Writers Abroad Magazine Issue 2 March 2015 | Page 24

WRITERS ABROAD MAGAZINE

French Entreé
An Article by Doreen Porter
I made my first ever trip to France when I was 14. It was, in fact, my first trip anywhere
outside the UK. I obtained a flimsy one-year British Visitors Passport from the Post
Office specially.
I was going with the family next door on a day trip to Boulogne.
We travelled on the SS Royal Daffodil— built in 1939 and a Dunkirk veteran — from
Southend Pier. Our journey began when we got on a train to get to the end of the
longest pier in the world. I remember very little else about the day, apart from eating
ice creams in the Boulogne sunshine and thinking that life could not get any more
exciting.
My second trip was with my friend Liz to celebrate finishing our A levels. The plan was
to go to Paris then, wherever possible, hitch around France, staying at Youth Hostels.
We managed Paris OK, but for some unremembered reason decided to take a train to
Versailles. It seemed like quite a brave thing to do, asking for a ticket in French. At the
hostel, we were shocked by the state of the toilets and went home. I think you can
safely say we turned into more adventurous travellers over the years as I now live here
in France and Liz is in North Carolina.
In Paris, we had our first experience of the Paris metro with its unique smell and
scattered tramps. Unfortunately, we didn’t know you had to ope n the train doors
yourself, so stood there expectantly and got carried on to the next stop. But it was fun
pressing the buttons on the maps in the stations and seeing your route light up. We
quickly realised that our French lessons at school had not equipped us for real life in
France. We wanted to buy a packet of tissues, so went into a large store. “Tissue,”
said Liz confidently. They showed us to the dress material section.
My third trip was the defining one and really began my love affair with France. My
friend Helen and I would meet for a drink every Wednesday. Our tipple of choice at
the time was called Biarritz. It was an orange liqueur-based wine drink and it was very
potent. One day, in a post-Biarritz haze, we decided to go to the southern French town
of the same name. We had two problems: One, We had no idea where Biarritz was;
and, two, having just started work, we didn’t have much money. No. One was easily
solved with the help of an atlas. No. Two? Despite never having been Girl Guides, we
decided to pack a tent in the back of Helen’s Renault 5 and camp. We hired a familysized one from the now defunct Townsend Thoreson ferry company (we wanted a
bedroom each!), got a detailed route from Calais to Biarritz from the AA, and a list of
French municipal campsites from somewhere else, and set off.
Never having driven on the other side of the road before, we planned to stop for the
first night about 50 miles from Calais. The other holidaymakers at the Camping
Municipal in Abbeville watched fascinated as we struggled to get our huge tent out of
its snug bag, then attempted to put it up. We chose a pitch a little way from everyone
else and gratefully accepted help erecting the green and orange monstrosity. A few
24 | M a r c h 2 0 1 5