I'm restarting my blog to give a mix of experiences from way back, even pre war, and current ones, such as setting up an evening class for drawing/painting and painting in the Sahara.... So here's the start...
School exchange to France in 1949 - I am fifteen - a chateau in the Loire?
My school had arranged exchanges for us, and I was paired with Odile, from Paris. When she sent me a postcard of a vast building, I wondered if it might be somewhere we would visit.
I
arrived alone in Paris from the boat train, and was met by a charming young
man. He was Odile’s brother in law.
He took me to their large old house, where I met her parents, who were
very pleasant and hospitable. I
remember playing the recorder to them (!) and eating artichokes for the first
time ever. They had to show how to peel off the fleshy leaves and dip them in
butter. They had a housekeeper from Brittany to whom I was introduced. She had
such a strong accent, I couldn’t understand a word, but when I remet her after
my stay, I was pleased to find I could.
Soon, we were at La Rozelle in Cellettes, their chateau in
the country. As a naive 15 year old, I did not find this as unbelievable as I do now.
Odile’s father took
me around it, and although my French was pretty dire, there was no mistaking
his anger when he showed me the damage that been done to the house when it was
taken over as a head quarters by the Germans only a few years before. “And they
danced on the piano!”
My mother and I had had a shopping expedition to buy
presents for me to take; immaculate white fluffy Slazenger tennis balls, six in
a box for Odile and razor sharp
penknives for the two boys, who were about seven and nine. Years later, calling in at La Rozelle,
I met Gonzague, who had become a priest, and he said how thrilled they were
with these penknives.
That first morning, I came downstairs to find Odile and her brothers
waiting at the foot of the stairs, and I was so surprised that they shook hands
with me. Tea was made for me in a saucepan, and in the afternoon, we were given some dark chocolate with bread..... so bizarre.
The house was in acres of
ground and had a very battered tennis court. I remember someone pushing a low
wheeled line marking machine full of runny lime/chalk to do the lines on the
court. We played a lot of croquet
on the gravelled area behind the house, and even swam in the river that ran
through the grounds. Once, I
saw Odile’s brother in law standing facing a hedge, and, impossible as it
seemed, realised he must be urinating.
Guess who is French? Yes, Odile's on the right.
The
evening meal was very formal. We, at least ten, ate around a vast shiny table,
served by the kitchen staff. The
food was so different from what I had in England. Lots of separate courses,
salad, very thin crunchy chips, and horrors – very rare steak. This was unknown in England then. Only
Americans ate steak and I was horrified. It was quite bloody, and I had no idea
that I could have asked for it to be cooked further. I just ate the brown edges, and left the rest.
I realised that everyone else had a lot
of bread with their meals, so I took some too. I thought that I shouldn’t leave any, so put the remains in
my pocket. Later, in my vast bedroom, I considered how to get rid of it. I
thought that if I put it out for the birds, it might be noticed, so I put it in
the wash basin and tried to wash it down. Naturally, it got blocked and for
days, it seemed, there was water in the basin. I was so worried about it being
discovered, but one day, it was gone. I shall never know whether someone found
it, and sorted it out, but I was so relieved.
Odile had no interest at all in speaking English, which was
very good for my French. She also had an elderly aunt, who used to talk to me frequently. There were old bicycles with
minimal brakes,which we used to go into the village now and then and buy
sweets. Odile’s parents took us to
see the chateaux of the Loire, and I still have a guide book they bought for
me, with their signatures. They had a capacious old French car, and
we also went to a big fete/horse show, very up market and so unlike the horse
shows I’d been to in England..
They did try to entertain me.
Odile came back to England with me. My father had won in a raffle, at a Masonic dinner, two
tickets for a week at Butlins, the holiday camp, so he paid for one more so
that my older sister Rosemary could go with us. We
three had a chalet, and this strange new world , with entertainment laid on, plus
food in a vast restaurant, must have been even stranger for Odile than was
for us
. One evening, there was to
be a hypnosis show, and Odile said firmly that she should not go to it. I think
she felt it was against her religion.
Amazingly, when I met Odile about
twenty years later, she said she quite enjoyed Butlins… incredible.
Now, the chateau is a beautiful hotel, far removed from the battered, peeling building I saw.
Considering my best friend's French exchange was to a sweltering block of flats in Paris, I was so, so fortunate. I kept my French up and am fairly fluent and, amazingly have two French grandchildren.
