-day and, like everyone else in rural France at that time, he was closing for lunch and would be back at 2 o’clock. The cable was quickly repaired and I set off again towards Laon. A few kilometres south of Guise, for the one and only time on the journey, I felt like giving up. I got off my bike and tried to thumb a lift with a small pick-up truck that was passing. Fortunately, the driver didn’t stop and so I was obliged to soldier on.

I approached Laon late on Good Friday afternoon. I was impressed! I had been cycling for two and a half days through flat, fairly uninteresting countryside. Then it appeared before me like a medieval citadel on a hill-top, bathed in evening sunlight. I fell in love with the place. I have visited it two or three times since. On the last occasion, we visited the cathedral, immediately after looking round Reims cathedral. I found Laon more impressive – more restrained and a better atmosphere. There is a shroud there with a face imprinted on it, which claims to be the face of Jesus, which I found deeply moving.

When I arrived in Laon, all the bakers’ shops had signs outside saying plus de pain, which I discovered meant no more bread! There was no youth hostel in Laon, so for the first time on my journey I had to look for a hotel room. I found one without too much difficulty.

The scenery changed after Laon. The next day I rode in undulating countryside through the vineyards of Champagne. I spent the night in another hotel in Epernay, which is at the heart of the champagne-producing territory. On Easter Sunday morning, I was riding past the impressive Champagne Mercier building. I decided to stop and indulge myself in a conducted tour.

The roads were busy that day and there were no obvious ways of avoiding the main roads. So I cycled on to Vitry-le-François and joined the main road from Paris to Strasbourg, which was even busier. Nevertheless, I managed the 29 kilometres to St Dizier without incident. I spent the night in the youth hostel there.

The following day, Easter Monday, it rained most of the day. The terrain was almost mountainous, as I rode through forests. I experienced for the first time the low clouds in the forests. Surprisingly enough, when I drive through similar forests, fond memories of this day flood back. Again I decided to abandon the main roads and made my way to Nogent, where I spent the night in a hotel.

It had stopped raining, when I set out on the Tuesday morning. I had a clear idea of the route, but was not sure how many of the 130 kilometres I could do in one day. My first goal was Langres. The Plateau de Langres marks the watershed between the Mediterranean and the English Channel. The source of the Seine is there. 

Besançon

I carried on. By this time the adrenalin was flowing and I soon found myself at Gray, about 50 kilometres from my destination. Later that afternoon I rode through the gates of 25 avenue Carnot, Besançon. I was greeted by the owner, a doctor’s wife (or widow, I don’t ever remember meeting her husband). She was a distinguished-looking woman, probably in her fifties. She showed me to the apartment on the first floor. She said that she had thought that Bryn and I were a mixed couple. The apartment only had a double bed. It was, however, a well-furnished apartment with polished wooden floors. She only showed mild embarrassment about two chaps sharing a bed. Such was our innocence that I did not think there was anything strange about it either. We certainly did not think of taking part in any – what would have been then – illegal activities.

Me in the kitchen at 25 avenue Carnot

I had sent my trunk by train from home to Besançon. The apartment was just down the hill from the main station, but I received a notification that my trunk had been delivered to a small station on the other side of the city. I went there and discovered that there was a customs post there and I had to declare the belongings, which I wished to import.

I had also arranged for my maintenance grant to be sent to the Besançon branch of the Crédit Lyonnais bank. However, when I went to the bank, my money had not arrived. I persuaded Bryn to lend me some money, which he did with understandable reluctance. On one of my visits to the bank I discovered that it closed between mid-day and 2:00 p.m. It was possibly the same day that I discovered that all the shops closed for the same length of time, with the result that the centre of Besançon was completely deserted during this period.

Besançon is a beautiful city. It is surrounded by forested hills. The river Doubs meanders through the city in a horse-shoe shape. The “open” end of the horse-shoe is closed by a hill with a citadel on top built by Vauban. I had not heard of Vauban before I went to Besançon, but I have seen plenty of his work since. Indeed, I can see his Fort Carré out of the window now, as I type this in Antibes! Vauban was Louis XIV’s military architect, who built strongholds all round the edge of seventeenth century France. (At that time Antibes was on the border of the independent Comté de Nice.)

La Citadelle de Besançon

Besançon is a very old city. It was called Vesontio by the Romans. There are several Roman constructions in the city, including a triumphal arch, La Porte Noire, in the centre. It was from the 10th to 17th centuries that it was most important; during that period it was the seat of an archbishop in the Franche-Comté of Burgundy, which in turn was part of (or under the tutelage of) the Holy Roman Empire and Spain. Consequently, the vast majority of the buildings in the centre of the city were more than 300 years old.

The purpose of the term in Besançon was supposed to be to go to the University. We duly enrolled and were given a programme of lectures. Attendance was voluntary and the lectures did not sound very interesting. We went to a few. We also met our fellow students. They were mostly American, but there were also a Swedish and Danish girl. They also knew a girl called Floriane and we went to her house one day. Floriane spoke about a girl from Britanny, Denise Tessier, with whom I was to work later in the summer. Small world! There were no native French speakers on the course! We also had access to the language laboratory, which had been the main attraction for most of my colleagues from Manchester. Again, I went once or twice, but it was disappointing. We did, however, have access to the canteen in the Cité Universitaire. This meant that, for a modest sum, we could have one or two square meals each day. I quite liked the food. Or maybe I pretended to, because I was at the stage where everything French was good. Some of my English friends, Roy Reader in particular, said the food was disgusting, picking insects out of the lettuce to prove his point.

The weather was hot or seemed to be most of the time. The walk from our apartment to the Cité Universitaire took me through part of the medieval city, along the banks of the Doubs and over a large number of drains. These were very smelly.

La Boucle du Doubs, Besançon

There is a large brasserie, the Brasserie Granvelle, at the bottom of the avenue Carnot. There were few televisions in France at that time, but they had one. I remember standing at the back of the room, watching the European Cup Final. Real Madrid beat Eintracht Frankfurt by seven goals to three!

I went on some long bike rides to Baume-les-Dames and beyond. The countryside was unbelievably beautiful. One day the owner of our apartment invited Bryn and me to her country house on the banks of the River Ognon, a few kilometres from Besançon. This was a wonderful day. In the morning, Bryn and I swam in the river. That was the first time – and possibly the last – that I had ever swum in a river. Afterwards we had a simple lunch. I do not normally like spinach, but we were served spinach with cream, which was delicious.

One day I was in the Cité Universitaire with a fellow student, who was from Southampton University and whom I did not know all that well. I bumped into Jean-Michel, with whom I had worked when I was at Les Grangettes the previous year. Thinking that we were close friends, he invited us both to stay with him one week-end at his home in Pont-de-Roide, which is near Montbéliard in the north-east of the département. We duly went and Jean-Michel met us at the station. We were just coming out of the station when we met an old man coming towards us. Voici le paternel, said Jean-Michel, as he proudly introduced us to his father. He was a retired railway worker. They appeared not to have much money, but for the Sunday lunch, the father produced a bottle of good Burgundy wine. We were all horrified, when my fellow guest reached over to the jug of water to pour some water into his wine. In his defence, it was quite normal at that time – maybe it still is – to mix wine and water. Fortunately I was able to stop him in time and explain that it was not the done thing to pour water into good wine.

Bryn and I decided to experiment with hitch-hiking. We formed the opinion fairly quickly that it was not a good idea for two young men to stand side-by-side on the road trying to hitch a lift. So we took it in turns for one of us to try to thumb a lift, while the other hid somewhere. When a driver stopped, we asked politely if he could take our friend and they usually did. For our first outing we headed for Germany. Although we had both studied German for seven or eight years, it was the first time either of us had actually been to Germany. First of all we had to negotiate the customs at the border at Breisach. Then we headed for Freiburg, which is a beautiful old city on the edge of the Black Forest. There we stayed at the Youth Hostel, which was just under a kilometre from the centre of the city. The youth hostel was quite modern and certainly of a much higher standard than any that I had stayed in recently in France. My German proved to be totally inadequate. I went into a shop to buy four eggs – supermarkets were rare in those days, one had to go to the counter and ask! I got to the counter and I could no longer remember the German for “four” or the German for “eggs”. On the Saturday morning, I wanted to walk into the city centre. As I approached, there were a number of signs with arrows indicating Einbahnstrasse. As there were so many signs pointing to that street, I thought it must be one of the main streets and so I decided to follow the signs. It was quite some time before I realised that I was getting nowhere and that Einbahnstrasse is the German for “One-way-street”.

Hitchhiking in Switzerland

Our next excursion was to Switzerland. We went due east from Besançon to Neuchatel and Bern. Bern was a sleepy old city. I remember seeing a statue of the black bear, which is the emblem of the city. On the Saturday morning we made our way to Basel. I was struck by how Germanic the city was: no-one spoke French and their Swiss-German was incomprehensible. We made our way back into France and stopped at a café. It was the day of the English FA Cup Final and Wolves were playing Blackburn Rovers. The match was being shown live on the television in the café. The commentary was in German. Bryn was not very keen, but I insisted on staying to watch it. Hitherto we had had no problems getting lifts and it was “only” 65 kilometres from Basel to Belfort, where there was a youth hostel. It must have been about 6:00 p.m. when we set off. What I had not realised was that it was much easier to get a lift in the daytime than on a Saturday evening. We walked a long way. After an hour or two a farmer picked us up and took us a little way and eventually we arrived in Altkirch. Still 34 kilometres to go! The map that I am looking at now shows that the road is edged with green, meaning that it is a “pleasant itinerary”. That is not my recollection! We walked most of those 34 kilometres.

When we eventually arrived at Belfort, tired and with very sore feet, it was long past the youth hostel closing time. We decided to go to the railway station. It had a large hall with a tiled floor and a bar along one side. We decided to camp down on the floor against the wall nearest to the railway line. It was the first time I had lain down on a stone floor. I discovered quickly how uncomfortable it was. After an hour or so I had a sore back as well as sore feet. After some time we moved to the opposite wall nearest to the road and the entrance, but it was no more comfortable. There were some rough-looking older men at the bar. They tried to draw us into a conversation. In particular they said that if we went with them they would give us a comfortable bed to sleep on. I was not very street-wise at that time, but I did have the sense to realise that that would probably not be a good idea. As the night wore on, they became more insistent and, we sensed, more threatening. At about six o’clock, we decided we had had enough and made a run for it. The men followed us for a short way, but we were young and they did not catch up with us. We got a lift back to Besançon without further incidents.

In spite of this experience we were not put off. Neither of us had been much further south than where we were. Both of us were attracted to the idea of seeing the Mediterranean for the first time. We duly set off in early June. We got lifts to Grenoble on the first day and spent the night at the youth hostel there. The youth hostel was situated the other side of a level-crossing with a flimsy barrier. I was somewhat shocked to see a number of pedestrians scurrying across the railway line, after the barrier had come down.

We set out in the morning to try to get a lift along the Route Napoléon to the coast. This was the road through the mountains that Napoleon had taken 145 years earlier to return to Paris after escaping from Elba. We spent the whole morning at the side of the road without getting a lift. Early in the afternoon, I got a lift in a sports car with a young British army officer, who said his name was Robin. He did not have room to take Bryn as well. So I travelled with him all the way through the Hautes-Alpes and Basses-Alpes. We went through the towns of Sisteron and Digne, stopping at a café in one of them for an afternoon drink. The mountains got more and more barren, the scenery more and more impressive. It was dusk by the time that we arrived at a place that I had never heard of called Juan-les-Pins. Robin said he had a small tent and asked if I wanted to share it with him. Again I showed my naivety, because I did not hesitate to accept. I am pleased to say that my confidence in him was completely justified and nothing untoward happened. The following morning he demonstrated his officer qualities by giving me tasks to perform before breakfast.

We then went down to the beach together. I lay on the beach for an hour or two, soaking up my first experience of – and exposure to – southern sun. Bliss!

I had arranged with Bryn that, if we got separated, we would meet at a hostel in Nice. This hostel was not a standard youth hostel – it was slightly superior – but it was listed in the Youth Hostel book. So, round about lunch-time I left the beach reluctantly, and set off to try to get a lift to Nice. I was unable to find anything to eat, other than a kilo of oranges, which I consumed in the course of the afternoon. I eventually got a lift from Antibes to Nice and found my way to the hostel, which was situated in the hills in the north of the city. Bryn also made his way there. In the evening, I was not hungry, but extremely thirsty. (I was probably suffering from sun-stroke.) I asked at the hostel for a drink, but all they could offer me was a litre bottle of milk – which I drank. My mother had told me when I was a little boy that oranges and milk don’t mix. I remembered that advice too late. We were allocated beds in a dormitory. I am not sick very often, but in the night I knew I was going to be sick. I put it off for as long as I could. Then I got up and rushed to the toilet door. As soon as I opened the door, I was sick. Except that … the door I had opened did not lead to the toilet, but to a store-cupboard full of clean bed-linen! I was not popular the following morning – to put it mildly.

The next day, we made our way to the Cap d’Antibes. The hostel we stayed in there belonged to the same organisation as the one in Nice. The management had already been informed of my misdemeanour by the time we arrived. However, we strolled around the Cap, taking photos of each other at the gates of expensive properties. There were lots of palm trees: neither of us had ever seen a palm-tree before. So ended my first visit to Antibes. Little did I think that 40 years later it would become a second home for me!

We were separated again on the return journey. I got a lift at Cannes with another Brit in a sports car. This one was going back to London, but dropped me somewhere en route.

Cap d’Antibes, June 1960

The Danish and Swedish girls invited us to spend a nuit blanche with them at the Summer Solstice. We went up into the hills somewhere, taking food and drink with us. But my hopes of some sort of high jinks were sadly disappointed. My only recollection is of feeling tired afterwards!

I went to see Charles Baudard one day. I think Maurice Moyse also went. We played pétanque together. Charles also took me to a football match. Besançon played in the second division of the French league and were not very good. On the other hand Sochaux, which was just down the road near Montbéliard, had a first division team, financed by Peugeot, who had their headquarters there.

Charles talked about recent French history. He said, in particular that the English – it was always Les Anglais never Les Britanniques – had bombed the station at Besançon at the end of the war. At the time, as a twenty-year-old, I thought the war was ancient history, but with the benefit of hindsight I can see that for someone fifteen or twenty years older, it was still very much etched in his memory. I was also surprised by the number of French people that I met during my extended stay in France, who spoke in awe of Winston Churchill.

The other Charles – de Gaulle – had come back to power in France the year before. Charles Baudard said to me one day: De Gaulle n’a jamais oublié Yalta. It didn’t mean anything to me at the time, but that short sentence goes a long way to explaining Franco-British relations between 1959 and 1969. A conference was held at Yalta in the Crimea in February 1945. Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill were present, but de Gaulle was not invited. The conference decided the post-war organisation of Germany and Europe. Although de Gaulle operated from London during the war, he was often side-lined from strategic discussions. His exclusion from the Yalta Conference added to his resentment. I don’t think it is too much of an exaggeration to say that these experiences coloured his attitude when the UK applied to join the European Common Market.

At that time I was not sure about de Gaulle’s position on the world stage, but I thought he was good for France. Between 1946 and 1958 France had had a series of weak governments, whose rise and fall were the butt of music-hall jokes. The franc was weak. De Gaulle brought stability to government and introduced the New Franc which stabilised the currency. He came to power to solve the Algerian crisis. But that crisis continued to rage for another four years afterwards. During that time my opinion of de Gaulle changed, but that is another story. On 14th June 1960, de Gaulle made a television broadcast to the French nation. I watched it on French television in a bar near the Pont Battant. He spoke slowly and clearly; he was easy to understand. This was one of a series of broadcasts over the years. His statements were often Delphic and could be interpreted in different ways by different audiences. But the emphasis shifted each time. So, at the beginning he seemed to be in favour of Algérie française, while at the end he was in favour of autodétermination. The June 1960 broadcast was noteworthy as it was the first time he mentioned décolonisation.

Biarritz

As my stay in Besançon came to an end I began to think about the summer. I decided to write to the Central Bureau for Educational Visits and Exchanges in London. They arranged for me to work again as a moniteur in a colonie de vacances, this time for an organisation called the CCCS (Centre pour la Coopération Culturelle et Sociale). Floriane also worked for them. They sent me to work at their colonie de vacances at Anglet near Biarritz.

I had originally intended to go on my bike (900 kilometres), but decided against it, because I was feeling a bit under the weather. So I took a series of night trains across the Massif Central to Bordeaux and on to Bayonne. This was my first experience of travelling by train at night. It was not a pleasant or restful experience. There were some soldiers on the train across the Massif Central. I remember one of them saying La France est bossue par ici ! France is a bit bumpy round here.

Unlike Les Grangettes, Anglet was a mixed colonie. The Director was a woman, Huguette, who was a schoolteacher in Colombes, north-west of Paris. Most of the children and staff were housed in a nineteenth century manor-house set in extensive grounds. I slept in a small one-person ridge tent. That was to be my home for the next two months. During those two months, we had a lot of sunshine – and a lot of rain! Most of my things were mouldy at the end of the period.

I arrived before most of the other children and monitors. This proved to be an advantage, because I could answer most of the children’s questions about where things were authoritatively. As a consequence, unlike at Les Grangettes, I never had any problems with discipline. I was allocated a team of the youngest boys – 5 to 7 years old. This was tedious in some ways – bed-wetting etc. – but there were no problems with discipline and in subsequent years I always chose to look after les petits.

The colonie was situated about a kilometre from the sea – a long beach on the edge of the Atlantic Ocean. There were big rollers on the sea. When the children were allowed to bathe in the sea, the monitors joined hands in a semi-circle, to keep the children under surveillance. We could see the sea from the upstairs window of the main building. One day I caused some amusement when I said: On voit la mer d’ici! Perfectly correct French, but phonetically open to a different interpretation. We walked down to the sea most days.

There were eight monitors and teams of children, four were male and four were female. Then there was the Director, Huguette and her husband, Guy, who looked after the finances. Then there was a nurse. Her husband, Maurice, was a monitor. He was an old man of 31!

On my first day off, I went on a day trip to Spain with a fellow monitor. His name was Jean. He was from St. Brieuc in Brittany. We caught a coach in Biarritz and set off along the coast through St. Jean de Luz, which had been very fashionable in the 19th century, and Hendaye with its extensive flat beach at the foot of the Pyrenees, right on the Spanish border.

I had never been to Spain before – and it would be another 20 years before I went again. Spain, at that time, was very foreign and slightly sinister. Franco had been in charge with his authoritarian regime for over 20 years. The tourist industry was not well developed.

Our coach took us to Pamplona, where we visited the bullring. Then we went to San Sebastian, with its beautiful beach, crowded with Spanish people bathing in the sun. At some point I wrote a postcard to my parents. As I was going to the coach I remembered that I hadn’t posted the card. I came across a middle-aged man in a suit and thrust the card into his hand. The card arrived two or three months later! Also at some point we went to a restaurant for a meal. I don’t remember the meal, but, whenever I have a glass of cheap Spanish red wine, I remember the slightly harsh taste of that first glass of that beverage. Come to think of it, it was probably more than one glass, because I kept falling asleep on the coach back to Biarritz, banging my head on the “safety” catch on the window, every time I nodded off.

We took the children on excursions. The main one was to La Rhune, a mountain in the Pyrenees on the French and Spanish border. The summit was technically in Spain, though the only access was from France. We went there through Basque towns and villages. One evening we went to see a Basque dance show, which was very picturesque. I won a bottle of cheap sparkling wine, which I declined to drink, as I had already discovered in Besançon that cheap sparkling wine made me ill. (I persisted with that belief for many years, but, since then, either the quality of wine has improved or my tolerance has increased, because I don’t have that problem now!) We also went to watch games of pelote basque, played against a wall with a chistera.

We also went through the Landes, miles and miles of flat land with pine forests, to a large lagoon at Hossegor. And we went to Hendaye, where the beach was very flat and much safer for the children to bathe.

I don’t remember much about the other monitors. There was a Laotian chap, pronounced Lang. He was a bit older than me, both world wise and world weary. He spoke fluent French, but with a strong accent. Everything seemed to amuse him! Denise Tessier came as a monitrice at the end of July. There was also a tall, sophisticated girl, called Eliane, who lived near Huguette and Guy. I came across all of these again within the next two or three years. One evening, a group of monitors broke the rules and went out on the tiles to Biarritz.

The CCCS was running three three-week colonies at Anglet in that summer of 1960. I had been recruited for the first two. Towards the end of the second one, Huguette asked me if I would stay and work for the third one. I was flattered to be asked and would have liked to, but I had promised my parents that I would go home in September. Eventually I agreed to stay for another 10 days. The third batch of monitors were a rumbustious lot and we had a lot of fun. In particular, we went one evening, with permission this time, to the Fête de Bayonne, not quite Rio, but lively, nevertheless. We danced in the streets, singing:

Il était une fermière

Qui allait au marché

Elle portait sur sa tête

Trois pommes dans un panier

Les pommes faisaient Rouli Roula

Les pommes faisaient Rouli Roula

Stop !

Trois pas en avant

Trois pas en arrière

Deux pas sur l'côté

Et deux pas d'l'autre côté

It was that evening, that a girl, called Francine, who I thought fancied me (though any attraction was not mutual) used an expression that is common enough, but which I had not heard before. I thought she said: J’aime bien me marier ! This set alarm bells ringing! What she actually said was: J’aime bien me marrer ! (I like to have fun!)

September 1960

I spent a night in a room with Francine. I don’t quite remember when: it was probably in early September 1960, but it may have been the following year. There were a number of us back in Paris at the end of the colonie with nowhere to stay. The young woman who took over as infirmière for the second part of the colonie had a place in Montrouge. She invited us to spend the night at her place. There was Francine, Lang and a couple of other people. I was both excited and intimidated at the prospect of spending the night in the same room as a young woman. Once again I was disappointed. The floor was very uncomfortable.

I had decided to go home for a few weeks before coming back to France at the end of September. I had heard of a company called Skyways, which took passengers by coach and air from Paris to London and back. Accordingly, I went into the Skyways office in the Place de la République and bought a ticket for 80 New Francs, possibly for the same day. I then got on a coach, also in the Place de la République, and was taken to the tiny airport at Beauvais – an airstrip and a shed! We then got on a small Douglas-DC3 aeroplane. It was the first time I had been on an aeroplane and I was more than a little apprehensive. The man sitting next to me tried to reassure me, but spoiled his message by saying that it was only taking off and landing that were dangerous. We flew to Lympne in Kent. From there a coach took us to Victoria Coach Station in London.

I spent three uneventful weeks in Wymeswold. Having spent two months in the sun at Anglet, I was brown all over, apart from the bit covered by my shorts. I remember that the weather in England that September was uninteresting – not much rain, but not much sunshine either – a complete contrast with the South-West of France.

At this point in my story I need to wind back eight or nine months.

At Manchester University, we had an obligation to spend a term in France. We were also given the opportunity of spending the following school year in France. The offer was to work as an assistant in a French lycée, helping the qualified French teachers to teach English. Among other things, this would mean postponing the final year at Manchester for a year. It seemed to me to be a great opportunity, though I was in a minority: out of 70 of us, only 10 accepted the offer. These included my friends Bob Davies and Godfrey Shaw. Other opportunities for other people arose later on, either immediately after finals, or after completion of the teaching diploma for those who were going to go into teaching. At some stage my friend John Jordan spent a year in France, but I’m not sure when. My friend, Bryn James, did it after he had finished his teaching diploma.

When I put in my application, I was asked where in France I wanted to go. I said the Doubs department. When I left Besançon at the beginning of July, I still didn’t know where I was going, so I left my bike and my trunk in Besançon. At some stage during the next three months, I learned that I was going to the Lycée de Pontarlier, which is at the very south of the Doubs department. So, on that occasion my wish was granted – not surprising really, because I don’t suppose many potential applicants had even heard of it!

I had to go for an interview in London. During an otherwise unmemorable interview, the interviewer advised me not to be too forthright in my advice to fellow teachers, who might not take too kindly to being lectured by what they might consider to be a mere child. I found that a bit odd at the time, as I thought I had long since left childhood behind.

I then went to Paris – via Lympne and Beauvais – for an indoctrination seminar at the Sorbonne. I shared a room with a chap from Bristol, who boasted of his sexual successes with the women of that city. (The exact words he used have been censored.) I also went to see one of the monitrices at Anglet, who lived near the Porte d’Italie, and declared my undying love for her. I can’t remember her name, but I can still see her beautiful dark brown hair and her beautiful round face. My advances were rebuffed gently but firmly.

Pontarlier

Early in October 1960, I took the train from the Gare de Lyon to Pontarlier, along the same track for most of the way as I had taken fifteen months before. The English teacher at the Lycée de Pontarlier, Andrée Queney, met me at the station and took me to the school, which was just across the square from the station. Andrée was in her forties. She had fair hair. She was very tiny, well under five feet tall. She had spent a year as an assistant teacher in Edinburgh, so she spoke English with a Franco-Scottish accent.

Her husband, Marcel was also short, but a lot taller than her. He was a little older too. He was a French and Latin teacher at the school. He had been in the French resistance during the war and had been captured by the Germans and escaped several times, only to be recaptured. He had a fund of stories about life in the prison camps. They were set to make armaments for the German army, but sabotaged them by putting in parts that didn’t work. He also said that the Germans tried to starve them to death. The only way to combat this was to restrict physical activity to a minimum. One pupil confided to me that Monsieur Queney still did! He was certainly not the most dynamic of teachers. He was, however, a keen handyman. As well as owning their house 100 metres from the school, they had a property in Besançon and two or three old properties in Malbuisson – across the lake from Les Grangettes. Years later, after they had retired, Marcel spent a lot of time renovating the properties in Malbuisson.

They had a son, Jean-François, who was in his first year at the lycée, when I was there.

On that first day, Andrée told me that, not without difficulty, she had found me a room. This was with Monsieur and Madame Robbe-Grillet at 12 rue Querret. It was a quarter of an hour’s walk in a straight line from the school – down across the main street, down over the river Doubs and up the hill on the other side. Monsieur Robbe was a retired railwayman, probably an engine driver. Railway workers were well looked after in France, so I imagine he had a reasonable pension. He was a very quiet man, so I don’t remember him saying very much. His wife, on the other hand, was one of those people who never stop talking. Added to which she had a rather grating, whining voice. Nevertheless she was very good to me. I had an upstairs room, with a tiny washroom attached to it. There was a stove on the landing outside my room. I don’t remember cooking anything, but I do remember boiling my washing and pegging it out to dry in the garden. During the long winter the shirts froze stiff on the line. After a few days, I asked Madame Robbe if she would make breakfast for me. This was an unusual request in France, but after a day’s reflection she agreed to do it. They also invited me to play cards with them some evenings, which was again unusual. They had a number of grown-up children, most of whom lived away from home, but their youngest son was about my age and still lived at home.

12 rue Querret, 2012

Lycée de Pontarlier c.1983

I was introduced to the school and a whole new educational system. The first strange thing was that the headmaster, le proviseur, was not a teacher, but an administrator. His deputy, the Surveillant Général, Monsieur Sapin, was also not a teacher. He was responsible for discipline in the school. There was also an économe, a bursar, responsible for financial matters and his assistant, Dorothée. He also had a second assistant, Paule, but I think she arrived later on.

There were several types of pupil in the school. About half were boarders, most of whom stayed at the school for several weeks, before going home for the occasional weekend. Then there were those who came at 8 o’clock in the morning and went home at 6 o’clock in the evening. The others only came to school when they had lessons and were free to leave for lunch or when they had a free period.

There were two corresponding types of surveillant or pion, as they were more commonly called: those responsible for boarders and those responsible for looking after the day students who weren’t free to leave between 8 a.m. and 6 p.m. Together, they were responsible for the “well-being” (sic) and discipline of all the students outside the class-room. The teachers’ remit began and ended in the class-room. Thus the pions were responsible for supervising the dormitories, recreation areas and canteen. They were also responsible for supervising the private study sessions which took place every afternoon. The pions were an unruly and rumbustious lot. They certainly didn’t lead by example. They were to be my main friends and companions for the next nine months.

Who were they? Most of them were students of one sort or another, trying to earn some money, while pursuing their studies (or not pursuing them, as the case may be!) They were mostly male, which makes me wonder whether there were any female boarders. Many didn’t stay for long – I can only think of two that spent the whole year as pions – Chapuis and Robardet.

Among the first batch was Gérard Althuser, a young Alsatian. He was very proficient at Baby-foot, a game I quickly learned to play at the Café Français. I had not been at Pontarlier very long, when he went off to Besançon University to study chemistry – never to be seen again, one might suppose. But no! We exchanged emails earlier this week. Sometime in November 1960, I bumped into him and he invited me to go and stay with his family, who had a farm not far from Mulhouse.

So, one Saturday in December or January, I got on a train or a series of trains, and made my way to his house. That was another new experience! His parents lived in a big old farmhouse, built to withstand the harsh Central European winter. The cows were housed in the cowshed, adjoining the kitchen, thus providing mutual warmth to the animals and humans. It was very cold. On the Sunday they took me to Mulhouse Zoo, where all the pools were frozen solid. I took the night train back to Pontarlier. I don’t think I had to change, but I discovered that the train was going to split at some stage and some carriages would go to Pontarlier and some to another town where I didn’t want to be! So I had to keep awake to make sure I was in the right section of the train.

I have kept in touch with Gérard for 60 years. In 1969/70 we were both in Africa – he in Cameroon and the Ivory Coast, I in Swaziland. On the first occasion when I took a car to France in 1973 we went to see him and his wife, Margot, in Montargis. Three years later we went to stay with them in their new house in Gouvieux near Chantilly. We went there several times after that, the last being in 2009.

Another early pion was called Zacchini, or similar. He was called up for national army service at the beginning of November 1960. I can still remember his mournful, slightly terrified expression. At that time national service was – or was about to be – for 28 months and would almost certainly include a spell in Algeria. Was he to be one of the 23,196 French soldiers killed in Algeria? I never heard of him again.

A contrasting character was Bordet. He came to the school in December or January. He was the son of a philosophy teacher at Poligny. He had been an officer in the French Foreign Legion. He had been caught in an ambush and shot through the nose. He had been sent back to France to recuperate. He was very sanguine about his experience: “If they’d waited another second, they could have killed me,” he said. I never saw Bordet again after I left Pontarlier, but I thought about him, when writing my University thesis on existentialism.

There were a number of strong characters among the pions. The strongest was Claude Talon. He was about three years older than me. He came from a relatively poor family in Besançon, where his mother still lived. He had a degree in Natural Science, but had not passed the CAPES (Certificat d’Aptitude Pédagogique pour l’Education Secondaire) which all secondary school teachers had to get before they could obtain a permanent teaching post. But Claude was allowed to teach as a replacement for an established teacher who was on sick or maternity leave and that is what he did for most of the year. He still ate most of his meals with the pions – and me.

The meals – two of them each day – were probably the high point of the day. I should probably say “the low point”. These were the young men who were in charge of discipline in the school. It would be a euphemism to say that their behaviour was “disgusting”. We were seated at a long table for about 12 people in a partitioned area at the end of the canteen. The food was fairly good. There was only one plate per person, which was used for the dessert as well as the hors d’oeuvre and main course. Red wine was available. It was not very good – Claude said it was doctored with chemicals – but any wine was good for me in those days. But the behaviour! First of all they were very noisy. Secondly the language was uncouth. It was the law of the jungle for the best pieces of meat, with the strongest always winning. Then there was constant bullying of the less strong members of the group. Finally, there was constant sexual harassment of the two young women, Dorothée and Paule, who joined us for most of the meals. Dorothée treated the comments with haughty and amused disdain, but Paule was often reduced to tears.

Claude told me a story about meat one day:

“A Frenchman and an Englishman went into a restaurant one day. They both ordered steak and, in due course, two pieces of steak were placed on a serving dish in the centre of the table: one piece was beautifully succulent and appetising; the other was scraggy and not at all appetising. The Englishman picked up the dish and offered it to the Frenchman. The latter chose the juicy steak and held the dish for the Englishman to take the other one. The Englishman then complained to the Frenchman: ‘If you had offered me the choice, I would have taken the scraggy one.’ To which the Frenchman replied: ‘So you got what you chose, anyway, didn’t you?’”

The main object of Claude’s bullying was a chap called Chapuis, ce con de Chapuis, as Claude invariably called him. Their backgrounds were similar: Chapuis also visited his mother in Besançon; they may well have known each other before they came to Pontarlier. Chapuis was not such a weak character. Perhaps that is why Claude felt the need constantly to put him down, but put him down he did! Every day! Several times a day!

Unlike the pions, I was allowed in the staff room. This was a small room, with a lot of books, a bit like the only school library I ever knew, at Loughborough Grammar School, only smaller. I spent quite a lot of time there, but there were not usually more than four or five other teachers there. Most, especially the married ones, came in to school to deliver their courses and then went home again.

There were three grades of teachers. At the top of the pile were the agrégés, people who had obtained a higher level teaching qualification. They were paid more and taught fewer hours – 12 hours a week. Next were the holders of the CAPES. Most of the teachers were in this category. They were contracted to work 16, 18 or 20 hours a week – I don’t remember which. All these teachers had tenure – once they had been appointed to a post, they could stay there as long as they wished. On the other hand, short of entering the agrégation competition, which older people rarely did, there was little or no possibility for promotion: there were no heads of department, and headships were obtainable through a different career path. The third category consisted of auxiliary teachers, people like Claude, who had not yet obtained their CAPES. They did not have the security of a permanent post and weren’t paid as much.

Most of the teachers went home for their meals, but four unmarried ones went to a local restaurant, where they had an arrangement for a regular meal at a reduced price. They were Wenger, an Alsatian, Rieu, Louis Garret and a young female Natural Science teacher, whose name I don’t remember.

There were three English teachers: Andrée Queney, Louis Garret and Madame Hérard. I didn’t have a lot to do with Madame Hérard. She was on maternity leave for most of the time I was there. I think Andrée felt she had a duty to mother me. Louis was struggling to obtain his CAPES at the second or third attempt and invited me into some of his classes to help him. He was a frisky thirty-year old, quite staid in some ways, but childlike in others. While I was there he bought his first car, a Citroën 2cv, which he showed off to me like a girl with a new pony.

As I said earlier, this was a mixed lycée. The school years were numbered in the opposite way to the English system. So the pupils started at eleven years old in sixième and progressed to première, at the end of which they took their first baccalauréat. (This first baccalauréat was abolished some years later.) The final year did not have a number, but was simply called Terminale, or more commonly by the subject group which the student had chosen to follow for the second baccalauréat: Philo, MathElem, or SciencesNat. Most of the students wore overalls buttoned down the front all the time they were on the school premises. The boys’ overalls were dark grey and made out of a rough material. The girls’ were pale pink, blue or green and made of nylon or cotton.

Although the students started to learn English at the age of 11, it was decided that I should take conversation classes only for the three oldest year groups: seconde, première and Philo. Attendance was voluntary. I had twelve hour-long classes a week, four of which were on a Saturday morning – from 8:00 to midday. There were no classes anywhere in France on Thursdays or Sundays. The school was open on Saturday afternoons, but the timetable was arranged so that there were few classes then.

My first class was on Monday 10th October 1960. It snowed that day! The youngest pupils were the most rewarding. They were mostly enthusiastic and keen to learn. The three or four Philo students who turned up on a Saturday morning were also friendly and we had a good conversation. On the other hand, there was a class of première students on Tuesday afternoons who were particularly obnoxious. They were mostly day students with well-to-do parents. They affected an air of supercilious boredom and superiority, which I found difficult to cope with.

There was a system in French schools that students who didn’t achieve the appropriate grade stayed in the same class for the following year. I was just coming up to 21. Some of the Philo students were older than me!

After I had been there a few weeks, I thought it might be a good idea to try to learn something in a more structured way. So I enquired if I could join the Philosophy class. My request was granted. So, for the rest of the year I went and sat alongside my students in the Philosophy class, who were preparing for the Philo baccalauréat. This was a worthwhile experience. I learned something and I improved my written French by writing all the essays. The teacher was Monsieur Dumont, an older man. He was a devout Catholic and a server in the church. Towards the end of my stay, he invited me round to his house. He offered me absinthe to drink. This drink had been produced in Pontarlier, but had been banned in France since 1915. As far as I can recall, it wasn’t a particularly pleasant drink – it was rather bitter. The excitement was in the fact that it was illegal.

Coming from England, where most wine and spirits were prohibitively expensive for an ordinary student, I was surprised how freely available spirits were, particularly distillations of pears, plums and cherries, as well as marc, made from distilled grape pulp. Much of this was home made. Claude explained to me once how dangerous it was to make. There was a time in the middle of the process which produced good spirits. At the beginning of the process, the drinks were no good; after a certain point, there was too much alcohol and they became poisonous. I think a licence was required for home distillation, but a lot was produced illegally. It was illegal to “export” these products outside the département.

In 1973, we went to stay with my friend Robert (see Belley later on) in the Vosges. He gave me a bottle of pruneau which his father had made legally, but warned me about the export restrictions. It was very good and so I drank it sparingly. That bottle travelled with me back to Bushey in Hertfordshire, to Brussels, Bushey, Watford and Brussels again before finally being emptied in Skegness in about 2003.

Most of my social life was spent in the company of the pions. On the first day that we met, Claude decided that my name would be Willie, because all the assistants were called Willie. This was because one of my predecessors had been Willie Dickinson. He had been a larger-than-life Irishman with ginger hair and a ginger beard, who had obviously made a strong impression. So Willie I became and have remained with three of them for 60 years now!

Le Café Français – still recognisable 60 years later

We spent many hours in the Café Français, which was situated in the middle of the main street, near the crossroads on the road between the school and the house where I lived. The waitress, Françoise, was an attractive 25-year old. She was teased unmercifully, but gave back as good as she got with good humour. We spent hours there, but didn’t spend very much. Typically we would buy a coffee for 50 old francs and play Babyfoot for hours. Most of the pions were very good at it, especially Gérard.

After a few weeks they taught me to play tarot. This is a game, which, at that time, was played mainly in the mountains of Savoy and the Jura. The game belongs to the same family as whist, but is much more complicated. There are 78 cards – four suits of 14 cards each, 21 trump cards and a special wild card. They are the same cards as are used for fortune telling, but we didn’t have anything to do with that. We played for money, though the stakes were very small. My “friends” thought they could get some easy money of the English boy, but I learn quickly, when money is involved. I think I made a small profit over the course of the year.

One chap who didn’t was a pion with the surname of Martin. He consistently lost money. I didn’t like him very much, but he persuaded me to lend him about 50 New Francs each month (about an eighth of my salary) so that he could send it to his aged mother. I did that for about six months. To be fair, he always paid me back at the beginning of the next month.

We spent a lot of time playing tarot, in the café, in the school and elsewhere. In particular, in February I went to the Mont d’Or skiing with Claude and his girlfriend, Mady. We went out on the slopes, but it had started to rain so we retired to a bar and spent the afternoon, playing tarot. Some four or five years later I taught Jennifer and our friend Bernard to play. We played regularly until we left Walsall at the end of 1966, even buying a new pack of cards. We have hardly played since – but we still have the cards!

Another favourite activity was the Saturday afternoon promenade. Every Saturday afternoon half the population went to the main street and walked up and down the 500 metres between the bridge over the Doubs and the Porte Saint-Pierre. The main objective, as far as the young people were concerned, appeared to be to find people of the opposite sex to chat to.

It was all harmless fun … generally. One Saturday afternoon, however, I was with a pion called Gaudet, a young man with strong socialist views. At one point, we decided to cross the road, as one does from time to time. Unfortunately we stepped out in front of a police car whose driver had to brake to avoid us. The two policemen jumped out of the car and asked to see our papers. When one of them saw that I was English he exploded at this foreigner who had come to France and broken their laws. (We had not crossed at a pedestrian crossing.) We were both fined 300 old francs on the spot. I was very upset. I decided that I would not go to the Saturday night dance in the Town Hall, as an act of penance and to save the money that I had spent on the fine. I spent a miserable evening alone in my room instead. News of my criminal activity spread quickly through the school. A few days later, a young woman who worked as a pion for day girls told me that her father was a councillor or similar and that if I had asked her she could have got me off. Too late!

The cinema was another entertainment. I found it strange that in France, at least at that time, after dinner one either went home to bed or one went to the cinema. There was a good little cinema in Pontarlier. So sometimes, instead of going home to bed, I would go with friends to the cinema. We would go about nine o’clock, watch some adverts, a trailer or a ‘B’ film, then go out to the café and return to the cinema to watch the main film which started at about ten o’clock. I remember three of the films that I watched there: Psycho, La Belle et la Bête and Les Quatre Cents Coups. (I next went to that cinema with Jennifer in 1993, when we saw Les Visiteurs.)

In case you have forgotten, the title of this book is: I went there on my bike. At some point in October 1960, I went to Besançon to fetch my bike. There was a half-term holiday at the end of October for La Toussaint. I decided to go on my bike to Switzerland for a few days, staying in Youth Hostels. On the first day I rode to Lausanne. On the second day, I rode along the lake to Montreux. There I found a café or restaurant, with a beautiful view over the lake and the mountains. I remembered that my grandmother had said that Montreux was the most beautiful place in the world. I was inclined to agree with her. As it was only 15 kilometres or so to my next destination of Château d’Oex, I decided to linger a while. A big mistake!

I rode for a couple of kilometres past the end of the lake, then turned left up a steep mountain. (I have just tried to check the distance on Google, but the road I took appears not to exist anymore!) I pushed my bike for most of the way up the mountain. About a third of the way up, the road forked. There was a bar at the side of the junction. I was very thirsty. The owners spoke Swiss German, which I found almost incomprehensible. I tried to order a shandy and a sandwich. What I got was a large bottle of beer, a large bottle of lemonade, half a loaf of bread and some ham and gherkins. Even in those days, the Swiss franc was quite strong, so my snack cost me the equivalent of seven shillings and sixpence – the price of an expensive three-course meal in a French restaurant. Eventually I got to the top of the mountain. It was nearly dark by then. Nevertheless I careered down the other side of the mountain at great speed, testing my brakes to the full and arrived safely at the Youth Hostel in Chateau d’Oex. I went to a restaurant for a meal and had a good night’s sleep.

The following day I rode along the south side of Thunsee to Interlaken. The youth hostel there was quite a way south of the lake and surprisingly primitive. Then I rode on the north side of Thunsee and crossed over to Fribourg. After Fribourg, the route followed an unmade road. I spent the Wednesday night at the youth hostel at Murten on the Murtensee.

That is where I woke up on my 21st birthday! I rode back through Neuchatel, crossed the Jura and rode down into Pontarlier. When I got back to my room there was a parcel from my mother and a lot of cards, some from people that I had not expected to write to me, including one of the girls I knew in Wymeswold, Ann Meadows. I went to the school for my evening meal and was quite excited to tell my friends that it was my 21st birthday. They were not impressed. At that time, at least, the French made more of their 20th birthday. They did, however, condescend to drink the bottle of bubbly that I had bought!

At some point in November or December the snow came in earnest and lasted for about three months. Pontarlier is situated on a plateau some 840 metres above sea-level. When the snow comes everything changes. The river freezes and the roads and pavements are covered with snow and ice. The shops are decorated for Christmas and the whole scene is reminiscent of an old-fashioned Christmas card.

One day in late November, I was invited to stay with a friend who lived in Mouthe. Mouthe is reputed to be the coldest village in France. It lived up to its reputation, that weekend. (Some 30 years later, I took Jennifer to Mouthe in the summer. The temperature was over 30 degrees!)

I went skiing three or four times. The first time Danièle Borgazzi took me. You may recall that I had met her at Crissey in June 1959. She was home from University for Christmas. We went on the slopes on the outskirts of Pontarlier. I spent most of the time trying to get up after falling down. I also went with Mady and Claude to the Mont d’Or two or three times. I got on better with the skiing – I stayed with Mady on the beginners’ pistes – but had considerable problems with the tire-fesses (drag lifts). You are supposed to grab hold of these as they go past and “ski” up the mountain. The opportunities for getting this wrong are boundless! On another occasion I went cross-country skiing with a chap called Bourdon (or similar). He lived in a village to the west of Pontarlier. I enjoyed that, though we probably didn’t have the right equipment.

I have vivid memories of Christmas Eve and Christmas Day 1960. Andrée Queney invited me to her house for the réveillon. It was a particularly boring evening. I was left sitting around while she faffed about preparing for the midnight party. They were devout Catholics. So just before 11:30 p.m. we were marched off to the church for the midnight mass. I remember Andrée making a point of telling me that I couldn’t take communion, because I wasn’t a Catholic. We then repaired back to their house, where we opened presents (there was one for me!) ate cake and drank champagne. Possibly worth the wait, though by this time I was very tired! But the most memorable experience was still to come – the journey home! It was about three o’clock in the morning when I stepped out of their house. It was a beautiful moonlit night – and minus 21 degrees! I had never been so cold. And it was going to be over forty years before I experienced such a temperature again – in Sweden in 2003 or 2004.

Danièle invited me to have Christmas lunch with her family. Her father and mother and brother were there. We had snails as a starter. I remember that her brother was quicker than me at eating the snails and so I did not get so many as he did. Danièle’s mother, unfortunately, was killed a few years’ later, when her car came off the road between Pontarlier and Ornans.

In February 1961, Claude organised a wine-tasting trip to Burgundy. There were four of us: Claude, Mady, Bordet and I. We set out in Claude’s Simca car, early on Sunday morning. Our first stop was at a vineyard in Nuits St Georges. There we tasted liberally many different sorts of local wine. The owner offered us 12 bottles of Nuits St. Georges 1959 at something like 1000 old francs a bottle – quite expensive, but that was to become one of the wines of the century!

Our next stop was at a high class restaurant in Dijon, owned by Mady’s sister and her husband. We took the most expensive menu – 1700 old francs – more than three times what I normally paid. The meal was very good and suitably accompanied by more good Burgundy wine.

Our next stop was at Poligny, where we called in to see Bordet’s father. He was a philosophy teacher at the local lycée. There we were offered a glass of marc. On the way back to Pontarlier, we went past an English pub. It was decided to stop and buy a glass of English beer in my honour (though I have a feeling it might have been Guinness, that we drank!)

I was dropped off in the centre of Pontarlier. I called in at the Café Français and – much to Françoise’s amusement – ordered a glass of … Vichy fraise – the mildest possible drink. After all that drinking I did not have a headache the following day. My explanation for that was that everything we had drunk had been of very good quality.

Some five years later, Jennifer and I went to stay with Mady and Claude. They were married by this time and lived in Besançon in a house owned by Mady’s parents. One day they took us to Poligny to visit an old friend of Claude’s whose father had a wine cellar. We were duly given wine to taste – Vin du Jura. Afterwards, the young man asked us to taste something different. He explained that his father had given him permission to clean out an old cellar to convert it into a disco. The cellar had not been used for a number of years and was full of junk. It also contained a full barrel of liquid. He poured a small liqueur glass for each of us. The liquid was clear. It had hardly any taste and certainly didn’t burn my throat on the way down. Immediately afterwards, I had this feeling of well-being, as though I had communed with the essence of the grape! The experts had told the young man that the barrel contained marc which was a hundred years old.

Long before that, I was invited once or twice to Sunday lunch with Mady’s parents at their home in Frasne. Mady’s father was a notaire and very bourgeois, in contrast to most of the people that I came across, who were mostly very down-to-earth. I was, of course, treated very politely and the food and wine were very good.

I had a lot more dealings with another bourgeois family. One day, Andrée asked me if I would give private English lessons to a boy in troisième. He had had health problems and had fallen behind in English. (I don’t think he had very far to fall!) His father owned the pharmacy, right on the cross-roads in the centre of Pontarlier. They were also very posh and a bit more ostentatious than Mady’s parents. I was invited for lunch one day and there was an array of glasses, plates and cutlery – in contrast to the school canteen where there was one place setting for all courses.

The boy’s name was Gérard. I gave him weekly lessons for several months. Towards the end of my stay, I suggested that we went on a bike ride together. After some hesitation his mother agreed. We set off one Saturday morning and spent the first night at Neuchatel in Switzerland. The next day, we cycled along the Bielersee to Biel. We cycled to the railway station, put our bikes on the train and travelled back to Pontarlier.

I used to like to go to Switzerland. It was still a little exotic. Every time I went I had my passport stamped four times – by the French and Swiss on the way in and the reverse on the way back. Mady and Claude took me to Vallorbe several times. Vallorbe was the nearest town in Switzerland.

On one occasion Claude took Bordet and me to Les Verrières, the nearest border village. I don’t think we had our passports with us. So Claude drove up to the French border post and parked his car there. We then decided to go for a walk in the forest. We set off uphill along the border and walked for about a kilometre through the forest. We then came to a clearing and continued to walk, in the snow, in the same direction. After a short while, we came across a man dressed like Robin Hood. The conversation was very good-natured, but the man explained to us that were now in Switzerland and that he was a Swiss border-guard. Nevertheless, we were allowed to continue and went for a drink in a bar. We were also allowed to return to France without charge.

One Saturday evening early on in my stay a group of us went to Neuchatel for a fondue. La fondue is a typical Swiss dish. It is a mixture of Gruyère cheese and white wine, heated in a pot. Each participant has a fork and cubes of bread. The bread is dipped into the melted cheese and consumed along with suitable quantities of white wine. (In Switzerland, the standard measure for wine is the decilitre.)

I ate fondues on several occasions. The first couple of times I liked it, but after that it made me sick and I went off it. We quite often went out on Saturday evenings for a gueuleton or nosh-up. We usually went to a cheap restaurant and washed the food down with copious amounts of wine. As I have never liked being sick, I developed a knack of stopping drinking, just before I was going to feel ill. One evening in February, we went to a good restaurant, where I had my first taste of frogs’ legs – very tasty, but not much of them! But the white Muscadet wine which went with them was delicious.

I joined a wrestling club with Robardet and someone else, but didn’t enjoy it very much. It amused the man in charge, though: he was able to hold international wrestling contests.

Personal hygiene was a problem, though at 21 I was not over-concerned. The only way of having a bath or shower was by going to the public baths. They were situated in an old building just across the river at the bottom of the hill from where I lived. So, some Saturday afternoons (not many!) I took my towel and wash things and paid for a session in a bath cubicle.

I bought a transistor radio, which I kept in my room. I listened to France Inter and Radio Suisse Romande. Sacha Distel and Les Compagnons de la Chanson were very popular at that time. In spite of all the excitement I often got bored at the weekends.

During my time at Pontarlier I was supposed to do some reading in preparation for my final year at university. Before I left Manchester, I had had to choose a special subject for study in depth. Then, before the end of the Final year I would have to prepare a thesis of between 12000 and 15000 words. The subject I had chosen was “The Contemporary French novel”. The authors to be studied were Camus, Malraux, Saint-Exupéry and Sartre. In my wisdom (or lack of it) I took the novels by Sartre with me to France. These included the first two volumes of Les Chemins de la Liberté, entitled L’Age de Raison and le Sursis. These are two of the most boring books I have ever read. Consequently it took me all year to read them and I read little else.

The following year, I expressed my criticism of Le Sursis to Graham Daniels, who was the tutor for the special subject. I said that for me a first requirement of a novel was that it should be comprehensible. In Le Sursis Sartre took a slice of time – the eight days before the signing of the Munich Agreement in 1938 – and explored the reactions of numerous characters to the possibility of war. He jumped without warning or preamble from one group to another, which made it very difficult, at least for me, to follow what was going on. Furthermore, as had been the case in ‘L’Age de Raison, I found most of the characters unattractive. Graham Daniels replied with a knowing smile that Le Sursis, by looking at time vertically instead of horizontally, was considered to be an innovative novel.

Antibes

The CCCS invited me to go to Antibes for a fortnight at Easter 1961. This I was very pleased to accept. The colonie itself was not particularly memorable. We walked down to the Port de la Salis and on one occasion, we walked round the ramparts into the old town.

I went on two memorable excursions, probably on the same day. In the morning, we went to St Paul de Vence, a village perché, which had been converted, even then, into an up-market artists’ paradise. On a fine day, which this was, it is as near to Paradise as most of us will ever get! Later, the coach took us along the Moyenne Corniche between Nice and Monaco. This is a road several hundred metres above sea-level with a sheer drop down to the Mediterranean below. It is a wonderful sight, but not quite so enjoyable if one is the driver, which I have been on several occasions since! We also went to Eze and saw the exotic cactus plants there.

Left: St Paul de Vence

Right: Eze

I then went on my own by coach to San Remo in Italy. Although I had tried to teach myself Italian, this was the only chance I had to go to Italy before I was nearly 40. It is more exotic than France. I particularly liked the flower-lined promenade there.

Back to Pontarlier

As I have mentioned earlier, the war in Algeria was at its height throughout this period. I went by coach to Besançon one Thursday in April to see Charles Baudard. In late afternoon, he insisted on accompanying me back to the coach station. This was partly because he wanted to see what was happening in one of the anti-Government demonstrations that were taking place all over France that day, including Besançon. We went to a café by the Pont Battant. A big and noisy demonstration was taking place in the square outside the café. The CRS riot police occupied the bridge, so that it was completely blocked. Anyone who stepped off the pavement was hit on the head by a truncheon. Frightening! I managed to get to the coach station unscathed, but one of the young pions was not so fortunate (or careful) and ended up in hospital. This was the day that I discovered that French policemen were not at all like English bobbies!

On 21st April 1961, a number of French generals revolted and took control of Algeria. It was feared that they would seek to invade mainland France. De Gaulle once again took to the airwaves in full military uniform and made an impassioned plea to the French population, which ended Françaises, Français ! Aidez-moi ! He also declared a state of emergency, giving himself supreme power until 30th September. Meanwhile in Pontarlier, there was concern that the invasion might land at the airstrip on the outskirts of the town. A group of vigilantes, led by Monsieur Blondeau, spent one or two nights at the airstrip, keeping watch in case the invaders landed there. They didn’t! Blondeau was a big, bearded man, who was a teacher at our school. He was a member of the French Communist Party and a deputy mayor of Pontarlier.

Not many of my colleagues at the school were particularly politically minded, but those that were, were of a left-wing persuasion. A new political party, the Parti Socialiste Unifié, was formed, led by Pierre Mendès-France. Gaudet was a member and I found his ideas quite attractive. Marcel Queney was also a socialist, but he remained faithful to the traditional socialist party led by Guy Mollet.

One weekend Marcel and a couple of other teachers took a group of senior pupils to Montana in Switzerland. They invited me to go with them. We stayed in a good hotel, but, as it was low season, it was reasonably priced. Montana is a fashionable resort – several steps up-market from Pontarlier. On the Saturday evening, I went out with the pupils. Marcel said on the Sunday morning that he was pleased I had done so, because I had been able to keep an eye on them. I am not sure that the compliment was accurate, but no harm was done. A famous British author was staying in the same hotel with a lady friend. I think her name was Nancy Sears, but I am not sure.

There are many public holidays in France in May. The dates of most French holidays are fixed, so, if it falls on a Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday, people often make the bridge to the nearest weekend.

One weekend I decided to take my bike as far as I could westwards and then get the train back. Accordingly I rode to Autun. I am sorry to say that I don’t remember anything more about that journey. That was to be the last bike ride of any significance in this story.

A few weeks later, I was much more ambitious. I decided to hitch-hike as far as I could in a south-westerly direction. I had no destination in mind and certainly not the one I ended up in. My lifts took me across the Saône to Paray-le-Monial, which I recollect as being in a mining area, but I can find no evidence to support that. The next day I went to Vichy. During the war Vichy had been the capital of the French State, but by this time it had reverted to being a quiet, but opulent, spa town. I saw a snake on the bridge there, but it slithered away harmlessly.

I got a lift to the outskirts of Clermont-Ferrand. From there, I got a lift with a taciturn lorry-driver, who was going to Alès, nearly 300 kilometres away. He asked me to give him directions. I had my map. I could see that about 40 km south of Clermont, the road forked and we needed to take the left fork. Unfortunately, when we got there, I missed it and we took the road to Montpellier instead. It was some time before we realised that I had made a mistake. The lorry driver was not amused, but there was no way he could turn his big lorry round on those narrow windy roads. The first opportunity to get back on a main road to Alès was at Mende, nearly 150 kilometres from Clermont. So we went about 50 kilometres out of our way.

It was one of the most beautiful journeys I ever went on. It would have been late spring. The sun was shining. The earth was dry. There were hardly any trees, just scrub-like bushes. Very little human habitation, just miles and miles of open mountainous countryside. Eventually, we went through the towns of Mende and Florac. I remember thinking that this would be the most beautiful place to spend one’s life and that I would go back there. I hardly ever did! I think I realised even then, that there wouldn’t be much for me actually to do there.

Eventually we arrived at Alès in late afternoon, some 500 kilometres from Pontarlier by a direct route. Alès is not the ideal holiday destination. But it was warm and sunny and it was the south of France: the nearest well-known towns are Avignon and Nimes. And it did have a citadel built by Vauban! I spent most of the next day sitting in the sun reading a book.

Fort Vauban

The following day I started my journey back to Pontarlier. I got a lift to St. Etienne. This took me on another scenic journey through the Cévennes. In particular I went near to the Puy de Dôme, a spectacular extinguished volcano.

Le Puy de Dôme

I was bowled over by St Etienne. If I went back there now, I suspect I would find it to be a rather uninteresting industrial town. On that day it encapsulated many of my experiences to date. As I was driven into the city, it was nearly dark. The journey through the dreary suburbs reminded me of a similar journey I had made into Nottingham. The hills around the city reminded me of Besançon. The smell of coffee, when I walked outside the hotel the following morning reminded me of Paris. … And then there was the sunshine and warmth of southern France. I wrote a poem while I was there. Fortunately I can only remember the first line, because the rest doesn’t sound very promising:

Saint-Etienne : Ville de mes rêves !

The next day, I travelled back to Pontarlier. I had arranged to meet Mady and Claude on that Thursday evening, so I had a tight timetable. All went well in the morning, but I got stuck in the afternoon at Lons le Saulnier. I went along to the station, but there were no convenient trains. So, I went back on to the road and thumbed more frantically than usual. It worked!

Towards the end of my stay in Pontarlier, a new pion came to the school. His name was Jean-Claude Boutonnet. He was calmer and more mature than most of the other pions. I got on very well with him. He also came from Besançon and had a widowed mother. He didn’t stay at Pontarlier very long. When he left he said that he was going to study to become a civil servant.

In 1976 – fifteen years later – I was privileged to go on a course at the Ecole Nationale d’Administration (ENA) in Paris. This was the institution where all the top civil servants and most government ministers go to complete their education. One day I asked if Jean-Claude had been there. He hadn’t, but the person I asked had a government directory. Jean-Claude was a senior official in the French senate. He later became Director of Finance, one of the most senior non-elected officials in that organisation. I got in touch with him and so a beautiful friendship was resumed. He had a house in Palaiseau on the outskirts of Paris. We have visited him – and his wife, Odette, and their three children on several occasions. They also invited our elder son, Peter, to go on holiday with them to their holiday home in the Alps, which he did on two occasions. When Jean-Claude became Director, they were given an official apartment in Rue Bonaparte, just round the corner from the Palais Luxembourg, where he worked.

He has showed us round the Palais Luxembourg on a number of occasions. It is one of the most beautiful buildings I have ever visited and I would not hesitate to visit again, if I were given the opportunity. On the last occasion – I would have been about 69 at the time – he took us to the restaurant which the senators use. He could not have done that if the Senate had been sitting, but they weren’t. There was an old man sitting in the corner – considerably older than I thought I was! Jean-Claude introduced me to him, as a retired civil servant at the Senate. It turned out that this “old man” had been one of my pupils at Pontarlier.

Jean-Claude in a Senate meeting room 2009

On that occasion Odette told me about Jean-Claude’s early life. I had known that he had gone to the lycée at Besançon and that one of his friends there had been Jean-Pierre Chevènement who had gone on to be a senior minister in successive Socialist governments. But I was shocked to learn that Jean-Claude’s father had been in the French Resistance and had been executed towards the end of the war.

Belley

My contract at Pontarlier expired at the end of June 1961. I bought a new suitcase, in which I put all my most important belongings. I packed everything else in my trunk and despatched it by rail, along with my bike, back to my home in Wymeswold.

I arranged with the CCCS to work as a moniteur in their colonie de vacances at Belley, which was in the Ain department, about half-way between Lyon and Geneva. Geologically it was in the south of the Jura range.

I set out by train from Pontarlier and arrived at Lyon Perrache station in the early afternoon. It was the first time I had been to Lyon and it was very hot. (It was always hot when I went to Lyon!) I had to walk across the centre of Lyon to get a coach to Belley. There were not many other people on the coach, but it was still very hot. Eventually I arrived and made the way to the colonie, which was in the lycée de Belley; from the front this was very similar to the lycée de Pontarlier!

There was nothing very special about Belley, but this was the colonie, which I enjoyed the most. That was, in no small part due to the Director, Paulette Cuny, and her husband, Robert, who was the économe in charge of the administration. They had two boys; Christian was about 10 years old, Pierre was five or six.

Once more I arrived a few days before the children, which gave me an opportunity to learn my way about, beforehand. I also made a conscious effort to be more assertive, as no-one I would meet there knew anything about me. I remember going with Robert to a local farm on a hill-top just outside Belley. The farmer made a very pleasant rosé wine. Robert bought some for the staff to drink. He complained later that, because it was good, we were drinking too much of it and threatened to buy gros rouge instead, if we didn’t reduce our consumption. I don’t know whether we did or not, but, fortunately, the threat was never carried out.

We had a good team of moniteurs. The chaps were housed in small dormitories across a courtyard from the main building.

Near the Col des Aravis, July 1961

Back row: Yvette, Paulette, ?, ?, me, Louisette, 2 kitchen staff; !?

Front row: Robert, Pierre, ?, Christian, Monique, Jacky

We worked and played well together and I think Paulette and Robert were pleased with us. I was quite fond of Monique, an auburn-haired Bretonne from Quimperlé. I pursued her mercilessly throughout the month (and very briefly a year later!) We got on well together and spent at least one day off together. The only tangible reward for my endeavours was one brief kiss. She said later that she regretted it, because it only encouraged me to be more persistent!

I also remember Louisette very well. She was the infirmière. She was a big fair-haired girl, with a strong personality, but whom we teased a lot. She and I had the reputation for being the strictest members of staff.

Once again, I had younger boys, including Pierre Cuny, Paulette’s younger son. The boys were fairly well-behaved, though many of them came from poor Parisian families.

There wasn’t a lot to do in Belley. It was then a town with some 6000 inhabitants. Its main claim to fame was as the birthplace of Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin (1755 to 1826). He was a lawyer and politician, who gained fame as an epicure and writer on gastronomy. He was an early advocate of a low-carbohydrate diet. This was, however, of little interest to me or my children. There was a “stadium” in the town, which we went to once or twice. All I remember about that is that it was a long walk to get there and very hot when we did get there. Nevertheless for the most part, we occupied the children with games and songs in and around the school.

One of the routines in all the colonies was the siesta in the early afternoon. This is a challenging time for the moniteurs as one has to try to get twenty or thirty boys to lie down and keep quiet, when they would prefer to be running around making a noise. Nevertheless, at Belley at least, I was quite good at it. I thought about that experience over 40 years later, when I had great difficulty getting one or two granddaughters to calm down and go to sleep!

We did go on some good excursions from Belley. In particular we went to one or more of the beautiful Savoy lakes and recalled Lamartine’s poem, which was set in the Lac du Bourget.

Le Lac

Ainsi toujours poussés vers de nouveaux rivages,

Dans la nuit éternelle emportés sans retour,

Ne pourrons-nous jamais sur l’océan des âges

Jeter l’ancre un seul jour?

O lac! l’année à peine a fini sa carrière,

Et près des flots chéris qu’elle devait revoir

Regarde! Je viens seul m’asseoir sur cette pierre

Où tu la vis s’asseoir!

Tu mugissais ainsi sous ces roches profondes;

Ainsi tu te brisais sur leurs flancs déchirés:

Ainsi le vent jetait l’écume de tes ondes

Sur ses pieds adorés.

Un soir, t’en souvient-il ? nous voguions en silence;

On n’entendait au loin, sur l’onde et sous les cieux,

Que le bruit des rameurs qui frappaient en cadence

Tes flots harmonieux.

Tout à coup des accents inconnus à la terre

Du rivage charmé frappèrent les échos;

Le flot fut attentif, et la voix qui m’est chère

Laissa tomber ces mots:

“O temps, suspends ton vol! et vous, heures propices,

Suspendez votre cours!

Laissez-nous savourer les rapides délices

Des plus beaux de nos jours!

“Assez de malheureux ici-bas vous implorent:

Coulez, coulez pour eux;

Prenez avec leurs jours les soins qui les dévorent;

Oubliez les heureux.

“Mais je demande en vain quelques moments encore,

Le temps m’échappe et fuit;

Je dis à cette nuit: “Sois plus lente”; et l’aurore

Va dissiper la nuit.

“Aimons donc, aimons donc! de l’heure fugitive,

Hâtons-nous, jouissons!

L’homme n’a point de port, le temps n’a point de rive;

Il coule, et nous passons!”

Temps jaloux, se peut-il que ces moments d’ivresse,

Où l’amour à longs flots nous verse le bonheur,

S’envolent loin de nous de la même vitesse

Que les jours de malheur?

Hé quoi! N’en pourrons-nous fixer au moins la trace?

Quoi! Passés pour jamais? Quoi! Tout entiers perdus?

Ce temps qui les donna, ce temps qui les efface,

Ne nous les rendra plus?

Éternité, néant, passé, sombres abîmes,

Que faites-vous des jours que vous engloutissez?

Parlez: nous rendrez-vous ces extases sublimes

Que vous nous ravissez?

O lac! Rochers muets! Grottes! Forêt obscure!

Vous que le temps épargne ou qu’il peut rajeunir,

Gardez de cette nuit, gardez, belle nature,

Au moins le souvenir!

Qu’il soit dans ton repos, qu’il soit dans tes orages,

Beau lac, et dans l’aspect de tes riants coteaux,

Et dans ces noirs sapins, et dans ces rocs sauvages

Qui pendent sur tes eaux!

Qu’il soit dans le zéphyr qui frémit et qui passe,

Dans les bruits de tes bords par tes bords répétés,

Dans l’astre au front d’argent qui blanchit ta surface

De ses molles clartés!

Que le vent qui gémit, le roseau qui soupire,

Que les parfums légers de ton air embaumé,

Que tout ce qu’on entend, l’on voit ou l’on respire,

Tout dise: “Ils ont aimé!”

Le Lac du Bourget

We also went to the Alps, in particular to the Col des Aravis, an impressive mountain pass at an altitude of almost 1500 metres.

Le Col des Aravis

On one of my days off, I went with Monique to La Mer de Glace, an impressive, though disappointingly dirty, glacier reached from Chamonix.

Chamonix  

Plouha

At the end of my stay at Belley, I packed my suitcase and went by coach, along with some other moniteurs and most of the children to Ambérieu. There we got a train to Paris. The plan was to spend the night in Paris and then I would travel the next day to Plouha in northern Britanny, where I had arranged to work in another CCCS colonie for the month of August.

It was a long train journey to Paris and it was late evening, when we arrived at the Gare de Lyon. I was quite tired. From there I got on the coach, which took me, along with a coach-load of other young adults to the well-appointed hostel accommodation, where I was due to spend the night. I sat near the back and, I thought, I put my suit-case on the back seat of the coach. When we arrived at our destination, a young man, accompanied by a young woman, picked up the suit-case, got off the coach and started carrying it towards the accommodation. I followed him and, after a few yards, I thanked him and said I could carry my own suitcase. He replied that it was not my suitcase, but his. I went back to where the coach had dropped us, but it had already left. I instigated enquiries through CCCS, but I never saw my suit-case again.

You may recall that, when I left Pontarlier, I put all the most important things in the suit-case and sent the rest of my things back to Wymeswold in my trunk. The trunk arrived safely, but not the suit-case. Apart from clothes, the case contained all my university notes (which I would need for the Final Examinations) and the pen which my parents had bought me for my 21st birthday. I was very upset.

Soon after I arrived at Plouha, I went to the local market and bought a minimum of clothes, including a grey pullover, which I kept for many years.

The colonie at Plouha was situated about a kilometre from the coast and a few kilometres west of the town of St. Brieuc, which was where my friend, Jean, from Biarritz came from. We went there on a number of occasions.

The atmosphere at the colonie was very different to that at Belley. Everyone called the Director, Tonton Louis. He was a big man, with a big personality. Whereas Belley had been quiet and orderly, Plouha was noisy and somewhat chaotic. So, we had a lively time. There were two English monitrices there. They were the first English people I had spoken to for eleven months.

There was a pleasant walk along country paths to the beach. We also went on two or three excursions, including past the pink rocks of Perros Guirec and the island of Bréhat. The trip to the latter was one of the best days of my life. It is a small island, with, then at least, no cars. We walked around the island in peace on a beautiful August day. That was the day, when I realised that I liked islands. Subsequently I have spent many of my most enjoyable days on islands: the Scilly Islands, where we went for our honeymoon and three times since, Sark, Inhaca and the Iles des Lérins, in particular.

Perros-Guirec

Bréhat

Continued to Part 4: Back To Manchester

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