Minchenden 1947 School Trip

This is the last real letter from France and is just a postcard from Monte Carlo.

Just a scrawl written in a car in Monaco. We are now entering Monte Carlo. I must write quickly so that I can post this in Monaco with a Monaco stamp. I have just visited Nice.

Miss Smith was one of the teachers mentioned in the original post on the trip, written in the school magazine by Erica Taylor.

Miss Smith was still teaching at Minchenden, when I was there and I think she retired as Head Mistress, when I left in 1965. On the last day of school, I seem to remember there may have been a confrontation between her and Dr. Booth, our form teacher and a respected Physics teacher, over our behaviour. My fellow classmates, who were all leaving, had broken a window in her office to get on the roof to put chairs all round the parapets of the building. She hadn’t found it funny.

She never taught me, but I always felt she was a stern and rather distant figure. This letter shows her in rather a different light.

Dear Mr and Mrs Campbell

I arrived here yesterday afternoon and went up to the Lac to see Ian this morning. I am sure there is no need to reassure you about him. He is perfectly happy and looks very well. He has adjusted himself extremely well to the immense change of food; temperature and surroundings and is going to be very sorry to leave.

It would probably have been much better if I had never gone, because they have been so reassured by my presence as to want to change their mind about sending Jean back with Ian. We are in a quandary here. Ian sees all sorts of difficulties, your work, your holiday, your spring cleaning, your exam! On the other hand next summer he thinks he may very well be called up and unable to repay the Girauds’ kindness.

Now, all this will come as a bombshell and you will be rather upset at this eleventh hour suggestion.

What we want you to do is to wire immediately yes or no – and please do not hesitate to say “no” if it is impossible. Ian thinks that I can put this last point more clearly than he. He really is the most considerate lad I know and he can foresee all sorts of extra burdens for you – that is burdens that you need not make for yourselves.

Life at the Lac is very simple – nothing bourgeois about it at all. They certainly have plenty of the good things of this life and to spare – but that is because they have it to hand.

If you decide in the affirmative – don’t put yourself to a lot of trouble or any at all for that matter. He is a nice lad and Ian will be able to entertain him most royally – and once school starts he will spend that day at school with Ian. It’s the simple life of an English family that counts – he does not need a surfeit of places of interest – in fact he will probably be quite as interested in the country as in the town, and as Ian suggests they might even go camping together. Now please don’t hesitate to say “no” and if you say “yes”, don’t let it make a lot of extra work ; quite unnecessary!

Now I must try to catch the post in the hope that you can have this by Saturday. There is still a question whether the lad’s passport can turn up in time and on rereading this I find that the point that I have not made clear is that the original suggestion did not come from Ian or me, and that they are so impressed by Ian’s niceness – and my character “dévoné” as they call it, that it seemed to them quite natural to change their minds. You see the farmer does not know what a summer holiday is. He works by the seasons. He is rather in the hands of Providence and not compelled like us poor mortals to plan in detail. The outlook is extraordinarily different.

They had gone a long way in the discussion and it was difficult for us to butt in and say categorically “no, you ought to have thought of that before”. We could only say – we’ll write to you, pointing out the difficulties.

Oh dear! I am feeling my responsibilities!

With all good wishes,

Yours very sincerely

Jean M. Smith

Another letter. Ian appears to be feeling better.

Dear Mum and Dad,

I received last Saturday the packet containing the socks and Dad’s letter and today I received your letter of the 2nd. I am sending this letter by air mail – this may complicate matters since this letter may arrive before its’ predecessor.

First of all, I want to hasten to reassure you about my condition – I am feeling much better now, but I have gone into this much more fully in my preceeding letter. I will not waste any more of my precious paper on the subject. Today Miss S arrives at Tourrettes and tomorrow she will be coming to see me. I will afterwards write to you. I had a card from her the other day from which it appears that one has not received my letter and so I don’t think that I will have put her out at all.

I was very interested to hear about Miss S’s nephew – he sounds a very nice fellow – and I very much regret that fact that I shall be unable to make his acquaintance.

Since my last letter I have had a very interesting time. On Sunday we set out at ten to six for the Gorges du Verdon – by car, of course. At seven-twenty we met a family of cousins – six in number. At about half-past eight we had a puncture and spent quite a time repairing this. When we go to the Gorges we saw a magnificent bridge which I photographed (by the way thanks for the extra reel, Dad). It is 450 ft high and after the bridge the cliffs rise much higher. The road – only opened three weeks ago – follows the edge of the cliffs and when it would otherwise become too steep it goes into a series of short tunnels. About 11.15 we stopped to prepare dinner and this we started at about 11.45. It was a terrific meal (I don’t know whether I ate or drank more heavily) which lasted nearly three hours. Everybody was very merry towards the end and afterwards we set off once more and all went well till we reached the village of Aiguines where the cousin’s motor broke down. A lorry for towing had to be sent for and did not arrive until about 5.00. However, we had quite a good time in Aiguines sitting and talking and drinking in the shade of the trees in the centre of the village. Happily it was the day of the village band fete and we were entertained by the village which made up for any lack of musical skill by its tremendous enthusiasm. About 5.30 we got going once more following the cousins’ car which was on tow and every few minutes the tow-line parted and the procession would stop while readjustments were made. Eventually we reached Anfo – a smallish town. Here our party met some more cousins quite by chance and we went and had supper in their rooms – they were on holiday at Nups. I had met them before at Toulon when I ate the mayonnaise which made me feel ill – and the other cousins went on to Draguignan – their home – where we joined them at about 11.30 and where we spent the night. Before leaving Draguignan on Monday morning we visited a wine factory and here all the works and processes were fully explained to me and I drank some straight from the vat. We left D at about 9.30, arriving at Fayence about an hour later – here we spent a long while at the house of some more cousins and we did not get back to ‘Le Lac’ until about 12.45.

This morning I spent in visiting the country house of somebody rather like Mabel, in going for a walk WS in their forest (Mr. G’s I mean) and in helping to clear a field of stones. Over the weekend I hope to be visiting Grasse and Cannes but otherwise I don’t know if I am doing anything special.

Well, I am sorry if this letter is nearly illegible (your last was!) and a little bit scrappy but I am going easy on the paper. I hope you are all in the best of health as I am,

Your loving son
Ian

PS: It is raining here for the first time in months.

PS: Miss Smith has just left ‘Le Lac’. She is very keen that Jean should return to London with me, and she broached this plan to the Girauds, who seem to be equally keen. She is writing to you at once and you will probably have received two letters by the same post. I am more or less neutral on the matter, except that I think it might be preferable for the visit to be returned this year since it would leave next year free. If this is going to put you to the slightest inconvenience, I have only one thing to say – refuse unconditionally to entertain the idea. It will make very little difference to me one way or the other. I explained to Miss S the difficulties which I thought might be in the way and I believe that she is now fully cognisant with the situation – or so much so as I am. However, I say once again that should this project be to the smallest extent unacceptable to you there must be no question of y our answer – it must be a NO. Postman’s here, can’t write more.

This is another letter that he wrote from Tourettes. From what he says, it might appear that some of the letters have gone missing

Dear Mum and Dad

I received your letter of the 25th July a day or so ago and was very glad to hear from you. Have you received my letter of Monday last? I have since thought that I wrote in a rather more gloomy tone than was altogether necessary; the truth is that Monday morning saw my spirits at their lowest and that I wrote to you and to one of my schoolfriends as much to relieve my feelings as for anything else. Since Monday things have got better. (By the way, I have not yet (Saturday) received the registered packet – but today’s post has not yet come in, so don’t worry.)

‘Le Lac’ is a large farm very efficiently cultivated by about three or four people lying about a mile NE of Tourrettes-Fayence – which are so to speak Siamese twins and 80 miles E of Marseilles and 10 miles inland. The farmhouse and nearer parts of the farm are on a plateau surrounded by steep hills at a mile or so’s distance except towards the S where the country is more open. Where the land is cultivated it is usually irrigated and it is very fertile and elsewhere it is either heathland or woodland. The farmhouse itself is in the Provencal style – built of stone with red tiles, very thick walls to keep out the heat, few windows well shuttered and very compact – stables and co being all under the same roof. The rooms are large and cool. The chief products are timber, vines ie wine and fruit. The livestock consists of numerous chickens and rabbits, two pigs, one horse and one cow. At the moment of writing the last of the small hay crop has been garnered. I don’t know what comes next – fig –drying I believe.

The people here are M. Go, a man of about forty-five, quite nice but nothing special – a farmer before all else; Mrs. G – very nice, an excellent cook and farmer’s wife; Jean; Jacques – aged about 18, a Toulonnais working here until he is old enough to join the Navy, very nice indeed and very chummy; we also see quite a lot of M. G’s parents both in their seventies and M. G Senior has taken quite a fancy to me. There is also a farm day labourer, Jules, who I suspect is an old rascal but who seems to like me.

M. G’s day starts at 4 AM – mine about 8 AM. I then while away the morning in writing, doing odd jobs, reading and going round the farm w Jean. About 12 – 12.30 we have dinner, a very big meal – and about 1.00 PM we start the siesta. I read for half an hour or so and then doze till about 3.00 then read again for perhaps an hour; Jean sleeps all the time. Sometimes in the late PM we go down to the village, visiting J’s many friends and relations. About 8.45 we have supper and about 9.45 we go to bed. And so it goes on.

It is a little monotonous, but matters are much better since J discovered some Classics (??). I try to help with as much of the farm work as possible but my efforts in this direction are not encouraged – partly because they think it wrong that a guest should work, partly because there is not a lot of time (for them) to teach me all the ‘tricks of the trade’.

Tomorrow we are going on an excursion to the ‘Colorado Canyon’ of France, starting at 5.45 AM. This should be most enjoyable since we are to combine forces with yet another family of cousins. Later I believe we shall be visiting Cannes, but things are a bit vague and I don’t like to be too pressing in my enquiries; I think too that sometime we shall be going over to Frejus to visit my girl-friend who has aroused great interest at ‘Le Lac’! Next Wednesday Miss S is I believe planning a descent on ‘Le Lac’ – just how pleasant that will be I can’t say.

I received a latter from Alan, making reference to the fact I may _______??? It is a masterly mixture of cheek and tact – I am longing to show it to you. As soon as I can buy some postcards I shall postcard everybody who requires it – here as you can imagine there is nothing in the way of postcards. By the way, the money is holding out very well – since my arrival at Tourrettes I have spent 82 francs ie 3 shillings and 5 pence in 8 or 9 days! I still have 1300 francs left in notes but I suppose it will disappear if we visit the coastal resorts.

Well, I think that that is about all I have to tell you to date.

Your loving son, Ian

PS: I am sorry that my letters take such a time to arrive - however I suppose it can’t be helped.
I.G.C.

I’ve just heard from Terry, who was a close friend of Ian Campbell. In fact, Ian was best man at Terry’s wedding over fifty years ago.

He did not go on the French trip, but he has some other interesting comments.

I did not go on the school trip to France because I went with my Scout Troop to Luxembourg at that time, but I remember hearing Ian’s account of it delivered to the Sixth Form, and in particular his reference to the sanitation being on the ‘open field’ principle!

Of course I have many memories of him and my other contemporaries at Minchenden, and a selection of photos - including one of a French boy on a return visit who may have been one of those referred to in the letters.

In a second message, Terry added.

Luxembourg in 1947 was full of the debris of war, in particular of the December 1944 Ardennes offensive. But they did have magnificent patisseries, which we certainly did not have in England. Austerity was stronger then than during the War, but I don’t remember the time as gloomy!

This document was found in Ian’s papers. It was given to every school child in 1946, to commemorate victory in World War 2. Note the spelling of to-day with a hyphen.

The Front

The Back

I wonder how many of them still exist. Two friends claim that they have them somewhere, so they can’t be that rare.

This was the address where Ian spent the bulk of his time in the South of France.

Google Maps give the location a kilometre or so to the east of Tourettes, which as Ian puts it is a twin town of Fayence.  This checks with the position that he gave in his letter.  Fayence is about twelve kilometres due north of Frejus.

I must visit.

Ian has now arrived where he will stay for the remainder of the holiday.

Dear Mum and Dad

As you see, I have now arrived at ‘Le Lac’ where I received your letter of the 17th. I have delayed answering because I had expected a reply to my earlier letters - but the post out here is very poor compared with London. I don’t think that it would be much use if I gave you my Marseilles address because nobody there knows sufficient English to read a letter from you and in any event I shall be returning there to catch the train home.

We arrived at ‘Le Lac’ on the evening of Thursday last after a very tiring but equally interesting journey by motor coach from Toulon to St. Raphael and St. R to Fayence where we were met by Mr and Mrs Giraud in their car. (By the way, I wasn’t too tired after my long journey to Marseilles.) In the motor coach we travelled along the Corniche d’Or – the coast road – which is very beautiful but not so beautiful as the road from St. R to Nice and Monte Carlo – or so it is said.

Conditions at ‘Le Lac’ are not so good as at Marseilles and Toulon – though the people are very nice. There is no lavatory – so one has to make use of the open fields but I am used to that. The people are mainly farmer-folk occupied almost entirely with the land and there is no one really to talk to – as there was at Toulon. The days pass very slowly indeed in spite of efforts on my part to sleep them away. There is nothing very good in the way of books to read but I do enjoy highly cartooned (?) French novels as best I can. The heat, too, I still find a little trying. I feel also that my French is not making the progress it ought to because of lack of conversational facilities.

On the other side of the picture is the prospect (very vague) of visits to Cannes, Grasse, Nice and Monte Carlo. Also Miss Smith’s friend Mlle Carle will I believe be visiting us sometime and I am looking forward to that very much since I shall learn something of the people at Aix and also I hope shall have some congenial company.

Jean has a great many friends and relations in Tourrettes and we have gone the rounds of visiting them. I have found them all very nice but not very ‘interesting’. We have been bathing twice on both occasions in very beautiful spots, especially the first time when we went to a mountain stream such as one reads about. Yesterday (Sunday) was the day of the village fete and in the evening we watched the end of the Boules Championship, afterwards having supper at Jean’s grandmother’s, then adjourning to the local ‘Bar’ to spend two noisy hours there. We slept at Tourrettes with Jean’s grandmother, returning to ‘Le Lac’ this morning.

Well, I will close this dismal letter now in cursing the fates which dragged me from Marseilles and Toulon and in looking forward to your reply, also in conveying Mme Giraud’s hearty thanks for the food which you provided – she really is grateful.

Love to all
Yours truly, Ian

PS: I have written to Miss Smith and told her of my troubles and am hopeful that she may be able to do something for me.

Ian has now moved on to Toulon and I’ll let him tell the story.

Dear Mum and Dad

Please forgive this wretched letter but the circumstances under which I write are not of the most favourable; it is the small hours of Thursday morning and I have eaten far too much supper and because of that and the heat I cannot sleep, and there is no ink in my pen.

Since I last wrote you I have spent two whole days and an evening in Toulon. Toulon is of very much the same character as Portsmouth, it being a big naval port. The evening of my arrival – after a somewhat hectic journey – we went for a short walk round the port and watched the docking of an American vessel which had come for bauxite – aluminium ore. The next day (Tuesday) we – Jean, myself and the part of the Vial family with whom we are staying – went for a walk round Toulon and the neighbouring district of Le Mourillon. In the afternoon we went bathing at a town two bus rides off. The evening I spent, as usual, eating and talking. Yesterday, in the morning, we played ping-pong for a short while and after that we went bathing once more – I am now getting quite brown, but painlessly luckily. In the afternoon we went to the pictures and saw an English film - Journey Together – which had a French soundtrack. Although yesterday was the hottest day of my stay it was nice and cool in the cinema and I understand that it is the custom in France – at my sortie with J. Giraud – to take refuge in the pictures when it is excessively hot elsewhere. In the evening we – that is Jean G, myself and Jean Vial – went out to dinner with some distant relations of JG. Here – as I have said – I ate far more than was good for me and I am now paying the price. It was a significant repast – although the said relations were only ordinary people of the Grandma Clay sort – where wine flowed like water and of which for me the chief delights were ice-cream and chicken. I was rather out of the conversation which was – I believe – mainly about family topics and had to confine myself to talking to two little kiddies – one aged three and a half and the other five – but they spoke beautifully and it wasn’t difficult to understand them. Today, we will make our way to Tourrettes – a long journey which for me will be spent in sleep. The Vial family are very pleasant people – it consists of father, mother, two sons and grandma – and once again I have found myself in circumstances which could hardly be better. Father and Mother are both elementary school teachers and Mme V is very much Mrs. Morris. We don’t see very much of the elder son but the other one is a few months younger than I. It appears that he wants to come to England on an exchange visit and I think that his mother is not without designs on the peace of our household. However, don’t worry! I have persuaded her to write to Miss Smith on the subject. Well, I think that I have told you everything important now (although there will be a host of little things to tell you when I return) except to say that I now find myself commencing my second week in France with confidence. This week seems to have gone both very quickly and very slowly – most odd.

It is now 2.45 and so I will say goodbye, asking you to remember me to everybody and to give my love to Whisky.

Yours lovingly
Ian

This was the first letter that Ian sent to his parents from the South of France. The school party had left London on the sixteenth and from the letter it appears he sent a postcard en route.

Dear Mum and Dad

As you see, I am writing from Marseilles as I thought I might because I don’t quite know when I shall arrive at Tourrettes. Tomorrow we leave Marseilles for Toulon where I believe we shall stop a day only and then we go on to Tourrettes.

Before I tell you what I have been doing I shall speak of the people with whom I find myself. Jean Giraud is a month or so younger than me and we get on very well together. He is quite different to Michel. He is an excellent companion and we always have plenty to talk about. We are as you know stopping with the family of his cousin. These people could not be nicer, especially Mme Andrieu and as I said in my card, they spoil me dreadfully. Jean’s cousins – Jean and Robert – are both very friendly and indeed the whole family seems to put itself out to satisfy my least need – it would be impossible to meet with more sympathetic people – even in France. M Andrieu has this minute returned (he is away all the week) with his face rather mauled after a bicycle accident but he is ______ other Frenchman that I have met so far.

Now to tell you a little about my day. I get up about half-past seven but Jean and Robert don’t get up until eight-o-clock or a little after. The French are not such early risers as I had expected (though of course those – like Mme Andrieu and Jean Andrieu – who go out to work get up rather earlier.) About quarter past eight we have breakfast which consists of a large bowl of milky coffee with toast floating in it. It is quite sufficient for me but I have no doubt that Dad would find it a little frugal. About ten or half we go out for a short trip somewhere – yesterday we went swimming in the Med (very nice) and the day before we went round one or two of the big shops (very expensive). We return for lunch at about half-past twelve.

After that there is the ‘sieste’ during which one sleeps because it is too hot to do anything else. Having awoken from the siesta at about four o’clock they make me a cup of tea although nobody else in the house likes it. This tea is drunk without milk but with sugar and is most refreshing. About half-past four we set out on our afternoon excursion which is usually much longer than that of the morning – we don’t return until about eight o’clock. About nine we sit down to supper which lasts until getting on for half-past ten and we talk the whole time and even afterwards up to about eleven when we start to go to bed.

I am surprised at the ease with which I have taken to French food. It is mostly rather highly seasoned but there is not so much garlic as I had expected. What I like especially is the amount of wine which one drinks – between us we drink a whole bottle of Castille at each meal.

The journey as far as Paris was both comfortable and interesting. After Paris it was only interesting. We crossed Paris by bus and saw quite a few of the famous buildings. We had a horrible time at the Gare de Lyon looking for our train but finally we found it and we installed ourselves fairly comfortably but I am afraid that we didn’t sleep very much. We spent thirteen very long hours in that train and towards the end I began to think that we would never get to Marseilles but we did and I found John without……………..(whole section missing, but the next day it seems they probably drove along the Corniche.) In the afternoon we visited the Church of St. Victor under which are the catacombs containing the first Christian church in France – circa 100 AD. Yeaterday we went swimming in the morning and in the afternoon we took the boat for the Chateau d’If, the island prison made famous by Dumas in “The Count of Monte Cristo”. Other famous prisoners include The Man in the Iron Mask and Count Mirabeau. Before arriving at the Chateau we went around the main port.

(The concluding paragraph of this letter also has a section missing but it seems as though Ian is saying that he has covered all the important things since his arrival and he will fill his parents in on other things when he returns.)

Yours
Ian
PS: I enclose the Ration Books, they were not needed at the Customs.