FRENCH FISHERMEN

Wairarapa Times-Age, 16 May 1942, Page 4

FRENCH FISHERMEN

NEW HOMES IN ENGLAND. ESCAPEES FROM OCCUPIED TERRITORY. Saffron, blue and brown sails creep out of a small port somewhere in England., A diminutive blue, white and red French flag flutters at each masthead. These boats are not bent on war. They are part of a small fishing fleet belonging to French seamen who —some with their families —escaped to England. With the dusk the boats come back out of the haze, and over the water the men hail their women folk, as they did at Boulogne or Concarneau. These men are not young, for all the young men are serving with the Free French navy. The homes of these fishermen are.a strange attempt to turn English surroundings into French. There is invariably a French flag, and General de Gaulle looks out of a frame from the wall with his grave but inspiring countenance. The famous declaration of the General —“France has lost a battle, France has not lost the war” —with the French flags at the top is also there, and portraits of our own King and Queen are many. A smattering of English, with delightful disregard of rules of grammar and a gay jumping over tenses, suffices for most of the older’ folk, and aided by natural quick-wittedness they manage 'to make themselves understood. The children attend our schools and give very creditable accounts of themselves —their teachers in France can be proud of them all. These simple fisherfolk are pleased to see anyone who speaks their language, and if you happen to know the places they come from how welcome you are! You agree that the railway viaduct high above the roof tops of Morlaix is indeed a wonderful sight, and the rue de Siam at Brest can hardly be equalled by Bond Street, and you have seen the “Pardon” at St. Brieuc in May when the Virgin with the wonderful veil is carried amidst a sea of candles in the night procession of models of fishing boats borne on fishermen’s shoulders. And they talk to you of the winding roads, the wayside crosses, the heather, the huge stones set up by men in the dawn of history, the cottages tucked between the hills, the caves along the seashore where the sea comes roaring in, and the split cliff where Our Lady answered the fishermen’s cry for help and brought them to safety. And you, too, have seen the blue nets on the golden shore of Concarneau, and you know the lame bard, and the songs, the legends of Gralon and the city below the waves whose tolling bells bring ■no good to those who hear them in the still night. And if you know the Bretons, Monsieur, you know what “tete de Breton” means, the hard head of a Breton into which no German will ever be able to knock the idea that the day will not come, perhaps soon, when the saffron, blue and brown sails will sail proudly out for the last time, on the way back to France.