… this morning.
Lying in bed on my palliasse this morning, I heard someone shout “Eric” quite loudly and so I stuck my head out of the door and said “what?”.
I was greeted by a pile of blank stares from a group of people on the other side of the wall.
I didnt know it then, but I do now, that the name of the guy whose house backs onto this one is also called Eric.
So that was my Sunday morning lie-in ruined anyway, but it was at least gorgeous and sunny. And when everyone else finally surfaced and we all had breakfast, we prettied ourselves up for a special occasion.
Cécile’s mother is rather partial to mussels – the typical moules et frites – and on our travels Cécile and I had seen a flyer to the effect that a local restaurant – the Loup Blanc – was offering a special Sunday lunch of just that.
So Cécile’s mum had a party and we had home-made falafel and chips. Quite expensive but then again this is a tourist resort so you stick €5:00 on each dish before you start.
Interestingly though, the restaurant also has a mini-golf course.
As you know, with the sun in our faces we couldn’t get a good view of the fortress yesterday but there were no problems here today.
The mini-golf course is designed around the local beauty spots – chateau-fort included. It was quite interesting.
After lunch, Cécile’s mother had a music concert at the Senior Citizens’ Club and having dropped her off, Cecile and I went off to look at another venue on my list of places to visit.
This is the fort de Pierre-Levée situated somewhat centrally on the island.
It was built during the period 1856-66 on the site of a much older fort. It is much, much greater in size though, so much so that a small hill had to be flattened to accommodate it.
On top of this hill was a menhir … "PERSONShir" – ed … the pierre levée or “raised stone”, hence the name of the fortress.
This was taken down into Port Joinville where it was smashed to pieces by the locals who used the pieces for housebuilding.
Originally a barracks, it later became a prison and its most famous prisoner was Philippe Pétain.
If you know your French history, when France was divided into two by the conquering Germans, they stuck as a figurehead-President the 84 year old French hero of World War I, Marshall Pétain (the oldest Head of State that France has ever had) to give the Government some kind of legitimacy.
Some say that he was shamefully manipulated due to his loss of his faculties in his old age, although you will find just as many people who will insist that he was far from being non compos mentis at the time.
Nevertheless, at the end of the war he was tried as a collaborator (at all of 90 years of age) and condemned to life imprisonment. In November 1945 he ended up here in the fort de Pierre-Levée where his condition rapidly deteriorated.
As a coincidence, you’ll recall that I don’t live too far away from the Chateau de Chazeron where Pétain’s government incarcerated his political opponents during the dark days of Vichy.
Regular readers of this rubbish in one of its previous reincarnations will recall that Liz and I had been there a few years ago to look at the place, so I was quite keen to come here to see the other side of the coin.
Having been released from confinement due to ill-health on 8th June 1951, Petain died on the island 7 weeks later on 23rd July.
I wanted to add his grave to my list of war leaders, such as Churchill, whose tomb I had seen when I went for a wander around with Sue, and of the French General whose name I have momentarily forgotten and whose tomb I had stumbled across quite by accident in a small village graveyard in Finisterre in the mid 1970s, long before these pages ever began to see the light of day.
And of course the memorial to Marechal Desaix, right-hand man of Napoleon during some of his early campaigns, down the road from me in Ayat-sur-Sioule.
We went off the the Cimetière Communal de Port-Joinville to see his grave and it was actually there.
That might sound a surprising thing to say, but it wasn’t always there. In February 1973 his body was stolen by Far-Right activists who wanted his body in the grave that had been prepared for him at Verdun.
The authorities recovered it and reburied him here, but as a concession they gave him a Funeral of Honour.
There are several other graves in here that are quite important. They are of 16 British and Commonwealth servicemen, one of whom is unidentified.
Seven graves relate to airmen from 149 Squadron RAF.They had taken off from Lakenheath in a Stirling Mk1 BF 392 OJ-D at 18:30 on 16th October 1942 on a “gardening” mission, sowing mines in the Gironde estuary and were shot down by a night fighter.
Most of the other graves however are dated May and June 1940 and are from a variety of services and regiments.
I do recall that in a well-hushed-up incident of World War II a British transport ship – the Lancastria if I remember correctly – evacuating troops from mainland Europe during the final days of the Battle of France was sunk off the coast of St Nazaire on 17th June 1940.
There was a massive loss of life, somewhat similar to the Wilhelm Gustlof off the coast of Danzig in the latter days of the war.
I wonder therefore if the later casualties buried here might be bodies of soldiers from the Lancastria who were washed ashore here at a subsequent date.
I shall have to check up on this.
And that reminds me – whenever you are on board a ship or other maritime transport, always carry a bar of soap in your pocket. That way, if you fall overboard or are shipwrecked, you can get washed ashore.
Don’t be like one of the survivors of another maritime disaster, the sinking of the Caribou, to whom I talked a good while ago.
He was telling me that he spent 16 hours in the freezing Gulf of St Lawrence, clinging to an upturned lifeboat.
“Didn’t you manage to drag yourself up?” I asked him
“Ohh dear no!” he replied. “I didn’t even have time to put on my lipstick”.
But I had to laugh at this sign – and so should you too.
And not because it’s incorrect – it should be “rue du Ne’erlandais Volant” these days
It is of course anyway the Street of the Flying Dutchman and that conjures up all kinds of ideas in my head … "well, there’s plenty of room" – ed … but possibly relates to the famous ghost ship.
However, I always thought that it was called in French the Voltigeur hollandais, so who knows?
But now its clouding over again and I think that summer is over for another year.
Despite everything that I’ve recently been saying about old cars on islands, you do still occasionally find them on the mainland too.
She’s a 1962 Opêl Rekord 1700 P2, in almost-mint condition, one owner from new and with just 67000 kms on the clock. 
Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that at the weekend round about the Fête de St Jacques it’s the custom here in Virlet to go for a walk to beat the bounds of the commune and have a little party afterwards.
It did brighten up slightly as we made our way around, and it became much easier to walk once we were on the metalled road.
. This is one of what is known as “The Cavalry Trilogy” and is famous for two particular reasons.
– the story of the sinking of the Titanic.
.
