The Good Solution
By C. A. HOY V 66 OUS avez trouve la bonne solution ! " , We have long since lost count of the number of times we have heard these words from Frenchmen and French- women, rich and poor, in almost every corner of France. But after only a few months of this pleasant life we ourselves realised that we had indeed found the good solution, and now after nearly two years we are the more convinced. The ingredients are: average good health, a very modest income and a. small initial capital; a love of travel and leisure of course; not too much insistence on luxuries, a liking for simple fare and a sound knowledge of French. All these we happened to have. Our service life was over, our children happily settled, and so it is that we are Romanichels in France, living a life of liberty which is very nearly absolute.
This happy state of affairs has not been achieved without dust. When, three years ago, life in a country-house with no maid and not even a jobbing gardener became impossible, the idea of existence in a caravan—however large—in a foreign country seemed exciting and romantic but plainly out of the question. Our friends minced no words when we mentioned the crazy plan. Yet it is now come to fulfilment, and I write these lines in our caravan, some fifty yards from one of the loveliest beaches on what Chateaubriand claims to be the most beautiful of all French coasts. On this sunny May evening we are quite alone, and the glorious beach is deserted, though five kilometres away is a pleasant town. We have reached this place after a five-weeks journey, which has brought us from Villefranche-sur-Mer by way of Aix-en-Provence, Arles, Montpelier, Narbonne, Perpignan, Carcassonne, Toulouse, Tarbes, Lourdes, Pau, Saint Jean de Luz, Bayonne, Arcachon, Bordeaux, La Rochelle, Nantes and Dinan. Our only expendi- ture has been on petrol, food (all prepared at " home ") and wine, visits to museums and historical monuments and a few luxuries in the way of concerts and lectures. There can be no better way of seeing and knowing a country. We stop where we please and as long as we please; we talk to people of every sort; every Frenchman is our friend for the moment and we have made a host of deeper friendships. When the King died we had letters of sympathy from French friends from a dozen different districts.
The caravan was chosen by my wife, and we have never once regretted the choice. It was the largest permitted by English law;, and the roomiest to be found, though by no means the most expensive. It has a bathroom with a real bath and hot and cold water, gas and electricity, the former bottled and available in every French town and village, the latter from a house if we happen to be near one, which is seldom, and two of the most comfortable armchairs we have ever had. There is a small, well-furnished kitchen with a full-sized gas-cooker, and we carry a serviceable library. Our gas-bill for lighting, cooking, ironing and partial heating averages 5s. "a week, and our coal-bill is about half of this. I give these tiresome details to show that our life is one of quiet and miniature luxury.
To pull our caravan we decided that utility must come before elegance, and we bought a Land Rover, a sturdy rough diamond of a car which pulls our two tons anywhere and never gives us a moment's anxiety. It makes, in addition, an excellent storeroom. The buying of these prime necessities was the least difficult of the initial preparations. I cannot now give all the details of how we obtained the consent of the French Minister for Foreign Affairs to our permanent residence in France, the rather reluctant agreement of the French authorities to the importation of the two vehicles into France, and permis- sion from the Bank of England to take them (and ourselves) out of Britain and to import into France an adequate amount of money. All this was accomplished somehow, and on October 25th, 1950, we embarked at Dover for Dunkerque in the train- ferry, the only vessel capable of transporting Sunbeam across the Channel. Sunbeam is the caravan. From Dunkerque we made our way by easy stages to Nice. I -cannot give now the details of this one of many delightful journeys, but two will serve to show that travel by caravan is of all methods the most supremely satisfactory. At a cross- road near Lyons, having stopped for some trifling hitch, we noticed a modest little sign on a by-road pointing to " The House of Ampere." A drive of some fifteen kilometres brought us to a pleasant old farmhouse where Ampere had spent many years, and where are displayed his instruments, with docu- ments from learned societies all over the world admitting him to their membership. During the same journey we met by chance, and entertained, a passing priest. He asked to be allowed to show us the Cure d'Ars, Saint Jean-Baptiste-Marie Vianney. We were taken and saw literally the saint who died in 1859, for he has been embalmed and lies in a shrine in the basilique which has been added to the tiny country church of which he was the famous cure.
After six months of pleasant and inexpensive stay and travel occurred the first descent to earth. We had come to France as tourists, and our vehicles were introduced under cover of a laissez-passer which gave us the right to keep them in France for six months free of duty. As we had no intention of leav- ing, we took steps to pay the Customs charges. These amounted at that time to 63 per cent of the value of each vehicle, as assessed by the French authorities, and this was a serious matter whose happy solution would make another story. In the end the goodwill and scrupulous fairness of the Customs officials took a great deal of the pain out of the operation; nevertheless the fee made a very considerable hole in our year's allowance from England.
This little account of a very successful venture, however incomplete, would be quite so without mention of the French police. Their variety seems infinite, but they have this in common. Like our own, they are wonderful; not quite in the same way, but still wonderful. A long tale could be written of their help and kindness; all I have room for here is the story of two small incidents. Usually, when travelling, we instal ourselves for the night in the town or village square. Some time ago we arrived in a well-known town where there was no obvious stopping-place. I went to the police station for advice. We were not required to " move on." Instead, the superintendent consulted various colleagues, and, after dis- cussing the merits of this place and that, decided that X would be the pleasantest and most comfortable. Do not suppose that X was a caravan-camp, a place we always avoid; it was a small public square a few minutes from the centre of the town. To help us to find it the superintendent drew a little pencil sketch; later he came along on a'A bicycle to see if we were comfortable.
Incident number two occurred recently. I set off one morning to buy some bread. Meeting a man in shirt-sleeves on a bicycle, I asked him the way to the nearest bakery. He told me, but he said, " It's a long way. As a matter of fact I'm a policeman." He pointed to "Gendarmerie Nationale" stamped on the frame of his bicycle. " Would you like me to get some for you ? " As the shop was evidently in the opposite direction to that in which he was going, I thanked him, and said I couldn't think of putting him to this bother. " It's no bother," he said. " I offer it de bon coeur. Tell me what you want, and I'll get it." Off he went, and in eight minutes was back with the necessary length of bread.
A last word. We called once at a little chateau which used to be the home of Montesquieu, to ask if we might stay for a few days in the grounds. (This was not so impertinent as it sounds, as we had been sent by a friend of the present owner.) To the young lady who answered the door I explained that we had a caravan. " Well," she said, " if it were a question of only you two, I should say come and stay as long as you please. But a caravan—that's rather difficult. How many wagons are there ? " She may have had ideas about camels too, for to the French, good philologists, a " caravan " is still a " caravan."
Envoy : We still pay full income tax in England.
Previous page
