september 1966

two weeks in september

I was checking over some of the old photographs in my collection. I stopped at an image of a woman asking directions from a policeman near the Seine in Paris. The file number showed September 1966. At first I doubted this could be true. Then it all came back.

It was the summer vacation for the Royal Academy of Music. My part time work as Deputy Director of Music for the Parks Department of the Greater London Council would be over at the end of the week. I could play the organ at the Church of the Assumption on Sunday, take one Sunday off, and be back for the following Sunday. I had the inside of two weeks for a holiday. I’d like to travel. We could take the car to France.

In those days the Automobile Association still had offices in central London. I went there first to enquire about car ferries. It soon became apparent I could do the job just as well by myself. So, early on Monday morning I drove down to Dover, bought cross channel tickets at the entrance to the ferry, and was in Calais in plenty of time to drive to Amiens and find a nice little hotel for the night. In England, if a car was parked in the street overnight, sidelights had to be left on until dawn. How do you find words to ask if that is a legal requirement in France? My schoolboy French found no provision for this vocabulary among the works of Lamartine and Victor Hugo. I compromised on ‘phares’ – though I had an uneasy feeling I might be asking about lighthouses – received a reply that satisfied me and left the car unlit. It was OK.

I had better fortune a few days later when my windscreen wiper broke in the rain. In the AA notebook I found the right French word and explained hesitantly to the mechanic that it was fractured! He glanced at my dear little old Austin, fixed a replacement (in the French style), accepted my francs, and we went on our way.

Our usual plan was to travel until about four in the afternoon and then find somewhere pleasant to stay the night. If we liked the place we’d stay for two nights. In that way we spent time in Beauvais Rouen Evreux Chartres and Paris. Hence the photo of the woman asking for directions. I have a vivid memory of driving twice round Etoile. According to my map we needed to turn right at the 13th street. Impossible! The 13th street was completely partitioned off for road works or some such. We did find a nice little pension nearby, had an excellent dinner in an unobtrusive café and slept on a mattress harder than any I’d experienced before – or since.

On the last night of our holiday we stayed in a seaside pension run by an Englishman. Escargots were on the dinner menu. It would be a new experience. Apparently I was not the only Englishman to enjoy snails for the first time in that restaurant.

francis cameron, oxford, 14 november 2010

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