Summer of War II

Bessie’s first trip to Europe was always destined to be France,  Colin and I are both confirmed Francophiles and being unsure of the roads or how the van would handle on the other side we thought Normandy was a good bet.

Apple Orchard

Once the destination was decided my expectations were simple.   Sample again the delights of France and see the Bayeux Tapestry.  Picardy would be a bonus, but I am ashamed at my poor French geography.  I had no idea Bayeux was close to the D Day landing beaches and that Bayeux was the first city of the Battle of Normandy to be liberated. 

Road to Rouen

 The ferry sailed from Portsmouth to Le Harve, and on the way south we stopped off in Jumièges, a little town in an almost peninsula on the Boucles de la Seine (The Buckles), where the Seine makes its final snake and wind before emptying into the Channel.

We booked into the excellent Camping de la Base Loisirs for two nights. We loved cycling round the quiet roads, through apple and plum orchards and watching the little ferries (bacs) cross back and forth on the Seine as part of the road network so we stayed another night.

The town of Jumièges boasts a cathedral with links to William the Conqueror, and although it is a ruin it attracts some interest, but the buckles are a detour so the town was quiet.  One evening we ate in a small bar on the cycle back to the camp site.  The owner was a cheery lady with few teeth and a walk with a hobble. She spoke no English but corrected our bad French with zeal. She impressed on us the delights of pomme de terre à la maison and what she brought us to accompany the steak was the best chips I've tasted since my mum threw out her chip pan.

Bayeux

But Calvados beckoned and after a short stay in a very busy, Brit filled site at Le Brévedent, where the kids seemed to be competing in 'who is the loudest brat competition', we headed for Bayeux. 

The Municipal site on the edge of town was spacious and the pretty town was only a river path cycle ride away.  The weather had been hot and sunny so far but the wind picked up and ominous clouds gathered so it was no hardship to head for the museum and the Tapestry.

River Cycle

The Bayeux Tapestry is actually an embroidery, thought to be commissioned around  the year 1070 and is over seventy metres in length. It depicts the history of William the Conqueror's claim to the English throne culminating at the battle of Hastings.  The regimented visit snaked along a queue rope with the rest of the tourists after being handed an audio just before entry to a darkly lighted room that held the tapestry.  This audio is supposed to aid your progress, describing each panel as it came into view, but the plumby English commentator races through the story and only tells the half of it. On each panel there is the main action but along the bottom sub plots emerge, some are quite pornographic in nature, this is ignored and after only ten minutes we were back where we started feeling slightly cheated. It is possible to go back before leaving the gloom but I was blinking in daylight before I knew it and it was then too late.

Caen Graffiti

The next day it poured so we took the train to Caen. Although known for being the City of William the Conqueror it also featured heavily in the Battle of Normandy and huge parts of it were destroyed during that time. The Château de Caen is well worth a visit, with ruined battlements for clambering over and liberal pieces of artwork to view. There is a fine memorial there for the soldiers lost in the liberation.

Caen Liberation Memorial

Back in Bayeux I was determined not to leave before paying my respects to the three thousand plus service men and women buried and remembered in the British Commonwealth War Cemetery. It was moving and I felt a real sense of gratitude to them. I feel the French do too. The liberating allies were celebrated everywhere in the region. 

Bayeux British War Cemetery

We left Bayeux in a squall and headed for the landing beaches, Omaha beach was a blur of high waves and flapping flag poles – we didn't stop. The weather had improved when we reached Pointe du Hoc the highest point between Omaha beach and Utah beach, where US Army Rangers climbed the cliffs and captured the position. And by the time we reached Utah Beach the sun was out. Although busy with tourists the beach was quiet.   Someone had laid a cellophane wrapped bunch of yellow roses randomly on the beach -a touching gesture and yet for me this wasn't a sentimental journey.  With the exception of my uncle who was lost in Italy, I have no connection to WWII. Maybe it was the John Wayne effect.

Looking out from battlements, Pointe Du Hoc

We travelled north from there to the little commune of StVaast de la Hougue.  Famed for its oysters and its twin Vauban forts this was a must destination. For some reason I love Vauban forts. I suspect it is their location round the fringes of France that attracts me rather than their architecture although that is pretty impressive too.

Tatihou, island fortress

Vauban is France’s most famous military architect.  He designed and built forts during the reign of Louis XIV making Frances borders more secure.   The twin forts at St Vaast were for keeping the English at bay.

La Hougue, land fortress

I first encountered Vauban in 2012 when visiting the fortification of Mont Dauphine and then again in 2013 when on a trip to The Alps we spent some time in Briançon where there is a fantastic example of his forts. None of this Vauban bagging was intended it just happened. So I now wonder which fort I will stumble upon next year.

I started the holiday with one war based novel and finished it with another – Dr Zhivago.  This epic begins in WWI and ends with the Russia Revolution.  Again not an intentional choice but a bargain book that subliminally made it into my hand.  In the windswept sunshine of Normandy reading of the cold harsh weather in Siberia somehow did not feel strange.

Summer of War (1)

It wasn’t meant to turn out this way, it just happened. 

It started with the Rebecca West novel I picked up from a bargain bin on impulse. The Return of the Soldier, written in 1918 is an astonishing novella about love, war, sacrifice and decency.  Read the Goodreads review here.  I took it to London to read during our week at Crystal Palace.   It must have been a subliminal buy because I had always planned to visit the newly refurbished Imperial War Museum and in particular the WW1 exhibition.

Normally I would avoid any glorification of war but as part of the commemoration to the start of WW1 I submitted my granddad’s 1918 diary to the BBC online resource.  The diary was the inspiration for my poem Scream In Dolce.

The museum is in Southwark in what used to be Bethlem Royal Hospital also known as Bedlam Asylum and was on the No3 bus route from Crystal Palace. Perfect.

I was worried the IWM would be all bluster about our great warriors, but I couldn’t have been more wrong. The museum pulled no punches in its demonstrations of the futility of war.

Witnesses of War

The impressive Witnesses of War exhibits take over the atrium (including the aerial space). These include among others the Nery Gun, A Press Landrover involved in action in Palestine, a Russian tank and a rusting heap of a Bagdad car-bombed vehicle. All these exhibits were accompanied by display footage of their own particular story. I found the story of the V1 and V2 bombs particularly interesting and it set the tone for the rest of the visit. Slaves were used in the making of these bombs, a fact know by the inventor Wernher von Braun.  There were more people killed in the making of the bombs than in the actual bombings. Von Braun went on to work for NASA on rocket development and was awarded The National Medal of Science in the US in 1975, a fact the IWM is clearly disgusted with.

Other exhibits show twisted pieces of the Twin Tower, anti-Iraq War posters and a striking model called Beach Girl, showing the charred carbon remains of an atomic bomb victim. It is intended to shock and it works.

The WW11 section runs footage of the Normandy beach landings with commentary from the men who were there as well as the whole story of the war.

The main event is the WW1 exhibition. It is free but time ticketed for crowd control.   This section caters for everyone. As well as old fashioned factual information and artefacts, phone interactive games for the young’uns, there are stylistic installations where you can sit and absorb the enormity of what is going on.  One striking video rolls out the slow disintegration of a field in Picardy, from pleasant poppy field to craters and eventually into a sea of mud.

The last video is the most powerful. As the visitor leaves behind the destruction of WW1 there is a story of what happened next – after the war.  Aid to Germany, how borders changed and countries reorganised themselves to build their futures. It ends with the final frame - the words.

‘The War to End all Wars’

Poppies in the IWM gardens

 It was like a punch in the stomach and brought tears to my eyes.

Well done to all involved in this wonderful museum.

Food on the hoof

We’re just back from our longest Bessie trip so far.  Three weeks living in a campervan.

When we booked our ferry tickets from Southampton to Le Havre and mapped out the logistics, it made sense to drive south from Scotland a week before and spend a working week in London before the holiday.

We booked into The Caravan Club site at Crystal Palace and while I kept camp and scribbled about Colin commuted to work in central London every day until the time came when we could put on the ‘Out of Office’ and head for France.  

Camp Crystal

But more of that later. This blog is all about preparation.

As a keen gardener I was nerdily excited at the prospect of using my own produce to cook meals with limited preparation and cooking facilities.

Normally we holiday in June and July; weeks before the main crops harvest when there is only a few bags of salad and spinach ready to take with us.

This year, not only did we holiday in August, but the good weather in March and April meant the crops were early.  My garden was groaning with good grub.   My single courgette plant was already giving me a glut problem.   

The week before I left I had to pick all the blackcurrants to make jam.  Thankfully the garlic and onions had been lifted and plaited earlier in the month.  On the morning of our departure I lifted some potatoes and carrots, pulled more courgettes, picked broad beans, French beans, peas, spinach.  Not forgetting to choose some prime red and brown onions from the store.

Even the greenhouse plants were bearing fruit early so I chose the largest green peppers, a bag of chillies and bag of cherry tomatoes and even some green tomatoes to ripen in a brown paper bag.  Last of all a snip of salad and herbs; parsley, mint, thyme and basil. Bessie’s wee fridge was bursting at the hinges.

Tatties

In the kitchen the courgette bread was working its way through the bread machine programme but as well as the bread I had two other things in preparation. 

From past experience I know France means never missing out on fresh baked croissants for breakfast, but we oat eating Scots aren’t used to too much white flour so homemade granola and muesli made a good addition. It’s easy to make and delicious served with soya milk, yogurt and fruit.  The granola is slow cooked and the muesli only requires chopping and mixing.  I made enough cereal to last the whole three weeks.

Also getting up early to commute into Central London required a quick nutritious breakfast.  So these two breakfast recipes, written into my personal recipe book about thirty years ago, were happily resurrected and from now on will be a staple for all holidays.

A post script to this was the return.  While I was away my neighbours watered the garden and helped themselves to any crops that ripened. It's just a pity they don’t like courgettes.

Courgette anyone?