As anticipated my relationship with Tracy did not survive. I needed a change, so I moved to London.
Initially I stayed with my brother Dick in his rented flat in Battersea. The gay owner of the property occupied the ground floor, Sam a newspaper photographer lived on the middle floor, while Dick and I shared the top floor. After a few months of house hunting, I made a purchase in the Peckham area. At that time early in 1981, Peckham’s reputation was that of a run down, hot bed of crime and violence. This meant housing there was amongst London’s cheapest. Not only were house prices low, but also London Bridge railway station, could be reached by train, in just a few minutes. Since my employer was located near Finsbury Square in the City, that made Peckham very convenient.
Of course cheap by London standards did not mean cheap by Swindon standards. Despite making a one hundred percent profit on my previous property, the modest three bedroom terraced house in Peckham, required me to treble the amount of my mortgage loan. That, despite the fact it did not have a garage.
This house needed quite a bit of renovation work, which was shabbily, but cheaply carried out by a builder named Jerry. When I asked Jerry to quote me to do a job I was always pleasantly surprised at the modest sum demanded. Later when I saw him working, I invariably felt I’d been ripped off.
A typical example was when I asked him to reroute a long copper pipe that ran under the bath. I imagined he would cut the pipe and then solder in a new section and two ninety degree bends, making a ∫ shaped detour, thus completing the work. “Five quid including materials”, sounded like a great deal to me, even though my assistance would be required.
The deal was agreed and Jerry didn’t waste any time getting on with the job. He had previously removed the side panel from the bath in order to estimate the job, now he grabbed the pipe in both hands and pulled it towards him. I was then instructed to hold it in place, while Jerry drove a six inch nail half way into wooden joist, right next to the pipe. The nail served to stop the pipe from springing back to it’s former position. He then refitted the bath panel and asked for his five quid.
I seriously doubted that the cost of the nail, plus three minutes of Jerry’s time and the very short-term hire of his hammer and screwdriver, was worth five quid. However Jerry was of a build and temperament that made me disinclined to make an issue of the matter. My main regret that I had already agreed to let him do a substantial amount of additional bargain priced work.
With a big mortgage loan to repay, I rented out two of the bedrooms. Mark, a friend and ex-colleague, from my Swindon days inhabited one room, while Alicia, a secretary with my then current employer occupied the other.
For more than a year, Mark and I made the most of London’s pubs and bars, until one day I brought Jane home to live with me.
Jane was a Singaporean Chinese girl who had been sent to England at the age of fourteen to complete her education. She had remained in the UK after her degree course had finished. Up to that point my knowledge of Singapore and all places East, had been very limited. Apart from a few stories told by my Uncles and Aunts, who had spent much of the 1930s and 40s in the Far East, my little bit of interest, had been derived from my pre-teenage reading of the Swallows and Amazons book ‘Missee Lee’, by Arthur Ransome.
Having also seen Bruce Lee in ‘Enter the Dragon’, I had an impression of the Orient as a very hot and mysterious place. My image was that it was full of attractive girls clothed in long red satin dresses. It seemed they spent most of their time sailing around in junks, smoking opium or shovelling noodles into their mouths with chopsticks. They did this while listening to strange but pleasant music, played on out of tune instruments.
Just to round things off, I also happened to like the song ‘On a Little Street in Singapore’ performed by the Manhattan Transfer, which had been in the charts just a few years earlier.
Jane had a great sense of humour, which intertwined with a few cultural lost in the translation incidents meant life was never dull. It would be true that given the choice of sausages, beans and mash, or a plate of chicken feet in five spices sauce, the sausages would win my vote.
Neither was I too keen on sharks fin soup, sea cucumber or abelone, but some of the spicier Singapore and Malay dishes I was now experiencing were wonderful.
One of Jane’s friends was Josephine, a French lady who now lived in London, but who had previously lived in Singapore and Thailand. She was a great cook. Just as I was able to identify French food as my favourite Western cuisine, soon I put Thai at the top of my Asian cuisine list.
As a result of a company relocation, Jane and I moved to North West London. During our first year there, Jane’s half sister, Jasmine, came to stay with us for a few weeks.
We had already decided, several weeks before her arrival, that we would include a week long tour of the Loire valley, in her itinerary.
Since Jasmine had spent her whole life living in Hong Kong apartments, she was delighted by the green fields, quaint villages and country houses which abound to the west of Uxbridge.
Before heading off to France we took her for several drives in this area. On one trip we came across a country estate near High Wycombe, which had belonged to Sir Francis Dashwood. Here we were able to visit the ancient meeting place of the Hell Fire club, which was at the end of a long dark narrow tunnel, which had been dug deep into a Berkshire hillside.
The tunnel was probably not as interesting for Jasmine as the country houses and farm animals, but for me who’d been bought up a diet of the likes of Dennis Wheatley and the Avengers it was fascinating.
It was mid June 1984 when we set out for the Loire valley. We were several weeks ahead of the grand vacances, so we did not bother to pre-book accommodation. After an uneventful morning channel crossing by hovercraft from Dover to Calais, we headed south.
Jane was map reading and we decided to skirt round to the west of Paris. Due to an error we actually ended up going round the Peyriphique on the east side. Despite that we made it to Chartres by mid afternoon. For most of the journey, the sky had been overcast and now there was also some light rain.
The cathedral was magnificent as was it’s stained glass, though I have to admit I was more fascinated by a nearby shop, which sold religious paraphernalia. Among the crucifixes and bibles they also had busts, of what I took to be of various popes.
Our next stop was Chateaudun, which was most certainly an imposing building, overlooking the river Loir. It was not the kind of building I’d want to live in, having high ceilings and spartan furnishings. There were some enormous hanging tapestries, but these were not as cheering as a colourful Van Gough or two would have been. On the other hand Van Gogh would have had to use much larger canvasses to make any kind of impact, in the main rooms of this building.
Had the weather been bright and sunny I suspect my impression would have been much more favourable. I’d come in my tee shirt and jeans expecting summer days like those of my previous trips to France. Not only was the overcast sky depressing, but the air was cooler and damper than I’d anticipated.
I should explain that at this time my interest in French history was not that great. In fact my knowledge extended little beyond the facts that we had beaten them at Agincourt, Trafalgar and Waterloo. I was also vaguely aware that we English had at some time been implicated in the burning of Joan of Arc. If I learned anything that day it was that the successors of one of Joan’s male companions had at one time owned Chateaudun. That friend being Dunois, the Bastard of Orleans.
Jane on the other hand was fascinated by everything she set eyes on, as it seemed was Jasmine. It was apparent that their knowledge of French history extended well beyond mine. For my part I was looking forward to an enjoyable dinner.
We next headed in the direction of Tours. By now it was late afternoon and the weather was beginning to clear up a bit.
Prompted enthusiastically by me, we decided it was time to look out for a hotel. We had budgeted our trip based on staying at two star establishments. However we soon spotted a three star hostelry and decided we would be a bit extravagant on our first night.
We reasoned we could always trade down to one star the following evening to make up for it. The rooms were bright and airy and looked like they had been recently refurbished. After washing and getting changed we settled down at a table on the restaurant terrace to drink our aperitifs.
There was no river view here, just an enclosed garden, but I was about to tuck into my first meal in France for six years and my mouth was watering. I was not concerned in the slightest about the lack of a view.
I started with a plate of sliced smoked sausages, followed by pork with prunes and butter fried wild mushrooms. This along with cooked fruits for desert, followed by various cheeses was a great re-introduction to French cuisine.
Two bottles of red wine between the three of us, had resulted in Jasmine’s cheeks glowing bright pink and she was giggling a lot. When questioned it turned out this was the first time she had ever drunk wine in her life. In fact we were all giggling quite lot. A slightly confusing conversation took place regarding where we had just been and where we would be going. This finally led to Jane enlightening me to the fact, that Chateaudun in on the river Loir, which is not the same river as the river Loire. However, I was pleased to also learn that the Loir does eventually feed into the Loire.
Although I slept well, Jane informed me in the morning that Jasmine had thrown up a couple of times during the night. She did look a bit the worse for wear and I could tell that her good morning smile was a brave effort.
The breakfast of croissants, baguettes, butter, jam and coffee satisfied my long anticipated expectations and seemed to revive Jasmine a bit.
We now headed for Tours and the Loire valley. We decided to head west as far as Angers and then turn back eastward stopping at various chateau on the way.
Our first stop that day was the massive fortified chateau of Angers itself. Then we stopped at Saumur followed by Villandry and Amboise. Finally for that day we left the Loire itself and drove the short distance south to Chenonceau on the Cher.
All of the chateau we had visited so far had been magnificent in their own way, either for their architecture their beautiful gardens or just sheer massiveness. Chenonceau though was in a class of it’s own, both outside and in. At last I began to feel some of the excitement about French history that Jane and Jasmine were infected with.
For me the most interesting aspects of the known history of the Loire were those of the final days of the Valois Kings of France. When in 1547 Henri II inherited the French crown, France had been without a King Henri for almost 500 years. In the intervening period however England had got through eight Henrys. The last of these, Henry VIII, who was mainly famous for having six wives, coincidently expiring in 1547.
Henri II was married to Catherine de Medici. In those days Royal marriages were made for political rather than romantic reasons. The Medicis were a wealthy and influencial family from Florence in Italy. Some historians have concluded that Catherine was a considerable political schemer. This seems quite plausible given her families’ earlier connections with another infamous Florentine, Nicoli Machiavelli.
Henri had apparently been taught to be a man, by Diane de Poitiers, who remained as his mistress during his marriage to Catherine. Diane was considerably older than Henri, but was reportedly very beautiful. Henri gave her the Chateau at Chenonceau as a present.
At this time Chenonceau already boasted a beautiful Renaissance turreted pavilion built on the foundations of an old mill on the river Cher. Diane soon set about laying out the formal gardens and commissioned the building of a bridge connecting the pavilion to the opposite bank of the river.
In 1559 when Henri died as a result of a jousting accident, the Kingship passed to Francois II, his eldest son by Catherine. Catherine quickly took her revenge on Diane. Amongst other things Diane had to give up her much loved Chenonceau in exchange for Chaumont. While Chaumont was no hovel, it would not have held the same fond memories as her former residence.
Having acquired Chenonceau, Catherine commissioned the very attractive Italian gallery, which was constructed on top of Diane’s earlier bridge.
The 1956 David Miller movie ‘Diane’ starring Lana Turner and Roger Moore relates the earlier parts of this story. This film version portrays Catherine, played by Merisa Pavan, in a more sympathetic light than some accounts.
As we walked around Chenonceau, it felt very different to some of the earlier pre-renaissance chateaux we had visited. Here was place you felt you could definitely live very comfortably.
The day was drawing to a close and we turned our thoughts again to accommodation. Having experienced three star hospitality the previous night, we were all somewhat reluctant to trade down to two star. In fact during the course of the day, Jane had picked up a guide to French Chateau Hotels. Browsing through this, it seemed that in most cases the prices were only slightly higher than that of most ordinary three star establishments.
We picked on one, found it on the map and headed for it. They had vacancies and we were shown to our rather magnificent rooms. At the end of the day I can’t say the rooms were any more comfortable than the smaller rooms in hotels, but somehow the fact they were large, furnished with antiques and were in a chateau made them seem that way.
The restaurant was nothing to get particularly excited about although the standard was at least up to that of the previous evening. On this occasion we started with a salmon mousse and followed that up with grilled fresh water fish, which were apparently from the Loire.
We chose a local white wine and despite Jasmine’s new found moderation, still managed to consume two bottles of it.
As we ate we discussed the next day’s itinerary. This was quite interesting because having already visited Chenonceau, we were pretty sure we would not be able to beat it.
We had visited sparsely furnished Norman style chateau which apart form some rustic tables and benches contained little other than large faded tapestries hanging on their cold grey stone walls. We visited opulent Chateau more of the Louis XIV style, where the furnishings were sumptuous. However by the end of our second day we did feel that the Chateau of Loire might not provide sufficient variety to keep us entertained for a whole week. In fact we decided that we had already seen enough chateau and would the very next day head south to pastures new.
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