During my teenage years, for our summer holidays we made two family trips to Grasse on the French Riviera, where we stayed at the villa of one of my father’s cousins. I will only recount the first of these trips since our itinerary was similar on both occasions.
About a week before this holiday we had visited Birchington for a few days. We had made an excursion to Manston aerodrome to look over an old Spitfire aeroplane which stood at the entrance. The visit to the Spitfire was a short one, because somehow Dick managed to slam the car door closed, while his thumb was still inside the car. He then spent a considerable time howling in agony. We immediately drove to a doctors surgery, where the thumb was checked for broken bones and was duly bandaged and forgotten by all except Dick.
As well as clothing we packed a large green canvas tent, sleeping bags, Calor Gas stove, pots, pans and a kettle into the back of the family car, which was a yellow and white, Morris Oxford estate.
The day before our departure the family dog and cat were taken to the local kennels. The only thing I always hated about family holidays abroad was leaving the dog whining and looking forlorn as we said our good-byes. It wasn’t a case of the French not liking dogs; in fact the French themselves had many dogs, and even took them to top restaurants for dinner. But Britain’s quarantine laws would require six months of solitary confinement, for any animal trying to enter or return from abroad.
We started early. Mother drove us all to Dover and we took the morning car ferry to Dunkirk. I had been put in charge of map reading and had already made a list of the major towns we should be passing through. Once landed, father clipped large round plastic amber lenses over the top of the headlights and attached a GB sticker to the rear hatch door.
Car Ferry
Mother moved to the back seat with Dick and Barbara. As map reader I was promoted to the front passenger seat and father drove.
The landscape was flat and most of the roads were very straight, we saw few other cars. We passed through Arras, St. Quentin and Reims. We did not stop except for a few comfort breaks and ate on the fly, consuming cheese and tomato sandwiches, paste sandwiches and fruit that mother had brought from England. Dick, Barbara and I all hated paste. It was a kind of indefinite brown stuff with an unfathomable flavour that came in a jar. It wasn’t described as ‘sardine paste’ or ‘vegetable paste’ or ‘nut paste’, just plain old ‘paste’. Us not liking paste never deterred mother. She had the same approach when buying biscuits. For many children ‘Rich Tea’ biscuits are as interesting as an early bedtime. Mother ensured that the family biscuit tin was always well stocked with plenty of Rich Teas. ‘Mother you know we like chocolate digestives and custard creams’, we would complain. ‘If I buy biscuits you like, you will eat them, then I’ll have to buy more’ she would reply.
By late afternoon we approached Chalons and looked out for a campsite. In those days campsites were usually informal affairs, just a field, sometimes the better ones had a water tap. The one we selected, we chose because the field had a couple of other tents already pitched, so we assumed that camping there was OK. It also overlooked the river Marne.
We assembled the tent while mother set about cooking sausages, mash and baked beans on the camping stove. The tent was new, but we had given it a trial set up on the lawn, at home a few days before our departure. So it went up without a hitch, no missing tent pegs or poles and no broken guy ropes.
As light turned to dusk, thousands of tiny midges accumulated on the river bank and we all received some minor bites, while washing our plates, cutlery and pans in the river. These bites didn’t hurt, they just itched a little.
The back seat of the car was folded down and became overnight accommodation for Dick and I, while mother, father and Barbara slept in the tent. To maximise the amount of space we had, we slept head to foot. Unfortunately for me it meant that Dick’s feet were close to my nose. I would have probably felt that the air was fresher, had I slept with a ripe Gorgonzola impregnated bandage wrapped around my head.
The next morning we got up early, ate fried eggs and bacon and drunk instant coffee, whitened with foul tasting powdered milk, which wouldn’t dissolve properly. We then dismantled the tent and prepared to set off on our way. Just before we departed a red faced, out of breath Frenchman ran up to us. He requested and received a few francs in camping fees. We wondered later if he was really the owner of the field or just a passing opportunist.
On this day mother and father took turns to drive and I remained as map reader. I noted with annoyance that the number of comfort breaks seemed to be on the increase.
First Dick would want to stop, then it would be Barbara, then it would be mother. Why they could not co-ordinate their bodily functions to have the same needs simultaneously, was beyond me. In those days my bladder had the constitution of a camel’s and father was similarly blessed. The driver and the navigator got increasingly irritated as our planned progress began to slip. But this was only the second day of our holiday, so rising tempers were kept under control, even if a few snide comments were passed.
We passed St. Dizier and Chaumont and by the time we approached Dijon we were all getting hungry. So we stopped at a café and ate baguettes with cheese and ham. The parents drunk coffee, while us kids sampled our first ‘Oranginas’ in their light-bulb shaped bottles.
Then we were off again passing through Chalon sur Soane and Bourg en Bresse. The skies were clear and it was hot. We had all the windows wound down and enjoyed the breeze generated by the car speeding ever Southward. During this leg of the journey, apart from more comfort breaks we made a couple of stops by roadside stalls to purchase local produce.
At the first we bought ten peaches and stopped only a couple of miles further down the road to eat them. They were medium sized, red, juicy and delicious, but suddenly there were screams from Barbara and shouts of ‘yuk!’ from everyone else.
Having consumed most of the flesh, the stone at the centre would disintegrate at the slightest pressure, and several earwigs would scurry out over the eater’s hand. Those of us unlucky enough to have bitten the stone, ended up with an earwig or two in the mouth. It seemed that somehow earwigs had managed to turn the stone of every single peach into a nest. The stones also contained a mulch of small, brown, damp, pellets. I couldn’t decide whether these were earwig’s eggs or droppings.
Rather than throw the other five peaches away, mother cut off most of their flesh and discarded the stones. However by now there was not much enthusiasm to eat more peach flesh from Dick, Barbara or I.
At the next stop we bought a bottle of Hidromel, a sort of wine made out of honey, rather like mead but lighter. We were each allowed to try a little sample. As you might expect, the drink was sweet and delicious. It left a warm glow inside the body and an irrational feeling of fuzzy satisfaction in the head. As we drove on through the hot afternoon sunshine we were much quieter, and except for the driver we all had an afternoon snooze.
During the day the landscape had been slowly changing from flat, to hilly and in the distance, before we fell asleep, we could see mountains.
Eventually I was woken up to continue my map reading. It was nearly 6:00pm and we were passing through Grenoble. We were now well into mountainous countryside. After passing through the rather industrialised city we drove upwards and southwards, eventually stopping at a campsite beside a large mountain lake. This campsite was quite busy and had the luxury of toilets, a cold shower and a tiny shop. The price was justifiably higher than the previous night and the fee was collected in advance.
It was now that we noticed that most of us were suffering from minor sunburn. Having spent most of the day sitting in the front passenger seat of our family car, I had a very pink left arm, father had a pink right arm, Dick and mother who had sat on the extremities of the rear seat were similarly afflicted. After application of some lotion to our pink bits, it was time to eat.
Mother sniffed the remaining sausages, declared them fit for human consumption and set about cooking her standard Calor gas fare. We didn’t mind, we were all ravenous and set about demolishing our modest helpings. There were fewer sausages than the night before and some had been cut in half to make sure there were no arguments about unequal helpings.
Any lingering feelings of dissatisfaction were quashed with a final nightcap of Hidromel, which also ensured we all slept soundly.
We woke early and were each given a bowl of cornflakes and more instant coffee, but this time we had the luxury of fresh milk from the campsite shop. The tent was packed up and we set off yet again, hoping that today we would reach our destination.
As map reader I could see that we were much further than two thirds of the way on our journey to Grasse. I was optimistic that we would be there by lunchtime. As the day wore on though and we passed through Gap, Sisteron and Digne that optimism slowly vanished. The route was very mountainous and the road wound like a tortured tapeworm, up and down the valleys.
We stopped at a village shop and bought provisions. Most of our supplies from England had been consumed and we were now forced to eat French food. It didn’t take me long to wonder why we had brought so much from England when the French fare was so delicious.
Eventually we passed Castellane, the last major landmark on my list, before we would descend the southern slopes of the Alps to Grasse. Shortly after Castellane we stopped for a late picnic lunch in a meadow. I don’t know what technically differentiates a meadow from a field, but believe me this was no mere field. The grass was soft and a lovely golden colour. The smell of wild flowers was fantastic. The baguette with French butter and ham was delicious and my appreciation of red wine was growing rapidly, even though we were drinking draught vin de table. The sun was bright, but we were high up so the air was cooler than it had been to the North of Grenoble. It was still tee-shirt weather though. Had we not all been keen to finish the journey, we would have been happy to spend many hours in that beautiful spot.
We got back in the car for the final leg and as we wound our way down the mountain, we noticed the smell of flowers getting stronger as we approached Grasse. Father explained that Grasse was famous for it’s perfume and that the smell came from the fields of flowers from which the perfume is made.
Once in Grasse we followed signs to St. Christophe and by the time we had arrived at the villa it was already early evening. It was still light enough though to appreciate the breath taking view of the countryside, villages and towns which dotted the land between Grasse and the Mediterranean sea. The sea itself was clearly visible and with help of our road atlas we set about identifying the surrounding places, the most prominent of which was Cannes.
The villa was built on a plot high up on the mountainside with steep slopes at the front and pine forest behind. Other villas also peppered the nearby surroundings.
More supplies had been left on the kitchen table and in the fridge by the cleaning lady and we sat at the table on the terrace, eating a salad while admiring the view, which slowly transformed into a series of twinkling lights as darkness fell.
The bandage on Dick’s thumb was by now in a sorry state and it was decided it should be removed. His thumb looked fine, but the nail was completely black. He was quite worried about this but was told it would all be OK in the end.
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