Chapter 9 - The End of the First Tour
'What's in a name ?' Some people may think there isn't much to choose between one or another, but I think there is quite a lot, and it is natural, isn't it, when you like a person to like her or his name — and vice versa.
It is funny though how often a name is inappropriate to the person who bears it ! I know someone intensely vigorous and strong with a great determination of character which makes her even seem rude and alarming, and her name is Dulcie ! ' And the name of Lily brings to my mind the first Lily I ever knew, who was tall and willowy, and pink and fair, which the name seems to imply, whereas the last one I met was dark and dumpy !
So with the names of towns and often they don't match a bit.
In Normandy there are many with charming names, with such a musical poetic ring about them, and so with a fanciful picture in my mind of a sweet treed village, with perhaps a village green and
ese grazing upon it, we came on my tour to Lisieux.
Gaunt ruined walls, houses broken and in half, roofs toppling and the centre of the town just a heap of rubble ; and stuck up on these heaps were notice boards, to mark the ownership of the different sections of what had once been the main shopping centre of the town—here the chief baker, there the butcher and grocer and chemist—just a great tragic jumble of bricks and mortar and twisted iron girders and stone. The beautiful old Cathedral and Churches hare mercifully suffered only slight damage, and miraculously enough the huge famous modem Basilica, standing high on the hill over-looking the town, was quite untouched.
Arriving at the Prefecture we found a Guard of Honour of Scouts and Guides and Cubs and things drawn up on each side of the long drive, a speech of welcome was made, and then I started to walk along inspecting the waiting lines, when I had to stop short as I heard the strains of ' God Save the King ' being played loudly somewhere in the background. So I stood quickly to attention to the end, and then there was a second verse, and yet a third. I began a further inspection, when, to my discomfiture, the whole thing started over again, and I realised that i was a record on a gramophone which had been wound up with
35
such a will that it would not stop, and that the French host thought it correct for me to make my inspection to music !
These Scouts and Guides were such a nice little lot, and had kept going all through the war, and were now forging ahead, full of enthusiasm.
And the next, and the last port of call on this lap of my tour, was at another town, with the nice smooth sounding name of Evreux. On arrival a marvellous meal was supplied from meagre rations for our benefit, with a large gathering of Scouters and Guiders, the table decorated with charming little drawings, and bunches of flowers and leaves, placed in pattems to form the Scout badge or the Guide or Wolf Cub badge, and other insignia of Le Scoutisme Francais in replica.
Then we went up to a park where a crowd of public had gathered to see the fun.
Apparently there wasn't any ' fun ' to be seen on first arrival, as there were no obvious lines of Scouts and Guides in sight. But then I realised there was something afoot, and I turned my blind eye towards the various bushes and clumps of trees, which seemed to have some curious, vague, outlined bulges of blue and brown around their bases ! Then at a given signal, the whole crowd of those hidden Guides and Scouts and Louveteaux and Jeannettes came pouring out with wild cries to where I stood on a high stone platform.
They sang and they cheered, and then I talked -to them, telling them how much you had been thinking about them, and that I brought them a message of your goodwill, and of congratulations on the brave way in which they had kept their Scouting going all through the dark war years.
Then to wind up the Rally, each Patrol came forward in tum and stood in a row facing me, and saluted me, and the Patrol Leader announced its name, such as ' Le Clan des Leopards ' or ' Le Patrouille des Marroniers,'—and shook me by the hand, then marched off and away to their homes.
Hurtling back to Paris, the car that had carried us so successfully through this thrilling tour suddenly made a fearful squawk, some vital part of its inside flew out of the bonnet with a clatter on to the road, and we stopped abruptly! Luckily we were able to signal a passing lorry and got some of our party carried on to Paris, and our escort car number two nosing its way gently along, pushed the crippled car into a small garage near by, and there we left it, with its good French soldier driver, feeling thankful
36
that this breakdown happened so luckily at the last stage of the trip, instead of at the beginning.
That was the end of the first stage of my journeyings in France, and I only hope that I have been able in some measure to convey to you all something of the encouragement and inspiration that I gained by making contact with all those Guides that I met on route.
37
