French Resort Out of Season
By LEN ORTZEN
0 NE day the town was full of holiday-makers ; the next it was given back entirely to its small, resident population ; or so it seemed. A French seaside resort can change its decor far more quickly than an English one. It is not so com- mercialised, not so much organised for entertainment—which is perhaps why some of the English visitors found, to their dismay, that "there was so little to do." But as the French spent five hours of each day at table, and the majority of the English could barely manage two—partly because of economic cause, partly of habit— there was obviously a basic disagreement between the two nations as to what one expected to do on holiday.
There was, of course, the casino ; but little happened there to distract the holiday-makers until after dinner. It was possible to go excursions into the countryside and along the coast, but only by coping with the overcrowded public transport services. The golden sands were gay with coloured bathing-cabins and striped tents, but there were no concert parties: no "trips in the Skylark." not even deck-chairs to be hired. "But who would pay for a chair," said the perplexed directeur de la plage, "when there's the fine sand to lie on ? "
In spite of the warm, late-summer weather, the " season " officially ended, as usual, on September 15th. The casino suddenly withdrew its tables and flower-boxes from the terrace and put up its shutters. The large hotels closed their doors ; the Post Office went back to one collection a day ; the shops shut at seven instead of eleven ; and the directeur de la plage packed up his bathing- cabins, folded away his striped tents, and returned to his Paris job of gymnastic instructor at a lycie. The French holiday-makers who were still in the town closed their summer villas or paid their hotel bills, said goodbye to the tradespeople who had supplied them with butter, and went home. The English still on holiday became outstandingly conspicuous ; these representatives of an organised and disciplined race—characteristics which are regarded with reverent envy by the French, provided they are not exported across the Channel—the English wondered about the cause of this mass and unified movement, and why they were left in almost sole command of the sun-swept beach. The tradespeople and café- keepers complained unreasoningly, in a country reputed for its cult of reason, that the " season " was all too short, yet no one at the municipal deliberations attempted to have it prolonged. '
At the end of the month the two bakers in the town began again to close on Mondays. This was obviously an authoritarian edict that autumn had begun, with winter soon to follow, and that the seaside resort was now just any other little provincial town. The train, bus and refuse-clearing services seemed to take their cue from the bakers, for a few days later they all introduced their restricted winter services. The town council held its most important meeting since the spring, to discuss the results of the " season " just ended and the preliminary plans for the next.
The councillor who runs the Syndicat d'Initiative said that the festivities arranged during the summer had all been a great success, particularly the Folklore Wdbk and the Commercial Fortnight. The latter was a cunning arrangement to increase trade and at the same time to provide a divertissement for the holiday-makers. The shopkeepers dressed their windows specially for the occasion, each window containing at least one anomaly ; the dairy, for instance, had a little Dutch cheese in its miniature Normandy farm and the men's outfitters had a brassiere in one -corner. The com- petition for the holiday-makers was to discover as many anomalies as possible, but each attempt had to be accompanied by fifty tickets each representing a purchase of at least two shillings in any of the shops. The council decided that the Commercial Fortnight was worth repeating next season ; and the councillor in charge of the Syndicat dinitiative proposed arranging a dog exhibition and a night's racing by floodlight on the race-course. The owners of villas and their representatives are not at all keen on attempts to attract visitors to the town ; they would prefer, it is said, the Syndicat to be one of Non-Initiative. The tradespeople and hoteliers, on the other hand, are pleased that the town has at last got a Syndicat d'Initiative that has some initiative. In any case, the subsidy from the town's budget was voted again.
The council recorded a vote of thanks to the resident police force for the way in which law and order had been preserved during the summer. The resident police force, in this town where the popula- tion increases from three to fifteen or twenty thousand during the summer, is a tall young man who rides a small bicycle inherited from his predecessor. In the summer, with the occasional aid of a couple of visiting gendarmes, he ensured that the by-laws relating to parking, traffic circulation and undressing on the beach were not too flagrantly violated.
The results of two local summer taxes were to hand, and the council made note of them for future expenditure. There was the sum of £325, representing 10 per cent. of the turnover on the casino gaming-tables, and nearly £500 from the Taxe de Sejour, which is a charge of twopence a day on every summer visitor stay- ing in a hotel or with friends. The first was yet one more proof that there is little loose Money in France now, and the second, being at most a quarter of the sum that should have been paid in, showed that the French have not lost the gentle art of dissimulation.
The repairs and construction that the council put in hand ranged from the completion of the water-tower and the building of thirty working-class houses to the reinstallation of hand-rails on the steps leading to the beach and the creation of three public water-closets, two on the promenade and one in the cemetery.
Repairs and reconstruction give work to the small firms of builders, decorators, plumbers. No kind of shop has more than one competitor ; so the tradespeople have always a certain amount of custom. The number of societes and associations—they are not really clubs—is amazingly high, considerably more than would be found in an English provincial town five or six times larger. They range from the ex-P.O.W. association to the stamp collectors', from the tradesmen's association to that of the bombed-out householders. But most of them exist mainly for economic reasons or to protect the interests of a particular section of the population, and the meet- ings of these are irregular and infrequent. The few organisations that do exist for social or recreational purposes, such as the musicians' or the pigeon-fanciers', have this in common with all the others: their membership is solely masculine. The French house- wife, in the provinces at least, is housebound ; she has not even the opportunity of frequent chats with her own kind over morning coffee, while out shopping, or at the afternoon tea-table. For there is no equivalent of the "Cosy Cafe " ; it is still rare to see a woman in any of the real cafés without a male escort, and the function of afternoon tea hardly exists. The only women's or- ganisation is a sort of Mothers' Union, run by the nuns attached to the local church.
But these numerous organisations arrange dances at the Town working-class houses to the reinstallation of hand-rails on the steps to increase their funds ; and every organisation has its annual banquet, which lasts from midday to dusk. All this has the double effect of providing entertainment for the population out of season and of giving work to the restaurants and tradespeople. Most social life takes place at home ; it is never difficult to find an excuse for inviting friends to dinner in a country where everyone has a fete day as well as a birthday. We sit round the solid dining-table for four or five hours and discuss matters ranging from politics— but local politics mainly ; national politics are left to " ces Parisiens," who are always making a mess of things and then appealing to the provinces for more money—to such peculiar questions as: "Why do the English not mop up their plates when they're supposed to be so short of food ? "
The chief concerns in most people's minds are whether the cost of living will ever stop rising and, with Christmas over, whether they will have enough money to last until next season. One opinion here which is no doubt shared by English resorts is that visitors will again be numerous and that few of them will have any spare cash.
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