News from the Front

Just back from a very short visit to England and a slightly longer one to Le Vésinet, situated in the more reputable suburbs of Paris where the burning of cars has not yet caught on.

Graffiti
I would have liked to have had more opportunity to compare the graffiti in England and France. On the strength of a UK exposure limited to the Eurostar and the Great New Western (?) and South-East (?) railway lines, I would say that the British variety is perhaps a little more subdued and less pervasive than its French counterpart? Can one forasmuch speak of a British School of Graffiti?

Eurostar
The Eurostar is one fast train and at times seemed to be on the verge of hurtling out of control but the driver, assuming there was one, seemed to know what he was about and we arrived back in the Gare du Nord safe and sound, and what's more on the right platform.

A subliminal social observation
On the train from Paddington to Bedwyn, the young man sitting in front of me was caught without a ticket. In a fine show of consternation, he desperately went through his pockets in a vain search for his ticket before resigning himself to the inevitable or, more likely, recognising that it was the modern equivalent of a "fair cop", and coughing up. I think he slipped up badly after that, though. I would have advised him, for the benefit of any interested onlookers and in the interest of verisimilitude, to have continued to search for the ticket even after the controller moved on. But he didn't bother. Bad acting, that!

A vanished era
The last but one time I took a train from Paddington was over 50 years ago, still in the steam era, when as a little boy I travelled alone all the way down to my prep school at Little Malvern in Worcestershire. Memories fade but I can still conjure up very clearly that mingled feeling of dread and excitement as the train drew near to its destination (or rather, from the moment it left Paddington, or rather from the moment I left my grandmother's house in St John's Wood, or rather from the moment I left our home near Stowmarket in Suffolk). It just shows how much times have changed when I recall that it seemed perfectly reasonable to all concerned to send a 10 or 11-year-old boy halfway across England on his own!

Wilma's funeral service
This blog tends to eschew personal matters but I thought I would make an exception here.
The reason I was travelling through the lush Wiltshire countryside to Great Bedwyn was to meet up with my extended family for my aunt Wilma's funeral service in Bedwyn church. It was a lovely moment: my cousin Paul gave an account (written and researched by my sister Alice) of Wilma's life. Extremely interesting; I didn't know, for example, that Wilma studied chemistry at Oxford whereas I only changed trains there. Quite an achievement in those pre-war days.
Later James's three daughters, Rachel, Lara and Brontë sang very beautifully during the (Anglican) communion while we Papists looked on!
Afterwards to the British Legion Hall for lunch. I hardly ever see most of my family and yet I instantly feel at ease with them in a way I never do with my wife's family. My brother and two remaining sisters - so utterly different from each other and from me - are more precious to me than anyone outside my own family.