Ze Bulb Is Kaput And Further Adventures Over Ze French Border

These days, I feel a bit like old Chas Darwin, both of us sitting in our studies, as older dudes, and sifting through all that stuff gathered on our youthful voyages of discovery, him on HMS Beagle, and me slouched in that wine red Renault 16 that drove all the way from Holland to France that first time.  Could be the beards …

I thought by now we would be in Cadillac, and Loupiac, and Verdelais, and all those places I hung out all those years ago. And meeting Marine picking nectarines in Barsac that first time. But sure, you know yourself, the mind never drives straight …

Anyhow, let’s hop back into that old R16, with Toby and the gang, including my youthful self, with Yorkshire Richie at the wheel. 

When I think of it now, with little in the way of baggage (actual bags anyway), there was loads of room in the clunky old car, as we headed out the motorway beyond Breda, heading south. 

Especially as having existed on a couldn’t care less diet of frikandels, skinny chips and cheap supermarket beer, none of us weighed more than 70kgs, even Toby, who was at least 6ft 3in. 

Not like on our recent return Ryanair flight from Bordeaux, which was undersubscribed, and those of us in the back seats had to move up to get the ballast balance right. No danger of that with our chaotic but uncluttered crew going the other way all those years and kilos ago.

With me were lanky, wild-eyed Toby from the quaintly named Bishop’s Tachbrook, somewhere in the great midlands sprawl of England; taciturn Martin from County Galway; and our sole licensed driver, the weedily-tached Richie, from Yorkshire — or the White Rose as another drinking buddy, and fellow york-sheear expat dismissed him, on account of Richie’s endless drivel about the great Yorkshire.

The long drive down, over the Belgian border to Antwerp, our old drinking all night spot, and down through Ghent, Lille, and loads of cute brownstone villages and towns, and into la Belle France, and places like Rouen, Tours and Poitiers, was uneventful enough. There was drink on board, and plenty more to be had along the way.

The first, minor glitch was driver Richie waking up after a roadside nap, and proceeding to drive off on the left side of the road before we shouted him back across the Maginot Line.

Oh yes, and when one of the twin headlights on the right front of the car blew late the second or third evening of our journey and we encountered a police car and two surly gendarmes, who pulled us over. 

Richie, no fan of any non-British authority or power, looked at them, and addressed the nearest gendarme as one would a particularly slow child, especially one who didn’t speak the Queen’s English, speaking s-l-o-w-l-y for this officious little man, as he saw him, telling him, “Ze bulb is … kaput!”.

Richie had spent a couple of his late teenage years in the British army, as a rank and file private, and despite realising soon enough it was not for him, he had never quite let go of that old Britannica should still be ruling the waves bullshit, and had little time for the bit players in mighty Blighty’s repelling of Mr Hitler — France, for one.

Richie’s great redeeming quality for us was he was so willing to make exceptions of the individuals he would meet from other lands. If he liked you he loved you. And he loved the little coterie of Irish heads that I was one of in Breda that winter gone. 

Indeed, apart from Toby, he hung out almost exclusively with us. As indeed did Toby.

There was also something about Richie’s extreme neatness — by our admittedly low standards — that must have been influenced by his squaddie days. And his penchant for dull khaki coloured shirts, tucked neatly into his trousers, and seriously uncool low-top hushpuppy shoes. 

Not realising he was from an inferior country, this nearest gendarmed and dangerous flic with the unsettling gun in the fat shiny leather holster I could not take my eyes off looked at Richie blankly, so our driver repeated the message, e-v-e-n-s-l-o-w-e-r, and this time accompanying it with an upwards and outwards fling of both arms, like a magician presiding over a small explosion of smoke on stage, from which he would produce the disappeared rabbit.

“HEY, MISSURE… ZE BULB… POOFFF… KAPUT!”

Realising he and his partner were in the presence of an idiot, rather than a threat to French national security, ‘them Froggie cops’  — as Richie would refer to them afterwards — both burst out laughing, and waved us on, shaking their heads in mirth, making it clear we should replace the bulb the next day as they headed back to the squad car;

‘You fix, hein?”

And on we drove.

TO BE CONTINUED …

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