1966 and all that

In 1966 England won the World Cup. It was also a pretty significant year for me. It was the year I started at university and was therefore the time when I stopped living at home. Although I visited many times thereafter I never lived there again. It was the year when I worked full time, actually starting in late 1965, and thus became the year in which I could afford to buy my own car. And it was the year when I headed off with three school friends for a camping holiday in the south of France.

Such trips were not usual amongst my contemporaries; in fact travel abroad on vacation was still not commonplace. But there were ferry services from the channel ports and somehow I formulated a plan which got no push back from my parents and, despite it being largely a leap into the unknown, turned it into reality.

The three friends were Tony Clark, who was then living is Seaford close to Newhaven, Noel McKeand and Rodney Macgregor (Jock). I came across Noel in the 1908s when he was running a cycle shop in Shotton but otherwise have neither seen nor heard of them since. The car was an Austin Mini, 770 XTU, and ridiculously small for what we were planning but somehow we managed to carry all that we needed in the boot, under the front seats and on a roof rack. Noel and I were to share the driving, we got our passports and travellers cheques and booked our tickets and were away.

Actually it was not straight forward for me to get my passport because I was born outside the UK (in South Africa) and needed a copy of my birth certificate, which I had, and of my parents’ marriage certificate which I did not have and in which my parents who were separated had little interest. However I was granted a 6 month passport with an endorsement saying that it could not be extended without reference to the Branch Passport Office in Liverpool¹.

It must have been late August that we set off, the three of us driving down to meet up with Tony in Sleaford from where we’d take the Newhaven to Dieppe ferry. In those days of course there wasn’t as much traffic on the roads but the only motorway was the M1. It must have been a pretty long drive but in our wisdom we opted to then take a night time service arriving in France in the early morning and in the dark.

As the day broke we saw a country markedly different from the one we’d left and for which we’d had little forewarning. The land was flat, the roads were straight, the cars were very different and we had to drive on the right. We stopped in a cafe where the coffee barely covered the sugar cube in the cup. Just the first of many discoveries: they do stuff differently here!

The second followed swiftly with a visit to the toilet and our first experience of a ‘squat toilet’. They’re no longer so prevalent but in those days they were pretty well universal.

Despite a long drive the previous day and barely any sleep overnight we managed to drive through most of the day. We took advantage of the N7 to make good progress and finally stopped somewhere near Lyon for the night.

It was a camping holiday of course so that meant a tent. But we only had one two-man tent. How did it work? Simple enough I guess. Three of us slept in the tent and one either outside or in the car. Tony and Jock took turns doing this. We cooked our meals on a single unit gas cooker with either a saucepan, kettle or frying pan.

On our second day we completed the journey to the Med. The sun shone and the sky was uninterrupted blue. When we saw the sea that was blue too. We bought peaches on the side of the road.

We pitched our tent at a site in la Ciotat and realised that French camping sites are somewhat better equipped than their equivalents in the UK. This one has a piscine (swimming pool) whereas in the UK you’d get a tap in the middle of a field.

For some reason our target was St Raphael which we reached on day 3 but it must have been just before the end of August. All the campsites were full so we camped wild for a couple of nights before France went back to work and we could find a place in a site within walking distance of the centre of the town and just across the road from the beach.

The biggest challenge we encountered was the language. The French largely speak French (!) and we did not. Tony and Noel had French O levels, I’d only done it for two years before choosing Welsh instead. None of us did very well so communication was largely achieved with a minimal vocabulary and almost zero syntax augmented by pointing and frustrated repetition.

This language barrier was felt most when we realised it applied to girls as well. There were lots of good looking French girls, generally wearing bikinis, but not speaking a word of English. Sadly none of us managed to make any progress in this regard throughout our three weeks.

We drank beer of course, French beer, and experienced wine for just about the first time. That was red or white. We bought the basic vin ordinaire and drank it out of whatever was to hand.

Our holiday was incredibly cheap, I started with £30 in travellers cheques and returned with some to cash in. Petrol was expensive compared to the UK where you could get 4 gallons and fill the tank of my Mini for £1. And that would take us the best part of 200 miles on the long, straight, flat French roads.

We spent several days in St Raphael. We checked out the ruins of the Malpasset Dam at Frejus, we took a trip to St Tropez, we enjoyed a ‘battle of the flowers’ parade one evening and we spent a lot of time on the beach just sun bathing and getting the sort of tan you’d have difficulty getting in the UK. We even ventured out to eat in the evening and enjoyed Prix Fixe menus for just a few Francs (there were 18 to the pound in those days).

It was of course our first experience of communal living and a foretaste of what was to come when we would share flats as students etc. We began by pooling all expenditures and simply splitting the total in four. But then Jock said he didn’t drink wine so that meant a separate wine budget which would be divided by three. Then someone else opted out of the milk budget because he always drank is coffee black. Such is the way of collective living! It was in one of the discussions about such budgets that Jock came out with the memorable quote that if he had limited money he’d rather spend it on cigarettes than food.

After St Raphael we headed further east and camped for a few days just outside Monaco which we visited on one day and where I was refused admission to the casino because I wasn’t wearing a shirt. We also took the opportunity to drive along the coast into Italy immediately doubling the number of countries we visited on the holiday.

The campsite itself was elevated above the coast road as the topography demands in that part of France. It was a simple two lane road hugging the landscape and one morning we emerged from the site with no traffic around and blithely headed off on the left side of the road. Suddenly we realised and corrected before we encountered any other cars. Perish the thought of what might have happened if we had.

Flushed with our achievement of visiting a second country on our trip we left the Mediterranean and headed north, through the hairpins of the French Alps, for a third viz Switzerland which was most notable for cheap petrol. After one night and a full tank it was time to start our journey home.

I’ve no idea where we were, somewhere southeast of Paris I guess, but we were making good progress, Noel was driving and we crested a hill to be confronted by some obstacle. Noel took evasive action and we ended up in a ditch having avoided a collision. As chance would have it we were opposite a cafe and a bunch of Frenchmen came out and pushed us out. Remarkably the car was intact with just minor damage to the roof above the driver’s door². None of us sustained any injuries.

The car took some time to restart but then behaved itself. I took the wheel for the rest of our holiday and we resumed our journey. We probably drove a little more carefully.

We had a day in Paris on our way back to pick up our ferry and it seems we visited the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe because I’ve got a photographic record, see the photo above. Although I’d travelled with my camera I don’t seem to have any other photos.

Then it was an overnight in Dieppe before catching a daytime ferry back to Newhaven. We stayed overnight at Tony’s house, first English beer for three weeks, and drove safely home the following day.

It would be nice to say that final leg was uneventful which it was, largely. My car showed no ill effects of the earlier incident and I remember remaking that we drove up the M1 in ‘even time’ meaning 60 miles in 60 minutes. However just as we were nearing home I noticed that we’d ‘picked up a tail’. It was a police motor cycle and I slowed down. It then overtook us and the officer indicated that we should stop. There followed a bit of an interrogation about speed limits before we were allowed to proceed. Noel said that he had a broad grin on his face as he overtook us!

And that was it. Home safely, lots of experience and ready for the next stage in my life.

Footnote 1: my father secured a copy of his marriage certificate and with that I got the endorsement on my passport crossed out and the passport itself extended for a full term.

Footnote 2: I got the dents beaten out of my car by Dock Road Motors for no more than £20 including painting the roof black which gave it a sort of Mini Cooper look.