A ROAD WELL TRAVELLED

On looking over old photos I found a picture of my brothers and I on the Champs- Elysées. Cars used to be able to park down the centre of the street, as well as along the sides. It is all very different now.  The picture was taken nearly 70 years ago. Some of the facades have been altered and the cars have that vintage look. I believe the photo was snapped by my mother some time in the autumn of 1953 just before my 11^th birthday.  Dwight Eisenhower had been inaugurated as President of the United States. 

 

I mention this as I am about to give a talk at the Lilian Baylis Technology School to year 7 pupils about understanding the law. They will be the same age I was in the photograph. I appear to be wearing a sort of suit with long socks, short trousers and what looks like an argyle sweater under the jacket. None of us looks particularly happy. The photograph was clearly taken on sufferance. What was not to like? We were in Paris for goodness’ sake. It was the resurgence of Haute Couture -Dior, Coco Chanel, Givenchy, Balenciaga, Balmain. Les Deux Magots featured Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Albert Camus and many others. Miles Davis was given trumpet lessons to Jeanne Moreau. Bardot was at the top of her game. At age 11, though, I cannot say that I was completely aware of what was happening in that buzzing Paris of the 1950’s. 

   De Beauvoir - Sartre                   Camus

 

 

             Davis - Moreau                                          Bardot

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

I am assuming that my year 7 audience will be wearing the appropriate school uniforms and hopefully will not be there on sufferance. I am also assuming that they will be far savvier than I was, in the light of Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Google and the internet in general, none of which were even contemplated in 1953, at least not by many of us. That was the stuff of science fiction.

 

My world aged 11 was a very different place, although the experiences that I had at that time were perhaps just as significant. We did not have television or any other devices through which images from round the world flashed before us. What we did have was the radio and newsreels at the cinema from Pathé, Universal and the March of Time. From 1949 on our parents took us on the road. The Cunard-White Star Line took us from New York to Cherbourg on the RMS Queen Elizabeth, the boat train to Paris arriving at the Gare Saint-Lazare. My dad bought a 1949 Citroen 11 ‘Traction Avant’ and a roof rack, a bit like the photo below. Mom and Pop up front, the three of us in the back seat and off we went. The events I had witnessed have stayed with me, although at the time I had not taken in just how significant they were. Travelling through a Europe just beginning to recover from a world of pain and horror no one had thought possible.  The buildings scarred with bullet holes still standing amongst bombed out neighbourhoods reduced to rubble - ex-soldiers, wounded and disabled, still wearing threadbare uniforms standing in line near the Prater in Vienna, holding out tin cups for spare coins - black marketeers wearing overcoats which, when opened, exposed a plethora of watches, pens and other sought after nick knacks.

 

 

  

That first year we travelled across France, through Germany and Austria, then on to Venice, Rome, Florence, Pizza, Genoa, Monaco, Nice, Cannes and various places in between. There were subsequent journeys to San Sebastian, Madrid, Granada, Gibraltar, Seville and various places in between. We also travelled on the Kedma steamship from Marseilles across the Mediterranean to Haifa and back again.  Over the next four years there were further overland journeys to and from California, on to Scandinavia followed by Yugoslavia. By the time that photograph was taken in 1953 we had probably travelled some 20,000 miles, traipsed around a plethora of museums, art galleries (including the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, Kunsthistorisches in Vienna, l’Accademia in Venice, l’Uffici in Florence, Louvres in Paris, Prado in Madrid etc.)  churches and sights of interest across the Rockies, Yellowstone, the Everglades, the Mojave Desert, Grand Canyon, the Alps, the Dolomites, the bay of Naples including Capri, Pompei, Sorento, Positano, Amalfi etc.

RMS Queen Elizabeth

The Kedma

At Mount Rushmore 1951

Was I too young to fully appreciate the extraordinary wanderings my parents took us on? Was I even able to make sense of all the people, lives and languages that flashed before my eyes and ears? I probably was, and didn't,  but what I have gained from it is a view that people round the world are not so very different as some would think. There are variations of languages, costumes, customs and habitats, but essentially people laugh, cry, worry and fret about the same sorts of things no matter where they are from. Nothing has been made more obvious than by the plight of refugees from all over the world who seek a safe life in countries that hold up as standard a life of freedom from want and oppression, when their own country has failed them in that quest.

They seek a place where the rule of law is a cloak that protects them and provides the security that allows them to be free and have a life worth living; although, even within those countries there are still difficulties that are sometimes hard to overcome by quite a number of citizens. It is not always easy to live in a democracy, but if the basic premise of the rule of law, that we all owe each other a duty of care, is uniformly achieved, then things might improve. The more people really believe that and act on it, the better the chance of survival.

 

I would like to get that across to my year 7 audience. At age 11 I was very naïve and spoilt. I took a lot of stuff for granted. It has taken a very long time to appreciate the fortune that I had. I have a feeling these inner city kids in South London might have a better grasp than I ever had at that age.