Thoughts from Mougins

What this blog is about

Charles is right. This blog is about our life in Mougins and my reminiscences, and relevant comments, and has gone off in the wrong direction. So I have deleted all reference to "I have been tagged".

Tone, please don't be hurt.

Our house

There is an enormous crane and bulldozers getting ready to build a villa in the plot to the east of us. This is the last villa to go up in our vicinity and our privacy will be intact. We just have to put up with the noise over the next few months.

This got me thinking about our house, and how the neighbourhood has changed in the 33 years since we bought it, as a family home to complement the flat in London.  In fact this was a crazy move, driven by Anita's disenchantment with England and the English, and my desire to make a completely fresh start after the unhappy years in the Navy. I was very lucky to get work at IBM La Gaude, and we have been very lucky with the house.

We were looking for an old house in the country to "do up", with enough room to squeeze our children in in the school holidays, and after being shown all sorts of houses on our "winter break" weekends, this is what we found. All around were vineyards and fields with sheep  in them in the winter. The back half of the house belonged to an old peasant who made his own wine and pastis.

No longer.  The area was changed from agricultural to residential, the back half of the house has been added to a villa built behind us, the vineyards and fields are smart villas with pools, and the bells on the sheep have been replaced by the sound of lawnmowers and hedge clippers.

In fact the house has evolved with our needs. Since Anita and Marius the mason and his corps de metiers stripped the ground floor and the beams in the ceilings and installed the kitchen, all we have done is modernise the bathroom. Bedrooms have been changed into dressing rooms and a study, and while the house was very small for our family, it is not too big for the two of us, and we have never tired of it. 

And the suburban neighbourhood is what we need now. Our terrace and the garden are still quiet and private, but we have a smart baker, a chemist, a cash dispenser, a bus stop and a bar tabac, all within five minutes walk. And five minutes drive away is a brand new clinic with all the latest equipment and a complete set of consultants on site. We have fallen on our feet in our old age!

A pity about Mougins, which is a kilometer away. It used to be a charming place: you could park in the centre if th village and spend hours chatting to Marie the greengrocer and Paulette in the tobacco shop, and end up in Georgette's little restaurant. Now you park outside if you cand find a place. The village is still spectacular in an operetta-ish way, but is packed with restaurants, estate agents  and art galleries.  And in summer it is full of tourists, and the locals take cover.

The Mediterranean

During the war I was a classical scholar, culminating in my winning a scholarship at age 16 for composing Latin and Greek verse (without a dictionary!) - all  forgotten now. But our teachers showed us slide shows of Athens and Rome and the hilltop villages, and spoke with such longing and enthusiasm for these completely (at the time) unattainable  places that the desire to be there is with me still.

Well, I got there in the Navy. On our first training cruise I particularly remember being anchored at the foot of  Sorrento and going to Capri and the Blue Grotto, and in Villefranche bay, surprised that the mountains were so close to the shore.  Later I went all over the place:

• Gibraltar, including for a 4 weeks refit, where I remember walking in the cork forests behind Algeciras. Later Anita visited me there and we went to Ronda for a weekend;
• Marseille;
• Toulon;
• Cannes, where HMS Battleaxe was the last destroyer to go stern-to in the Vieux Port  (I was acting as interpreter for the French pilot - a barefoot fisherman - as we were turning inside the harbour with sailors at bow and stern fending off the expensive yachts with boathooks "How long is this ship?" ; "120 metres"; "Oh,  they told  me 100 metres. Still your captain is doing very well", as he retreated to the back of the bridge. (When we left there was the additional problem of a foul anchor as we kept bringing up the yachts' anchors). We were alongside a converted frigate "Moineau" belonging to a Dominican tin millionaire married to the Môme Moineau, a Paris street singer who entertained the crowds on the jetty from the stern. We were invited to their party, where she was dressed as a matador and took a fancy to our very tall midshipman. As she danced with him her hat sawed into his adam's apple and he was too embarassed to  complain. (Later, he was to distinguish himself in the Falklands war);
• Civita Vecchia (several times), where we took the train to Rome,
• Naples (many times);
• Malta (lots, including living for six months with Anita and the two eldest children in a grotty flat on Sliema creeks (out of bounds to Wrens).  I chose the flat for its fantastic view of Valetta across the water, going rose pink in the sunset, but failed to notice that the mattresses were stuffed with straw and the arm chairs with newspaper.  Still, we survived although I should have done better for Anita;
• Piraeus, for Athens;
• Istanbul;
• Beirut (before the wars destroyed it).

I became hooked on "The Alexandria quartet" by Lawrence Durrell, which I think reflects the combination of overlapping civilisations, mystery and decadence which makes the area so fascinating. And it is all linked since the days of the Phoenician traders. Our maltese "messman" who did the shopping for the officers' wardroom could go into the market in any of these places and chat with the stallholders.

So I am pleased to be here, and not just for the beach and the skiing.

An eagle over Mougins

For years, our big palm tree was infested with pigeons. At one point I counted 36 pigeons, and several nests. They sat on the roof and their droppings blocked the guttering. They cooed down the chimney and copulated on our window ledges. And all sorts of weeds started to grow out of the top of the palm, and when Pascal came to trim the tree it was a dirty job.

Until a few weeks ago, when our neighbour saw a pigeon flying across the bottom of our garden being zapped by an eagle. It didn't even take it to the ground, but flew off with the poor pigeon in its claw.

Since that day, the pigeons have completely disappeared. I suppose they have gone down to the fleshpots of Cannes, where they hang around the beaches. Anyway we have peace. Fortunately the pair of ringdoves which sit in  our cherry tree are still there.

Naval memories - Boarding officer

My education included the image of Nelson leaping from ship to ship, cutlass at the ready, at the head of his boarding party. I'm not sure about my grandchildren - perhaps Johnny Depp has taken over the role model.

I was a boarding officer once. In 1959 HMS Battleaxe did the Cyprus patrol, which consisted of going round the island close inshore, looking for caiques which could be gun runners, and boarding suspicious vessels.  We suspected that the aim was to search vigorously, but to find anything would have been an embarrassment for the British Government

My equipment included:

• a set of army webbing;
• a lifejacket;
• a revolver (unloaded - the cartridges were in a separate pouch in the small of my back);
• a large torch;
• an enormous board, which I carried, containing the Instructions for Boarding Officers.

There were other items, which I forget, but it showed what bureaucracy can do to courage and enterprise and in my encumbered state it was quite difficult to scramble up the side - not at all like Nelson.

With Moslem hospitality I was invariably offered a coffee while I studied the bill of lading  (entirely in arabic) in a knowing way while my boarding party searched for guns and stuck knives into their sacks of corn. It was an unpleasant job.

But what a beautiful coastline.  We anchored off Kyrenia, a lovely little fishing harbour where Laurence Durrell described buying his house in "Bitter Lemons". Two of us climbed up to St Hilarion's castle through scrubland full of red partridges, and afterwards drank one-star brandy in the café.

At Famagusta David Martin and I took our sailing dinghy down the coast and dropped  anchor for a swim - right on top of an ancient shipwreck, with a great heap of amphora encrusted in the sea bed. I broke off a bit to take home, but have lost it now.

Where we belong

I've been thinking about Mark's comment on July 23 on where we belong.

In "The wild places" by Robert Macfarlane, he says:

"We have come increasingly to forget that our minds are shaped by the bodily experience of being in the world - its spaces, textures, sounds, smells and habits"

I may be romantic, but have spent hundreds of hours alone in the woods with my dogs, absorbing their beauty (the woods AND the dogs!)

RN ships always carried a  RNSA 14 ft gunter-rigged dinghy, and when in port I liked to take it alone to explore all the corners of the harbour - not always beautiful, but taking in the sense of place.

I'm also very grateful to have spent hundreds of hours watchkeeping on an open bridge in the navy. What memories!  Duffle coats and oilskins, feeling the weather,  steaming cups of Ki (thick cocoa), bacon-and-egg sandwiches, or just looking at the stars and watching the sun rise over the "wine-dark sea" (really).  Looking at the coast and wondering what it's like there. The first exercise in the Med that Cygnet took part in was escorting a "convoy" from Thessalonica down the Aegean to Malta, watching the islands go by with their little white villages.

In the 1960s, because of the  threat of nerve gas and nuclear fallout, bridges were enclosed, with air conditioning and windscreen wipers, and the magic was gone.

August 26

Naval memories - Aziz

Our cadet training at Dartmouth included a day's boxing, closely watched by our supervisors for signs of character weakness.

I hate boxing, and was lucky to be pitted against Aziz (not his real name), one of several Egyptian cadets who were doing their training with us. Poor Aziz  had not had the benefit (?) of  a British boarding school education, and was even more reluctant than me. Our three minutes in the ring consisted of him running backwards round the ring with me running after him.

I saw Aziz again four years later. HMS Cygnet was the guardship anchored in the Gulf of Suez for four weeks in August 1953. It was boring and very hot, and the ship  had no air conditioning. We were not (yet) at war, but relations with Egypt were tense.

One morning we were surprised to see a  small Egyptian minesweeper anchored  about a mile away, with its gun trained in our direction.  Our response was to send me across to present my captain's complements and offer any help they may need. At the same time one of our 4" gun turrets would be trained on them.  So I dressed in my bestl white uniform, complete with sword, and set off in the captain's skimmer. At the top of the gangway when I arrived, there was Aziz. He was trembling like a leaf!

But his  captain received me courteously as I delivered the message, and next morning the minesweeper was gone.

21 August

JAM

I'm tired of writing about the past! Although I do plan to add something about my happy IBM career and the MOVE to France.

And I'm beginning to remember some highlights of my  time in the navy, such as when the Bahamas Governor visited the Out Islands, and when the British Ambassador to Venezuela split his trousers getting out of the car to lay a wreath on the tomb of Simon Bolivar.

Now  we are all equal in the Common Market but it was not so in 1953. When HMS Cygnet was Suez guardship (more of this anon) and we were let out for a swim in the afternoon:

• Officers  went to the French beach;
• Chief Petty Officers and Petty Officers to the Italian beach; and
• all the rest to the Greek beach.

and everyone thought this was quite natural.

Anyway I've been making jam. Yesterday nine pots of green fig jam, with a little ginger to add flavour, and today I must do another four pots of black figs. Before you admire my energy, picking the figs and making jam is less work than scraping them off the terrace when they fall!

The real triumph with my jam making is with Cumqats. We have two Cumqat trees and for years have just let the fruit rot. But it makes exceptional marmelade.  The only problem is to take out the pips. To do this cut the fruit across the middle - this also cuts the pips. Then squeeke the halves and the pips just slide out. I pass on this   discovery!

"Of course, that boy should never have gone into the navy"

(Comment attributed to my Uncle Jack, who taught history at Eton and Millfield)

Anyway I went ahead because I thought it would instill some practical sense in me, which it did I suppose.

The  first five years were great. "We joined the navy" by John Winton (real name John Pratt - my contemporary)  is an amusing account of the first year or two.  My first Commission, in the frigate HMS Cygnet, took me all over the Mediterranean and West Indies.  (Some pictures to follow).

Then I got married, and made the mistake of choosing the wrong specialization (Aircraft Direction) which condemned me to many years of separation and heartache and troglodyte existence in aircraft carriers, as we covered the rearguard while the British Empire retreated from the Mediterranean and  the Far East.  Like the unfortunate cricket captain, I was not expected to be there when our babies were born, and Anita, alone and without family in UK, had a terrible struggle.

And with the Navy paying the school fees I couldn't  afford to leave.

Eventually,  I saw a way out and was happy to make a bonfire of my uniforms, and with it all the outdated privileges of the "officer caste". (To think, as a Midshipman we wore stiff shirts for dinner every evening!). I was lucky to be accepted  by IBM as a sales trainee, and to be able to start a new journey at the age of 40.

What is left from all those years?  We made several very good friends. There was the excitement of going to new places, above all the wonders of the Mediterranean, including six months living as a family in Malta (on a shoestring!). And I would not have misssed the adrenaline  and sense of common purpose in a carrier during flying operations.

Was Uncle Jack right? Yes, but perhaps for the wrong reasons. Traditional middle-class views of what is an "acceptable" career were already changing, and the days of the British Empire, and with it the role of the Navy, were numbered.

Anyway, without the experience of those years we probably wouldn't be where we are now. As our old German friend Mack said of Mougins :

                                                                    "We are kings here".

Bellagio

Bellagio

Thank you everybody for your encouraging comments. I am still struggling with technicalities (with Caroline's help) and hope my posts will eventually become more frequent and readable, and certainly better illustrated.

Meanwhile - we are back from our short and luxurius holiday in Bellagio. What a perfect place to relax. But we didn't see many children. We sat by the pool, pottered around the town,  enjoyed the Italian food, and took a boat trip to visit all the little towns on the north leg of Lake Como. And all the time the views were spectacular.  We also spent two nights on the lake front of Como itself.

This was our third visit to Lake Como. Bellagio is the best known resort on the lake, and being the "end of the road" is quiet, while elsewhere there is a busy road along the shore. We'll go back again, I hope.