24th Septermber 2020

 

 “Wanted: Temporary nanny for two adorable children aged 4 and 2.  Central London; generous salary."

 

The last two words jumped off the page shouting; I’d been working in a  day nursery for a pittance which barely covered my bus fares. A live-in job with money as well sounded like a dream. And in the exciting, vibrant capital too.

My granny was not so sanguine, ‘London? That den of iniquity! They’ll sell you to white slavers.’  

 If she could have chained me to the leg of her orthopaedic chair, I’m sure she would.

‘It’s all right Gran, I’ve been to London before, it’s not that bad.’

With the extensive experience of  a day trip to the Big Smoke with my school, I was wise to it all.

 

I only got lost twice before arriving at the impressive building where, with any luck, I’d be working.  At reception,  a doorman the size of an ox barred my way but having read my  letter of introduction allowed me through to the holy of holyies.

A uniformed maid let me into the apartment itself and  showed me to a sitting room which positively glowed. 

Super-thick white carpet as far as the eye could see, leather couches the colour of double cream, rich tapestries on the walls and overhead, a sparkling chandeliers. Wow.

 French windows opened onto a garden manicured to within an inch of its life.  As was the woman who now prepared to interrogate me.

I should have realised I was on the brink of calamity the moment I sat down and the leather couch made a rude and prolonged noise.

 Lady Olivia, my potential employer had an accent so plummy  I nearly asked for an interpreter but the interview went well, apart from the fact she called me, ‘Ninny’ all the time.  I thought that a little rude until I realised she meant ‘Nanny.’

I  had a great CV and anyway she was  desperate, so I got the job.

 

My employers left for a wine tour of France the next day and I got to know the children.  

Horatio and Eugenia were indeed adorable and we played hide and seek, shrieking up and down the corridors of the enormous apartment, causing Angel the maid some alarm but before long, she was joining in.

 Buttered toast and honey for nursery tea and some hilarious bath time play before  I read the children a story and tucked them into bed.

Time to get on with their laundry.

 The gigantic kitchen was next to the dining and sitting rooms, so staff had easy access when serving.  

 In one corner stood the unfamiliar washing machine but just how complicated were these things?  I loaded the clothes, added a scoop of Daz, pressed the buttons and, as it was summer time and still brilliantly sunny,  sat in the garden.  In minutes I was dozing.

Joyful screams and a splashing sound woke me.   Horatio and his little sister had left their beds and were clearly having a lovely time with water. Water?

In the sitting room my two little charges were jumping about in an ever spreading lake.  Gallons and gallons of sudsy water,  spreading from the kitchen like lava across acres of white Axminster.

 In a panic I ran to fetch towels but could find only those in the nearest bathroom. I had no idea where others were kept.  Desperately I lay these down, to the great delight of both children who stomped on them with gusto. 

 The Bendix was still pumping out bubbles and frantically I examined the evil thing to see how it could be stopped.  At the back, wound around metal pegs, was the pipe I should have hooked over the edge of the adjacent sink, if only I’d known.

 

Having switched it off but still with a brain unable to focus for sheer terror, I tried to fathom how to mop up and permanently dry the carpet before my employers came back a few days later.

First the easy bit - get the children out of wet pyjamas and back to bed. They cried.

 ‘Want to squelch,’ complained Eugenia but both were pacified with another story and were soon fast asleep.

I returned to the flood, full of sympathy for Noah and grateful not to have the two-by-twos to clear up after.   Always look on the bright side of life.

A pile of newspapers were stacked in the pantry, so I took up the sopping towels and lay these, several inches thick on the soaking carpet. 

I did a little stomping of my own to encourage them to soak up the torrent. It was fun.

 

The children had thrown some of the towels onto the cream leather couches and they were sadly stained.  I was on the point of hysteria when Angel tiptoed in, almost died with shock and immediately poured us two glasses of M'lord's brandy.

 Calmer, I decided if we put every heater in the house on full during the night most of the water would evaporate.   Daytime, with the French windows wide open, the summer sunshine would do the rest.  I hoped.

Angel and I assembled all the heaters and after another medicinal brandy, adjourned to her quarters where she advised me that milk is the best thing for getting stains out of leather.

 

The next day dawned with torrential rain, clearly not drying weather but at least the heaters could stay on and were making a difference. The newspapers were drying nicely.

 Angel kept an eye on the children whilst I,  glass of Jersey milk in hand, set about renovating the couches.

Small flakes of plaster drifted, like snow from the ceiling.  Unusual and prolonged humidity had crackled it but I couldn’t worry about that.  The carpet was still far from dry, the heaters must stay on.

 Another night passed and another rainy day and the sitting room had a distinct pong of sour milk and soggy, mildewed carpet.  

 Half the ceiling had flaked away and the tapestries on the wall seemed to be growing some strange sort of fungus.   I wondered how easy it would be to abandon everything and apply to the Foreign Legion.

 On the day my employers were due home, I prayed for the Axminster to be dry and gingerly lifted the reams of newspaper to inspect it.

 There, imprinted quite clearly and distinctly,  on yards and yards of the once pristine white carpet were the colourful pages of the Times Literary Supplement.

14th September 2020

  

 

 

 Lying is giving information while knowing it to be untrue.

There can be few parents and teachers who have not impressed upon children that it is wrong to lie.

These same adults will, over the course of their lives, tell many hundreds of  untruths.

 The World's Biggest Liar Competition is held in Cumbria where contestants, who really do come from all over the world,  have five minutes to convince an audience with their porkies.

Politicians and lawyers are banned.

 BBC presenter Sue Perkins won the 100 year old competition in 2006, the first woman to do so.

Psychologists tell us that everyone, without exception, lies.

 Advertisers, politicians, teachers, clergymen, American presidents, sweet old grannies, barristers all lie through their teeth.   

In fact it's alleged that one of the Cumbrian champions was the Bishop of Carlisle with the shortest speech ever. He said, “I have never told a lie in my life.”

So knowing this, why do we ask and expect children to tell nothing but the truth?

 US Social Psychiatrist Yah Lee discovered that pathological liars, have 25% more white brain cells than more truthful people.  These cells begin developing, in everyone, at the age of 2, when children begin to lie.

When asked a sticky question,  rather than simply telling the truth - and shaming the devil, as they used to say, we search for an excuse (lie).

 There are some obvious reasons to lie: to get out of trouble; to make money or  achieve a position of power. 

 There are equally good reasons to be truthful. If you are a known liar, who’s going to trust you?

The best relationships are based on confidence and the ability to rely on the person you live or work with.  

The majority of divorces have at their beginning, a  lie of some kind.   When trust goes, so, quite often,  does the relationship.

 

So I propose that when we talk to children about lying, we try to be honest.

We teach them about lies and how they are part of life but that they should not be mis-used.

We don’t just tell them not to do it; we are all hard-wired to lie but there are some lies which don't matter and can even be fun.

We don’t punish them for doing what we too  have certainly done in the past and will in the future.  

We create an atmosphere where children have the confidence to come to us and admit they’ve done something, knowing they’ll get a fair hearing and not hypocrisy.

We explain that lying is part of being human but if we lie a lot and especially to get something to which we’re not entitled, then people will lose confidence in us, dislike us and assume we always lie.

Then, when we tell the truth, no one will believe us.

 

We could teach children the value of being truthful, whilst accepting there will be times when they need to lie.

 I was recently asked to give an example of this. I recalled an incident related by one of my students.

As he was walking to school, a car pulled up beside him,  a man leaned out, pointed to a classmate walking ahead, ‘Do you know where she lives?’   

He did but shook his head. Then warned the girl, her parents and the school.  Should he have given the address? Of course not.

Let's be honest about lying for a change.

 There may be white lies and black lies but lying itself isn’t black and white, it has many shades and many reasons. 

If we want our children to trust us, we will admit this and teach them the value of truth.

 

 

 

 

31st August 2020

 Yesterday we talked about the French Foreign Legion, Légion étrangère, mentioning Susan Travers, the only woman to have served with them.

Susan Travers during WW2 

She had such a fascinating life that I decided to look into her story more fully.

Susan Mary Gillian Travers was born in London on 23rd September 1909. Her father, Admiral Francis Eaton Travers and her mother, Eleanor Catherine were austere and  distantly cold parents.

When she was 12, the family moved to the  south of France for her father’s health and there, Susan entered the world of a rich and carefree young socialite.

“It was a wonderful time to be on the Riviera. Parties and champagne, and tangos and Charlestons and of course lots of young men - well, lovers really.”  

In later years, her ghost writer-biographer, Wendy Holden said, ‘there were rather a lot of lovers, even a Russian Prince but we had to leave some of them out!’

Author Wendy Holden and Susan

On a generous monthly allowance from an aunt,  young Susan lived an easy life, drifting between chateaux, country house parties and the smartest hotels. 

She was staying in the luxurious Poitiers home of a divorced friend when Britain declared war on Germany.

She was almost 30 and along with many thousands of other young women applied to join the French Red Cross; completed training as a nurse but decided a more exciting life could be had as an ambulance driver.

In this role, she sailed from Liverpool with the 13th Demi-brigade of the French  Foreign Legion, as driver to one of the Legion's doctors. 

Tragically, he was soon killed when his truck hit a landmine.

His replacement, Colonel  Marie-Pierre Koenig for whom Susan was also the official driver, subsequently became her lover, some say the love of her life.

Koenig

In May 1942, 1st Free French Brigade was posted to Bir Hakeim in Libya, under constant attack from Axis forces. 

 During one bombardment, a shell took off the roof of Koenig's car but Travers and a Vietnamese driver fixed it.

With Stukas, Panzer tanks and heavy artillery, the Germans expected to take the fort in minutes. The Free French held it for 15 days. 

Legionnaires at Bir Hakeim

For most of that time, Susan Travers lay in a small hole in the ground, dug out by her Legionnair comrades. Temperatures reached  51C but she refused to leave her Legion friends and her lover.

As water and ammunition ran out, Koenig decided to evacuate and as they left Bir Hakeim, their column ran into minefields and German machine gun fire but Travers was ordered to drive at the front of the column, “The rest will follow” Koenig told her".  And follow  they did. 

Reminiscing year later, Susan Travers said, ‘It’s a delightful feeling, going as fast as you can in the dark. My main concern was that the engine would stall.”

When they got to the British lines the next day, her vehicle had 11 bullet holes and the shock absorbers and brakes were totally useless.

Koening, promoted to General was transferred but Travers remained with the Legion, who had nicknamed her ‘La Miss’, and went on to drive a self-propelled anti-tank gun in the Italian Campaign. 

She saw further action in Germany and France before being posted to Vietnam during the First Indo-China War.  .  She was wounded when she too drove over a land mine.

After the war, her military status with the Legion became official and she was formally enrolled in the Légion Étrangère, as an Adjutant-chef.  

 “I had to make my own uniform because there wasn't one for a woman.”  She was sent on service to Tunisia,  “where I had to go buy a barrel of red wine for the mess every day, and bring it back on the back of a mule.”

After the war, she  married Legion Adjudant-chef  Nicolas Schlegelmilch, who had also fought at Bir Hakeim. They retired to lived a quiet, unexceptional life in France, raising two sons.

Showing their many medals for outstanding bravery

 Madame Susan Schlegelmilch waited until all the main figures in her remarkable life were dead before she agreed to tell her story.

In in 2000, aged 91 and assisted by author Wendy Holden,  she wrote, “Tomorrow to Be Brave: A Memoir of the Only Woman Ever to Serve in the French Foreign Legion.” 

The title came from a poem once read to her by her beloved Koening:

 “Distrust yourself, and sleep before you fight. 'Tis not too late tomorrow to be brave." 

“I do hope they make it (my life story)  into a film," she  told Holden,  "I should quite like my grandchildren to see what their naughty old grandma got up to”.

She died in a Paris nursing home in 2003

Her medals:

 Légion d'honneur

Médaille commémorative 1939-1945 with clasp - "Afrique" - "Italie"- "Libération"

Médaille Coloniale, du mérite syrien de 4e classe

Croix de libération finlandaise

Officier de l'Ordre du Nichan Iftikhar

Médaille Militaire

Croix de Guerre

Le Croix de Guerre

30th August 2020

                       Honneur et Fidélité

There can be few groups with as romantic a mythology as the French Foreign Legion, or Légion étrangère.

  "You can join as a fugitive from the law and you don’t even have to give your real name."

 Both these assumptions are incorrect although it may have had some crédence  in 1831 when the Legion first began.

 Nowadays, strict background checks are made by Interpol and France’s Intelligences services but petty crime may be overlooked in some circumstances.

 

Fording a river in full kit may have hidden dangers: currents and predators

The selection process is rigorous; only one in nine applicants even get through the doors. Basic training is harsh and many will never get to wear the traditional white kepi.  Injury and even death during training are not unknown.

  Applicants must be between 17 and 40 and foreign (not French), though this rule can be relaxed -  up 15% of legionnaires are thought to be French. 

 The Legion can afford to be picky. Every day, dozens of men, from all over the world,  turn up at recruiting station across France (and this is the only way to join, a personal visit)  eager to prove themselves with this elite force.

 

The Legion can be made up of 140 different nationalities but French is the common language, so learning is compulsory.  There are daily lessons but as training often leads to pain, injury  and sleep-deprivation, this isn’t easy either.

 Theoretically, you can leave the Legion any time during the first month but if the Legion itself decides you’re not up to the mark, they’ll dismiss you instantly without question or explanation, just ‘Non - allez vous!’

 

Legionnaire - 1863 Mexican Campaign

Recruits who survive what is reputed to be the most arduous military training in the world both physically and psychologically can expect a good pay rate and excellent food and lodgings whilst on base (jungle warfare training may depend on foraging for bugs).    The diet includes wine from the Legion’s own vineyards in Provence, tended by former legionnaires in the veterans home there.

Women were not permitted  to join the Legion until 2000 when Defence Minister Alain Richard changed the rules, saying he’d like to see 20% female recruitment over the next 20 years.

 

Susan Travers 1909-2003

Prior to that, only one woman ever to be a distinguished Legionnaire was an English nurse: Susan Travers who joined Free French Forces during World War II.

Travers, known as ‘La Miss’ by her comrades, served as nurse and ambulance driver in the French Red Cross, then as a full member of the Legion in Vietnam during the First Indochina War.

 

Since its inception, the Legion has served in most theatres of war.  

The 13th Demi Brigade, formed for service in Nor way, was in the UK when the French Armistice was declared in June 1940.  It was deployed to the British 8th Army in North Africa and distinguished itself in the Battle of Bir Hakeim in which Susan Travers played a heroic part, afterwards being warded her first Croix de Geurre.

 The Legion is the only branch of the French military that does not swear allegiance to France but to the Foreign Legion itself,  although after 3 years service, a Legionnaire, whatever his nationality, may apply for French citizenship.

Any soldier injured during conflict may apply immediately for citizenship under "Français par le sang versé" ("French by spilled blood").

Modern day Legionnaires can be Sapeurs, Paratrooper, Commandoes and  ever other profession needed by today's armed forces.

Legionnaires in an armoured transport

The Legion has its own band but they are quick to point out they are highly trained, super-efficient soldiers first and only then, amateur bandsmen.

Because traditionally the Legionnaires march at a slower pace than other branches of the French military (a pace known in the Legion at 'the crawl') they are alwasy last in any military parade.

Sapeurs- Pioniers  wear beards and leather aprons and carry axes (best not to get on their wrong side).

"Legionnaire, you are a volunteer serving France with honour and fidelity.

Each legionnaire is your brother in arms whatever his nationality, his race or his religion might be. You show him the same close solidarity that links the members of the same family."

The Grenade in Flames symbol of the Legion

The march down the Champs Elysee, showing 'the crawl'.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yASlGCLkBSw

Legionnaires on patrol in Paris during civil unrest

  

 

 

 

29th August 2020

It saddens me a little, that as an English immigrant, I apparently left behind the heritage of nursery rhymes.

There are many popular songs for children.  Who can forget or avoid the jolly ‘Wheels on the Bus’ so beloved of toddlers?

But nursery rhymes are part of British history; they have hidden meanings in many instances and romantic, occasionally dark origins.

 

‘Rock-a-bye Baby’. This gentle lullaby is designed to send wee ones peacefully into slumber -  and providing they don’t know the deeper meaning - and what baby does, it will. 

Rock-a-by Baby on the tree top

When the wind blows the cradle will rock

When the bough breaks, the cradle will fall

Down will come baby, cradle and all

Leaving aside the sheer foolishness of placing a crib in a tree, especially outside during unpredictable weather, I found this rhyme ideal for soothing my son.

 No matter that ten minutes later,  as I prepared to leave his room, make myself a cup of tea  and do a week’s ironing, he woke, stood up in his cot and wanted to play.  

 Most websites say the poem dates from the 17^th century but its roots go back much further,  to Greek mythology.

Rheia was the wife of Kronos who’d been told he would be overthrown by one of his children. So he killed them as they were born.

Rheia handing over child to Kronos

When Rheia found she was expecting Zeus, she hid herself away and then, when the baby was born, ‘placed him in a tree cradle, twixt earth and sky’ so he couldn’t be found.   As predicted, Zeus grew up to oust his murderous father.

 

Hey Diddle Diddle was another rhyme my sons loved, particularly the idea of a cat playing a fiddle.

This too goes back to Greek mythology but can be seen depicted in medieval scripts too.

It’s memorable in our house for my mother’s version, which so delighted my 5 year old he abandoned the traditional poem completely.

Hey Diddle diddle, the cat did a widdle, all over the living room floor

The little dog laughed to see such fun, so the little cat widdled some more.

My grand-dad called me 'Dumpling Dust'

Diddle, diddle dumpling, my son John

Went to bed with his britches on

One shoe off and one shoe on

Diddle diddle dumpling my son John.

 In many households, the rhyme is sacrificed to replace ‘John’ with the child’s name. 

My sons found it quite scandalous that the boy went to bed wearing his britches and a shoe!

“Diddle dumplings!” was apparently a street traders cry as they sold dumplings.

 

“Baa, baa black sheep, have you any wool?”.  

So much hullabaloo surrounds this rhyme, it’s now almost impossible for adults to see it as a simple poem about sheep.  

Once the backbone of English trade, wool and meat production was severely compromised, especially for the subsistence farmer,  by the wool tax of 1275 ....but there’s no real evidence  this is linked to the rhyme.

In modern times, when the politically correctness bandwagon  trundled over it, the whole thing deteriorated into unprovable racist nonsense.

A rhyme is what you want it to be.

 

Goodness knows what the ‘deeper meaning fraternity’  could make of ‘Hot Cross Buns, hot cross buns, one a penny, two a penny, hot cross buns. If you have no daughters, give them to your sons.’

Nursery Rhymes were an important part of my childhood and that of my sons.  Neither I nor they knew about any hidden meanings, we simply enjoyed the pleasure of singing together.

 Ride a cock horse, Jack and Jill  or Humpty Dumpty, could bring squeals of suprised joy as I pretended to let the baby slip from my knee.   

Ride a cock horse to Banbury Cross

As they got older we danced Round the Mulberry Bush, played Ring-a-ringa Rosie,  marched to The Grand Old Duke of York and pretended we were teapots.

We didn't see it as bonding, just enjoying being together but that's what it was. 

Not just bonding me to my babies but to a heritage I passed on.

And it's that bond which is now broken: the one which links their children to English heritage.  

Children's songs now come from television or Disney films and on one website featuring the top 10 most popular songs for children, only Twinkle, twinkle little Star was listed. 

No.1 was 'Bohemian Rhapsody - Muppet version.'

What a shame.