Noël was recently concerned that he didn't have a post devoted to his English stays, and all I can say is that he's right: he didn't have one! Now this overlook is corrected!

Thanks Mark for this one! (Summer 1982)

1983 Cotswolds tour

And of course, if any of you have some extra pics, please send them along, I'll be pleased to oblige!

(check here for this pic)

Okay, this was long before the times of 9DR, but... Mark has unearthed a real treasure: the long ago recordings of a few details of Monsieur Père's and Auntie Olive's youth as they were pupils at Southgate county School. There used to be a school Magazine, and this website has copies starting in 1910, and which ran until 1968 (it was then called "Spectrum):

This is an extract, in French and English, of the first issue:

I honestly wonder why they wanted to "mettre les impôts aux chats"...

There were also a section called "Original contributions", and I can't refrain from the pleasure of reprinting this one:

ORIGINAL CONTRIBUTIONS.

We have much pleasure in reprinting from our first issue of the School Magazine of 1910 these two original contributions.[I quote only the first]

TOOTHACHE!

(With apologies to Shakespeare)

To have it out, or not: that is the questions

Whether 'tis nobler in the end to suffer

The shoots and anguish of an aching molar.

Or to take arms against this painful toothache.

And by extraction end it? To pulls to shriek;

No more, and by a pull to say we end

The toothache and the thousand natural shocks

The mouth is heir to, 'tis a consummation

Devoutly to be wished. Or to have gas|

To sleep: perchance to dream: ay there's the rub;

For in that gaseous sleep what dreams may come

When we have shuffled to unconsciousness,

Must make us shudder: there's the respect

That makes calamity of such extraction;

For who would bear the shoots and starts of pain,

This awful agony, the swift swelling face,

When with a powerful wrench and with a pull

That patient man can ease the hideous ache

And with yet one more tug quietus give

For half-a-crown? Who would toothache bear,

To grunt and grumble with a fearful tooth,

But that the dread of suffering at the dentist's,

That grim and awful chamber from whose bourn

No patient whole returns, weakens the will,

And makes us rather bear those ills we have

Than fly to others that we would not know?

Thus toothache does make cowards of us all;

And thus the nat'ral man of resolution

Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of fear,

Determination made by valorous men

With this regard their strong wills turn awry

And teeth escape extraction.

(A.F. Sheffield, 6.A.)

Now, if one reads through, one can find allusions to Cecil and Olive:

Any idea what "drill colours" would have been? Mark thinks they were for sports, but I'm not sure.

On Saturday, June 19th, 1915, there was an Athletic Sports day:

And here is part of a list of the winners for the long jump!

I see this victory as a prophecy of Auntie Olive's long jump over the long expanse of the XXth century! In 1917, Olive gets a mention for her garden cultivation:

"All will be well"!! Those who doubt (are there any?) the impact of such programmes on Auntie Olive's formation can have a look at what she liked talking about so much here!

Did Auntie Olive go to Cambridge?? Never heard of that! See below (lifted from the issue of 1920):

Year 1921 has a mention of C. Hughes' success at his BSc Intermediate examination ("presumably this was Queen Mary College, Uni of London", says Mark who is better informed than I am):

In 1926, Cecil Hughes resigned his position (treasurer maybe - suggests Mark) in the Old Boys' club due to other duties, and we have a kind of indirect criticism of his departure in the lines that follow...

There! that's all for now! Interesting isn't it? And if some of you have family or friends who have been at this school, the magazine is a mine of information.

One final post made possible with Noel's recent photowork: the plastic animals which we had bought and collected in England during our stays at 9DR. Here's a picture, for example, where I can be seen absorbed in the pleasure of a toy elephant that had just been bought for me:

the surprizing thing (or perhaps not so surprizing, depending) is that I was actually averting my eyes from the picture, and putting forward the elephant... I'll have to ask my shrink (oops, don't have one!). Would you believe it, I loved these little models so much that I kept (in a diary) part of the cardboard box which had contained it:

At the time (year 1973, 74...) I was busy writing a fastidiously long "book of animals" which somebody (I think some of my children) recently brought back from Bonnebosq for me to see - not that I had forgotten it, but well, I thought that perhaps it was just fine where I had left it all that long time ago. This occupation might have been the reason why such a fascination had seized me! Here are Noel's arrangements of the little creatures:

Something happens with all such heavily invested objects: they carry with them a power of evocation which operates its tricks on the memory decades after, irrespective of whether there had been any effect during the long intervening period (and in fact this effect is always more effective then). I often muse that, in the event of the accidental disappearance of one of these objects, some incredibly precise but orphaned trace remains in the brain, waiting for its symbol to reawaken it, but it never will be, because nothing else can reawaken it. A whole story is there, mysteriously hidden and waiting to be invoked when one day the object comes into sight once again. The same phenomenon happens for places, or faces, etc.

The eagle above, together with the bison (2nd photo up), for example, were bought on the same day, with the limited money I had. I had painfully selected them in desperation at not being able to buy all the others in the window at Murray and Brand's (the shop in Southgate - probably doesn't exist any more). Then they had been placed, together with the standing gorilla, on a tablet near the window in the little room at Auntie Olive's, where I was staying during that particular summer, probably because somebody was using the room where I normally slept at Grandma's. I used to pore over the details of these little things and immerse myself in what I could now call their totemic power. The large 40p elephant on the first photo was bought later (in 1973), and meant the world for me. It was such an improvement on the first! Its strength, majesty, etc. I could feel (and master - I had mastered it with my 40p!) certainly as strongly as any other boy would have done with a red Ferrari or a brand new cricket bat.

And there are (or were) a much greater number of these plastic animals than the ones you see displayed here. I haven't uploaded all of Noël's photos, and he hasn't photographed all the collection! One couldn't really play with them, at least, as far as I'm concerned, I didn't play with them. I just had them, I could admire them and plunge into their world, so to speak. Childhood: that's a world to plunge in, for sure!

I have now enough pictures of (only) some of 9DR's furniture, so I might as well post them; and when I have more from either house, well it'll be a n°2!

This bookcase used to be in the frontroom, to the right of the fireplace. Mum uses it now. The next pic shows the upstairs front room dressing table which I am sure everybody remembers because we used to play with its three mirrors. It's at home in Normandy, and as you can see, Mum hasn't forgotten its fascination!

A question about it: why according to you would there have been a leather cushion in the middle part? Decoration? Kneeling? We had a go about it with Noel, but maybe you can give us your idea! And while we're into mirrors:

Does someone know where the two elements above used to be? (the little bedside cupboard still smells of TCP or whatever used to be inside of a similar nature!)

This frontroom chest of drawers is now at AB's. The clock is Auntie Olive's. It sat in her front room and had (still has, probably!) the nice Big Ben chime.

Grandma's chairs

And her nicely refurbished armchairs.

Here's Mum with the carpet which I remember Monsieur Père and Grandma showing proudly to me back in 1971:

I don't quite remember, but it must have been sort sort of present, no? Indeed, Noel has just reminded me that it had been a present of Auntie Olive's!

Here are the photos of a number of things which either belonged to Monsieur Père, which he had made, or which he used.

A padded box for knitting needles which was made by MP.

One of the two scales of this kind which I believe existed at 9DR; this one was for letters (It's at Noel's), and the other one (visible on this photo) would have been fitted with an aluminium saucer to weigh food for Grandpa's meal quantities.

A kind of small table which Monsieur Père had made when at Bonnebosq, and which we kept ever since. Noel reinforced it with a secondary plank.

I can actually still visualize the large spool of sellotape which was contained in this unusual box.

There used to be dozens of these tobacco boxes downstairs in the cellar, in which Monsieur Père put his pins, nails, nuts and bolts and what have you. What's nice is that this one still displays its label! Does somebody know where MP had found these boxes? He didn't smoke at any time, did he? (No he didn't, check Jo's Xmas account here)

May 11th 2014: the most recent addition to this little collection, Grandpa's workbag, which Janet kindly photographed for the blog: