Things that happened fifty years ago

 

There comes a point, in your early fifties, when you suddenly realise that you have a clear memory of things that happened fifty years ago (basic maths, natch). So, the Moon landings, The Decimalisation of the UK currency, that sort of thing.

But then as you get older, more and more things pass that boundary. The year after next I will have been driving for fifty years. In the same year I will have been legally drinking for fifty years (hem hem). I have already been playing Irish music for over 55 years. 

But while talking to Angie this morning, I remembered a lovely summer that I had, which is now over fifty years ago, when I went and stayed with a French 'exchange student' in Brittany for a month during a long hot summer half a century back. Our family had several years of history with the family - Bouthemy - as their oldest son had come and stayed with us four years earlier, and I had already visited with my older brother two years before. But now I came over on my own, at the age of 15, and experienced life in 'La France Profonde', where all the things we had learned about in our school textbook 'Life in a French town' were still daily life. 

The small village, Bais, was about ten miles from the nearest big town, Vitre, and about 30 from the nearest city, Rennes. France is much more spread out than England, and the countryside rolls on for kilometres along the tree-lined straight Napoleonic 'Grand Routes'. The look of the place is very distinctive, as was the rest of life.

I stayed with the family in their house right in the centre of the village. I think it was an old coaching inn (with a tower!) but it was now one of the village shops, selling all the usual groceries. There was a 'Tabac' next door and, even though it was a small town, there were still I think three boulangeries and about five cafes that were open. I know from more recent visits to France that when I go back to Bais, this will not be the case. 

The routines of our days were very French too. Madame Bouthemy was always up first, making a large jug of coffee for the day that would be warmed up over the stove when people wanted some. The children came down and kissed their parents each morning, then sitting down to a bowl of milky coffee with a 'ficelle' (a very thin French loaf) with butter and apricot jam,  which we would dip in the coffee bowl.

At lunchtimes, all the family would be there around the table, with Mr Bouthemy returning from the sawmill that he owned and ran (he had the top of one finger missing), and bringing with him his large assistant, Rene, who was quite naturally part of the family each mealtime. There was a wonderful dish which Madame Bouthemy had been making for the last three hours (while also running the shop) and a bottle of water, a bottle of beer, a bottle of wine, and a bottle of cider on the table. And the Bouthemy parents were teetotal, so this alcohol was purely for Rene and the other members of the family (and there was not too much fussiness about the age at which you could drink). 

Over the month I spent there, we had great adventures. I used to go off on one of the bicycles or mopeds and explore the nearby towns, and we used to go up to the farm run by the Bouthemy's brother and sister in law, which seemed to have every possible agricultural product under production. Felix, the son of this family, was engaged in the harvest around the area, so quite often he would turn up for lunch in a massive combine harvester, and this was absolutely unworthy of comment. 

The feeling of being in France enveloped you, as it does still in my memory, and you realised quite how many unthought of differences we had on either side of a twenty mile wide Channel. And I love my home and all the things that make me English, or Irish, but I also loved and still love that strong flavour of another way of life which I first tasted over fifty years ago.