The rhythm of life

The last month has provoked a lot of thought. Family history and Becky’s studies have given us a strong attachment to this part of France, but an ambiguous one.

Our visitors – friends and family – have reminded us of our life in the UK and the fact that we will be returning there in the summer. I think this is also something I had mixed feelings about, but now I am looking forward to returning, but, equally, I can’t wait for another opportunity to live abroad.

Tomorrow I’m returning briefly to Brighton for a friend’s wedding – a very happy event – and also to see my family there.

Compared with the trip I made in November, I am very relaxed about this trip. I like how I now feel comfortable living in France. Last time I returned here with a suitcase full of stuff. This time I am taking a packed suitcase of things to Brighton and plan to return with, maybe, a jar of mango chutney and some teabags – but nothing more. We are happy with what we have here.

Although my health isn’t great and I am not able to eat a very wide variety of foods, I think I have found a good equilibrium in terms of looking after myself, resting and eating the right things. In fact, I think I am doing this better than I usually do in the UK – I have to remember how I have managed this for when we return.

This rhythm of life has also meant that I am sticking at some of the things I often find difficult due to fluctuations in my health. My guitar playing has improved considerably (although still isn’t very good). I have also been able to devour numerous novels and work my way through some non-fiction books too.

I think I have benefited from being away from all the day-to-day low-key stress and the comfortable rut I had found myself in. Not that there are no stresses here – very big ones like the language and totally different bureaucratic structures, laws and cultural rules, to name just a few.

However, I have seen me and my health lifted out of my normal environment and I think I understand more about how I can now get the most out of life when I get back to the UK. If that is the only thing I get out of this stay, it has been a very valuable year.

Voyage into the unknown

It is not just me who has family links to Basse-Normandie, my partner Becky has history here too.

Like my father, Becky’s dad landed in Normandy after D-Day. He arrived with General Patton’s US Third Army at Cherbourg at the end of July 1944. Under-age, Becky’s dad fought in some of the bloodiest campaigns of the war - the break-out in Normandy and then defeating the Nazi counterattack at the Battle of the Bulge - before invading Germany.

He has never talked about his experiences, beyond a few, typically humorous, anecdotes. It is hardly surprising. He probably only survived because he spoke a little German (actually, he spoke Yiddish) and was looked on as valuable after all the official translators had been killed within days of leaving Cherbourg.

Becky and I visited Cherbourg this week, but it was not Becky’s father's footsteps we were trying to discover.

Between the wars, Cherbourg had been one of the major ports of departure for European migration to the United States of America. From the early 1930s liners departed from a grand Art Deco terminal to travel to New York. The terminal now houses a vast modern museum to the sea, complete with aquaria and a nuclear submarine.



In 1922, Becky’s grandmother left for a new life in America. Thousands of migrants from across Europe would huddle on the quayside, waiting for the liners to dock. The shipping companies would run medical tests and check papers before allowing passengers on board – the companies would be responsible for paying passage back to Europe for those who failed the immigration procedure at Ellis Island.

A few years ago, Becky and I visited Ellis Island and discovered in the archives that Becky’s grandmother had travelled with her sister on the Mauritania from Cherbourg to New York. Before that she had travelled from the city of Uman in what is now the Ukraine.

It was incredible to be in Cherbourg and to try and imagine the amazing adventures that the thousands of migrants – including Becky’s grandmother – embarked on from this port.

For many - particularly Jews from eastern Europe - this would prove to be a voyage of survival, with no family members surviving the famines of the 1930s, the second world war and the Nazi Holocaust.

Again, we were struck by the enormity of history in these lands, the terrible suffering of the last century that – thankfully – never quite reached the British mainland.

Living in mainland Europe has given us an opportunity to uncover the local history – made more poignant by family connections – and has allowed us to understand some of the nuances of how post war Europe has been shaped.

Memories of the debarquement

When we came to Normandy I was aware that I had family connections to the region, but the last week has brought this history home to me.

My father – who visited us this week – passed through Basse-Normandie on two occasions during the second world war. The first time was fleeing the German advance that had cut off a route to the Dunkirk retreat in 1940. He was eventually ferried back to the UK in a Breton fishing boat.

The second time, he arrived at Arromanches two weeks after D-Day in 1944. He worked as an anaesthetist at the military hospital outside Bayeux and then set up a dental laboratory at the small seaside town of Langrune-sur-mer, just north-west of Caen.



The reason that the army needed a dentist so soon after D-Day is an interesting one. The combination of the rough seas of June 1944 and the fashion for young men to have false teeth meant that a lot of dentures ended up on the seabed. My father's laboratory was busy producing and fitting new dentures for the British troops.

So our trip to Langrune this week was an important family pilgrimage. During a previous visit in 1963 my father had failed to find the chalet where he had lived or the dental laboratory. But he felt in his bones that they were still there.

Whilst the rest of the family opted out of this wild goose chase, me and my 92 year-old dad trekked around the town. Taking the old church as a landmark, he narrowed down our search to the western edge of the town – still quite a large area.

Just as we were about to give up, my dad suggested we try just one more road, even though it was right on the boundary with the next town. As we turned down the small, unpaved road it looked like the old black and white pictures my father had taken in 1944.

About halfway down the road he spotted the chalet, still called “Marie Louise” and looking just like it had 65 years ago. It was a fabulous moment – not only had we succeeded in our quest, but it was very emotional for my father to reconnect with his past so concretely. And it was very moving for me to be there with him.



The dental laboratory was in the next street. It has been set up in a small workshop, which was now converted into a house. We had really hit the jackpot.

After living in Langrune for 3 months and looking after local people’s teeth as well as the soldiers', my father followed the advancing army to Belgium where he was based in Antwerp and Brugges.

Having a family connection to the events of 65 years ago probably helps to remind me of the history of this region of France. It is not a pleasant history. Even as the region was being liberated, thousands of civilians were killed in air-raids and ancient towns and cities were razed to the ground.

The Nazi occupation had divided the local people between those who resisted, those who collaborated and those who did neither. The memories of these divisions are deep and painful and the wounds still have not healed today.