for the past few days, we have been sweltering here in the UK under a hot sun, that is bowed down with heavy heavy humidity. It makes me melt, the water running down my forehead into my eyes, but I don't care, at least we are seeing the sunshine at last. Too many summers are over before we know it, and we have to wait until the following year to see if we are going to have a real summer after all! Living in England has been my lifestyle since born,but my father came here with his siblings at the start of the real war in 1940 from the south of France. Having a British passport as the family originated from India,they were easily assimilated into society in the UK. All his siblings went on to have professionally qualified jobs and therefore when the children came along, we all were enjoying a very middle class life style. I went to a convent for my education until I was 16 when I went to college for retakes of the G CE and to possibly get A levels. I didn't sit for the A levels, but my education up to then was sufficient to earn me a place as a trainee in a Bank. I worked in Banking until I left the country to accompany my parents to the South of France where my father had secured a position as Teacher. We returned to his own town where he had grown up and which he had described so many times to us over the years. We fitted in straight away and met all the children of his own friends and life was on a roll. Living in such a wonderful town as Aix en Provence was love itself. The town is so busy, cosmopolitan and a university town. When we first arrived, my brother and I attended the university as students. Even after all these years being long gone from the Area, when I return, immediately I feel back at home, more than in any other place on earth. This could be because my brother and I were bought up on tales about this town so that we felt we knew it, long before we arrived in person, or just the light and sunshine and smells awakened other awareness of previous generations.
Despite having moved to England, my dad never lost his contact with France. He learned to be a teacher of the french language, and in the early days of his career just after WW2 ended, he would organise visits with his school children to experience the feel and sounds of France. We didn't go South for this, but to Normandy and Brittany which were much easier to reach . We would stay at a place called Pareme, not far from the beach. The hotel was owned by a well connected lady who was earning her living by letting out parts of her own home after her husband had died. We went to this hotel year after year, and she became part of our family almost. She was pretty old then, and a bit rheumaticky, but looking back maybe she would have been in her early sixties... to my brother and I of course she appeared very very old**
when you are very young, and not so old, the summers seem to take forever to get to you, and then they last quite a long time too before it is time to think about returning to school and getting ready the uniform and shoes satchel, pencils and pencil cases and rubbers all we needed to attend school. I remember how excited I would feel as the day approached to return. The idea that friends would be seen again and stories shared of what we had all be up to doing during our summer holidays.
Mine would usually mean at least a fortnight away in France with my parents and a troup of young boys that attended my dad's school where he was the french teacher. With just himself and my mother, and maybe a family friend, it was quite an effort to take ten or twelve young boys away with the family.
We would usually stay in Parame near St Malo as I said before. but the year I was 14 we went to Paris!! Summer in Paris is like no other. We went in August and stayed at a school that was rented out in the holidays to other students and families staying in Paris. It was a hive of young people going in and out all day. Of course my parents had organised visits to all the major places in Paris, and we were very occupied, but not so occupied as to be unaware of the young men all around us** I had a girl friend from school accompanying me, and she was called Jennifer and was older than me by a year. It was her first time in Paris also and she was as star struck as I was by the town. I fell in love with Paris immediately and would love to climb the stairs to the very top of the building and look out over the streets and house tops right to the Eiffel Tower in the far distance. Sitting up there with a small breeze playing with my hair, absorbing all the sights and sounds and the smells of Paris was a favourite place of mine to be. During the visit I actually frightened my parents as I became close to a young german student called Hans Joachim Berg. He came from Silvershiem in Germany and he was the first person to ever kiss me romantically. My mother was very worried as she thought I was too young at 14 to be with a man of 18*** and she was correct of course, because of my innocence I had no idea what couples could get up to, so when I was invited to his room late at night, I went and kissed and kissed and kissed until my mouth felt bruised, having absolutely no idea of the possible danger I could have been inviting... however, he always was a gentleman and let me go after all the kissing, back to my room, where I lay and day dreamed away the night...
I was so anxious to be with him all the time, that one day I feigned illness and stayed behind whilst my family went to visit my aunt. So Hans came to my room and we snuggled up and kisses reigned , until a pupil gave the alert that my parents were on the way up to my room and what a kerfuffle happened then* there was no time to let him out, he had to go under the bed and stay there for the entire visit, and I pretended to be still unwell, aided and abetted by my friend Jennifer... after an hour or so they left me, and we got poor Hans out from under the bed*** my friend was shaking with the whole effort of keeping calm despite my brother joking that he was sure there was a german under the bed!! Thank the Lord he never looked!!!
My romance continued afterwards by letter writing, but then we gradually grew apart and |I never got to see or meet him again. My first love was certainly quite an adventure, although I was so innocent and I think that saved me!!
Paris and Aix en Provence, will always be my very heart filled places to be. I love them equally and often daydream about returning and spending time on my own there again... I could make it come true, but I am an old lady now, and the young in me although still inside, knows that my outside does not reflect the inside, and no more will young men chase me and kiss me as they did when we all were young... better to leave our dreams where they are, happily just to be remembered..
