May 1947

CONTINENTAL HOLIDAY, EASTER, 1947 It seemed to be quite in the order of things to see a St. Peter's cap boarding the Paris train on the docks at Calais: for one reason, of course, we had been cheerily hailed by the wearer of it not half an hour before: and in any case we stood too near in time to the term just ended, and brown caps and crossed keys were still part of the warp and texture of our existence. For had we not a bare hour after final assembly stolen quietly out of York, guiltily conscious that we were leaving a doomed city (floods!) in a doomed country (economics!) ?

These latter considerations were soon to be, if not entirely dissipated, at least set in perspective by a closer acquaintance with France. The devastation round the docks at Calais was of an order such as we had never seen anywhere in England. Within a radius. of more than half a mile from the port, scarcely one stone stood upon another: the authorities were housed in wooden hutments: the roads were but rough tracks through the rubble worn by other vehicles: the railway lines had, of course, obviously been repaired, but for ought else, only the gaunt walls of a burnt-out church towered above the pulverised waste like Roman ruins in the sands of North Africa: here, indeed, was the wilderness: we were little disposed to call it peace also.

This scene of destruction was repeated in nearly every town of note on the outward journey—Abbeville, Rouen, Evreux, Vendome, Poitiers, and Tours: whereas in England the damage is widespread, in France it is much more concentrated, and large sections of the towns appear to be unaffected. I made enquiries in several places as to what stage of the war had brought the havoc, and in most cases the answer was 1940: Tours had had a second patch of devastation made in 1944.

In contrast, the many miles of countryside we passed through seemed not to have changed at all: there were no signs of mechanisation on the land: teams of three horses—one was always white—were the order of the day for ploughing: and Spring was late in coming to Northern France too: for the roadsides were as dead as they had been in England: as we approached Bordeaux, cereals gave place to vines, and leaves were appearing on the trees. South of Bordeaux we met the fine weather and drove through the hundred miles of pine woods of the Landes under a cloudless sky that was to be our lot for the next ten days. Late that afternoon—Easter Saturday— we crossed into Spain. We had been received everywhere in France with a friendliness that clearly transcended the formal courtesies of hotel-keepers. By Spaniards, also, we were received with friendliness and with great interest: for Spain, too, is anxious to foster the tourist trade and has set up publicity and information centres in all the main towns. The end of the journey came on Easter Monday evening