Easter 1977

I was so excited as I was on my own with my Grandmother, who I absolutely adored. She used to spoil my sister and I, but she especially spoilt me. My sister was in the bad books as she had recently been very naughty. I was there for the Easter holidays and spent the first weekend at her house riding my bike, listening to the radio as loudly as I dared, cuddling the cat and climbing the apple trees in her orchard. The smell of the orchard was wholesome and comforting. It was on a ridge above the vegetable garden. I loved the changing of the seasons, especially the end of the winter. The spring flowers were just beginning to bud as well as all the trees on the North Downs, which I had a spectacular view of from the top of my favourite tree.       

We were going on a little adventure too. We had a stormy start to our holiday being blown about in a little bi-pane across the channel. We eventually got to Paris after an 11 hour journey and the concierge let us into the 4th floor apartment. It was unoccupied but spotlessly clean where we got into bed and in no time at all I could hear Grandmother snoring. The following morning I opened my bedroom window and could hear a busker playing saxophone above the hum of the traffic. I decided to have a quick bath. I had just got in when I heard a lot of activity at the window and was startled to see a man at the window on the end of a ladder, in uniform and holding a hose. I got dried and dressed quickly and decided that the safest place was back in bed. 

A couple of hours later I was listening to the squeal of the tyres on the Paris metro and I broached the subject of my unusual start to the day. Grandmother had got to know a lot of people in Paris before the war. She laughed when I told her what had happened in the bathroom and it transpired that we were staying in the apartment of the head of the Paris fire brigade and they were conducting a safety drill. That set the tone for the day and we had a happy time taking in the sites of Paris and even had my picture drawn at Montmartre artist square in the shadow of the Sacre Coeur. 

The following morning we were having a breakfast of fresh croissant in the kitchen and she realised that the winder of her gold watch was missing. Just before we were due to leave I spotted it on the kitchen floor, it was nearly under the cooker. She was delighted and she reigned smiles upon me and her eyes twinkled. I loved to please her.  We made our way to the train as we were due to visit her friends for Easter in a house they owned in the Champagne region of France. 

The house was a cottage in a village called Corcy. It was set in a large beautiful garden and when we arrived the first thing I noticed was smoke billowing out of an upstairs window followed by music being played at full blast.

I shared the room with two teenage girls who were smoking and playing their music at full volume. I was in my element and felt so grown up. I even tried my best to smoke my first cigarette with them but they both said no. We amused ourselves by playing monopoly. One of the many guests put 10 Franks in the middle of the board for the winner. We went to a lot of parties which mostly involved wonderful food. On Easter Sunday we were late for church and the mass seemingly went on for hours. We walked home whilst our host drove back which I did not understand as it was quite a long way home. The path through the woods was boggy and at one stage my shoe got so stuck in the mud that my foot came out of it completely. About an hour and a half later we arrived back at the cottage and whilst we had been out our host had put chocolate eggs in various guises all over the garden. Just when I thought I’d spotted them all I found more in the trees, shrubs and on the window ledges. Later on that afternoon I was still looking for the chocolate and started to look in more obscure places. In a more remote part of the garden I crawled under a hedge and my muddy shoe slipped on what I thought was a root and looking down I found that I had unearthed something metallic with writing on. As it was not chocolate I was not really interested in it. A bit later on I decided to go back and have another look at it and decided that I wasn’t sure what to make of it.

The following day we went to Reims to see the famous cathedral where all the French Kings were crowned. I was much more concerned with the spectacular displays in the patisseries than a huge drafty old church and eventually I was at the cake counter and really spoilt for choice. I went for the pain au chocolat, ate it and was disappointed. Grandmother asked me if I had enjoyed it and I said not really, she asked me to choose another one which I readily agreed to. Whilst I was tucking into my second cake I said how much I had enjoyed the egg hunt and that I had found something interesting under the hedge. Our host listened attentively and when we got home asked me to show her where I had seen the metal object. 

The following morning we went back to Paris. I had my best clothes on and was looking forward to staying with my Grandmother’s friends, this time I knew these people as their grandsons had recently been over on a visit and I knew that they spoke English. They had a beautiful apartment on the Boulevard Saint-Germain. We sat down for lunch and Madame de Beauvoir pressed a button on the floor with her foot. I could hear it ringing distantly in the kitchen and almost instantly the butler came out and served lunch. It was plaice and I said no thank-you as I did not like fish. Grandmother told me to take the fish and eat it please. I did exactly that and quite enjoyed it although I began to feel a bit self- conscious as after my refusal as Madame started paying a lot of attention to me. She asked me how my sister was, I said fine and that she was really enjoying her ballet and piano lessons. She smiled at me and then brought up what I dreaded, the subject of my sister’s antics at her grandson’s recent visit. Grandmother pursed her lips and the table started listening to Madame. She said, “Henri and Jacques were amused at your sister’s pranks.” I had to suppress a giggle as remembered the whoopee cushion my sister had put under Henri’s chair. Mum she’d taken it too far when she put cling film on the loos and hidden all the paper. Just at that moment the phone rang. It was the friends from Corcy. Madame de Beauvoir came back and said to my Grandmother, “Rosalind, your family has always interested me and the next generation continue to so. It seems that your Granddaughter discovered an unexploded bomb from WW1 whilst on her egg hunt!”    

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