Visit to France

We also have pleasure in recording the marriage, at St. Matthew's Church, Naburn, on August 12th, of Mr. H. A. Wrenn to Miss Barbara Wharram, daughter of Mrs. Wharram and the late Mr. M. G. Wharram, of Providence House, Naburn.

The bride was given away by Mr. G. Wharram, an 0.P., and Mr. F. Smith was best man. Among the presents were a silver entree dish from the Staff and a silver cigarette box from present Peterites. We wish Mr. and Mrs. Wrenn many years of happiness with us at York.

(As mentioned in the Junior School Notes of this issue, several Olavites decided to take Mr. J. S. Cooper to Paris. We assume from the receipt of the following account that they have now brought him back again.—Ed.)

On the afternoon of Monday, July 26th, our party set out from York in good order, and we reached Paris without mishap at ten o'clock the next morning. The voyage from Southampton to be Havre was calm, and it was with difficulty that certain of us were roused in the early hours of the morning.

During our three days in Paris we packed in as much sight-seeing as our feet could stand. On the first morning we saw the Madeleine and walked up the three hundred odd steps to the top of the Arc de Triomphe. In the afternoon we went for a trip up the Seine on one of the river steamers.

The next day was a rather strenuous one. We padded round the Louvre in the morning, examining first of all the statuary. We were duly impressed with the Venus of Milo and the Winged Victory before wending our way to the picture galleries, where we fought our way through the crowd to catch a glimpse of the celebrated Mona Lisa.

A trifle foot-sore we returned to lunch and then spent several hours at the Exposition. First of all we surveyed the scene from the top of the Eiffel Tower, it certainly was an attractive one. Although many of the buildings were not finished, there was more than enough to see, and, on reaching terra firma again, we decided each to take a section and to report on it at the end of an hour. By this time we had covered a lot of ground between us, so we rested at a café and sipped our drinks whilst watching an exhibition of pelota, a game rather like fives indulged in 22

by the Basques when not otherwise engaged in firing off machine-guns. The most impressive buildings were undoubtedly the pavilions of Russia and Germany, but the native section proved very interesting, and we passed some time in watching the coloured craftsmen carrying out their various trades.

On the third day we saw Napoleon's Tomb and then examined the Military Museum at the Invalides, an extremely interesting place where we spent over two hours with great enjoyment. In the afternoon we went out to the Palace of Versailles and seemed to go through most of its twelve hundred rooms. The Hall of Battles, a huge room in which are pictures of all the chief French battles from the earliest times to Napoleon's great victories, was perhaps the best room. After visiting the Palace we spent some time resting in the gardens before going back to Paris.

We left our pension the next morning for the sea-side. We went to Fecamp in Normandy and had a most enjoyable time bathing and inventing games on the rather pebbly beach. One evening we went to a fair and won a bottle of champagne at a side-show. We also went to the Casino, but were unable to break the bank because the only game in progress at that moment happened to be ping-pong. On Tuesday, August 3rd, we set off on our homeward journey, but were all so struck down by the heat in London that we returned to York in slightly battered condition. We had time to see Madame Tussaud's in London before returning by the Coronation Express, but the heat was so intense that it is a mystery to us why the wax figures did not melt as they stood. The Chamber of Horrors really was horrible, and the Black Hole of Calcutta would not have compared unfavourably with it.

It would be difficult to single out any one item which was the most popular. One of us felt that the Exposition was not quite up to the standard of the Great Yorkshire Show, whilst another wished that the Eiffel Tower had not been quite so high. There was, however, one thing which was a constant source of joy to all of us. This was the automatic lift in the Pension at Paris. It was our great joy to press all the buttons in turn and hope for the best, until an extremely irate Frenchman told us exactly what he thought of us in the very loudest tones. Memories of that lift will linger on after much has grown dim, but we feel that the whole trip was a great success and will not easily be forgotten.