Rosie's War

by Rosemary Say

  ‘Look, if you’re really serious about going somewhere in Europe, why don’t you write to the National Union of Students? My brother has one of their booklets. I’m sure it says they arrange trips for young people on the Continent.’

  We went back to Peggy’s house to look at the pamphlet. She was right: the NUS could arrange so-called educational visits for students in Europe, lasting anything from a month to one year.

  So, a few days later I settled down to write a long letter to the NUS. I told them that I wanted to go to Germany, giving a lot of spurious reasons for my choice. I remember that one of the more preposterous ones was that I was hoping to be able to hear the famous existentialist philosopher Heidegger lecture at Freiburg University.

  My letter must have appeared a bit ridiculous but I can only think now that I felt the need to sound intellectual. After all, this organization was for students, yet I had left school at sixteen and had no hope of going to university.

  Why did I choose Germany? Well, I had already ruled out anywhere outside of western Europe. I didn’t want to be too far from my parents after all. But which country then? I had been put off France by my school experience of trying to learn its language. Spain was in the midst of civil war. Germany was perhaps the obvious candidate. I knew a little of the country, having spent a couple of weeks there in my early teens with the Girl Guides. Even in the late 1930s it was easy to focus more on its wonderful cultural achievements of the past than on the actions of its present Nazi government. Yes, our countries might go to war at some point, but that would surely be in the distant future and not during my brief stay there? Anyway, of more importance to me than the choice of country – Germany or France – was the fact that I was going to be living abroad sometime soon.

  At the end of November a letter arrived from the NUS suggesting a family in Avignon, in the South of France. It appeared that their present au pair, a Miss Sylvia Story, had to return to England at Christmas and they were looking for a replacement. There were three small children.

  I showed the letter excitedly to Peggy that evening. She was distinctly underwhelmed.

  ‘An au pair is a general dogsbody. You’ll be sweeping the floors. You should hold out for a job teaching English at a school.’

  ‘Well, I think I’ll talk to the present girl when she gets back before I decide anything.’ I was annoyed by her reaction. I wanted her to be enthusiastic. It would help me keep my nerve.

  Rosie’s letter from the NUS.

  I met Miss Story just before Christmas. We arranged to have coffee one morning at a hotel in the West End of London. She bounded into the lobby laden down with Christmas shopping. She was tall and slim. Her hair was cut into a delightful bob and her clothes were elegant. I couldn’t help wondering whether France would have the same effect on my appearance.

  She told me that she had been happy with the family, the Manguins, and described them as gay and delightful. She had been with them for nearly a year but was now returning to England to look after her mother. I did not warm to her. She seemed very bossy and controlling, advising me in no uncertain terms how long I should stay with the Manguins (one year at most) and exactly what work I should be prepared to do. Nevertheless, her obvious possessiveness of the job made me think that the family must be nice. They wanted their replacement to arrive about the second week in January. That settled it for me. I would be abroad early in the New Year.

  The night of 9 January 1939 I lay in bed quietly going over all the arrangements in my mind.

  I was leaving for Avignon in the morning. At last the family discussions were behind me. My parents had been very cooperative once they had got over their initial shock. Perhaps I should have suspected an element of relief on their part, but if so I was much too taken up with my own plans to worry.

  I had some money. Bobby had given me a few French francs. My father, with all sorts of careful warnings about overspending, had presented me with £2 (the equivalent of a little over £80 today). I had carefully locked away the money in one of my new suitcases.

  These were the pride of my life. They were made of pale, buff pigskin and were incredibly heavy even when empty. They had my initials stamped on the top in gold. Unlike my school trunk, which bore the name Pat Say, these suitcases proudly proclaimed the owner as Rosemary Say. My father had given me the name Pat after he had returned from sea to be presented with a new baby daughter. ‘Rosemary’s too beautiful a name for her,’ he had declared as he looked at my unprepossessing face. ‘We’ll call her Pat.’ So Pat it was until my suitcases changed all that. My parents had given them to me as a leaving present and I was convinced they were all I needed to complete my new chic French image. The fact that I couldn’t carry even one of them very far didn’t worry me in the least. Travel in those pre-war days always entailed porters and trolleys.

  It was a very loaded-down porter’s trolley that carried my suitcases onto the Paris train at Victoria Station the next day. All the family, including Bobby, had come to see me off.

  From the photos of the occasion, the scene looks almost Edwardian: my mother tall and elegant in a full-length fur coat; my father, brother and Bobby all in large-lapelled suits and overcoats, wearing Homburg hats and carrying rolled-up umbrellas. My brother David towers above everyone. There’s no avoiding the unmistakeable Say teeth – protruding and prominent – in David, Daddy and me. My mother has a slightly anxious expression on her face. In contrast, I look so excited and happy. I had finally got what I wanted and couldn’t wait to begin. I can hardly turn round to face the camera: I am simply bursting to be gone.

  ‘Are you sure you know how to change stations in Paris?’ my father asked for what seemed to be the twentieth time.

  ‘Of course I do. Don’t fuss, Pa. I have reserved seats all the way through. It’s a very simple journey.’

  I felt much too excited to worry about any travel details. I wanted to hug and kiss my family but I also wanted to go, to escape and begin my adventure. I already felt detached from my past life, friends and relatives.

  ‘Have a lovely time, Pat. See you on your birthday.’ My mother kissed me on the cheek.

  I got onto the train. Leaning out of the window I said goodbye to Joan and David. I blew Bobby a kiss. ‘Cheer up. I’ll be back in March for my birthday.’

  ‘See you then, Pat,’ he shouted, blowing a kiss back to me.

  ‘Bye, Pat, bye-bye!’

  The sounds of my family stayed with me as the train began to pull away through South London. I looked out of the window at the flat suburbs. So here I was, just two months short of my twentieth birthday. I had some money and was going to be paid a wage in France. I certainly had no apprehensions. On the contrary, I felt confident about the future and my abilities to deal with life.

  I am naturally an optimist and always believe I can get the hell out of a situation if I don’t like it. After all, hadn’t I decided after tea one day (at the mature age of seven) that my carefully selected boarding school was not the place for me? I was found that evening with my bags at the front gates and taken to the headmistress. I calmly explained to her that as I didn’t like her school I now wished to go home.

  Surely if I didn’t like my new life in Avignon I could leave just as easily?

  I did, in truth, have some fears as I left London. But they were not profound, more immediate and prosaic. How much should I tip the porter? Could I steel myself to go into the dining car alone? What would the waiters think of me?

  In fact, I didn’t dare go into the dining car. I don’t know what or how I ate on the eighteen-hour journey from London to the South of France. But I do know that my lack of French kept me awake: in particular, I remember worrying on the journey south from Paris about how you pronounced the ‘g’ in Avignon.

  Years later my elder daughter asked me what was I expecting or dreaming would happen in France. I suppose she saw me as a sheltered girl of only nineteen going out into the unknown by myself. What were my hopes, my expectations?


  I couldn’t really answer her. Of course, I had the usual romantic daydreams about falling in love. But perhaps the most important thing for me was that at last I was going to be an individual. No longer the youngest and least satisfactory part of a large family or a boarder at school, but simply a young Englishwoman working and living in Avignon.

  I had finally gained my independence and was starting my life.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Settling Into Avignon

  ‘Avignon! Avignon! Mademoiselle! Réveillez-vous! On arrive!’

  The guard brusquely woke me up.

  The train ground to a halt. I looked out. It was dark and cold. Wearily, I collected my belongings and set them down on the platform. There was no one there to meet me. An elderly porter approached and silently took my bags. I was still very dozy.

  Suddenly I remembered my suitcases in the guard’s compartment. I tapped the porter on the back.

  ‘Monsieur! Er … mon … suitcase. En tren!’

  I pointed towards the train.

  Damn! What was the French word for suitcase? I couldn’t remember! I frantically started to draw large squares in the air with my hands and jab at the train. The porter looked bemused. He smiled and nodded but did nothing.

  ‘More,’ I shouted. ‘There are more cases. Encore. Plus.’

  My French was breaking down completely. At last he seemed to understand, but it was too late. The train hissed and steamed away to Marseille.

  I was nearly in tears. I was tired and my beautiful suitcases had disappeared. Why did I have so much stuff when I couldn’t even get it out of a train?

  ‘Êtes-vous Mademoiselle Say?’ said a man who had by now arrived on the platform. He introduced himself very formally as Monsieur Claude Manguin, my new employer.

  He had very little English but quickly understood my distress. With some rapid instructions he arranged with the porter to have my cases sent back from Marseille.

  We drove off through the winter air around the great medieval walls of Avignon, journeying in complete silence. I was too tired and shaken by my disastrous attempt at speaking French to the porter to try to make any small talk. Anyway, judging by the look on his face, the last thing Monsieur Claude wanted was a hesitant conversation about my journey. He probably hadn’t relished getting out of bed in the early hours of the morning to collect the new au pair from the station. He was a short, stocky man of about forty, with a head of receding slicked-back hair. He looked very determined and was perfectly polite but remote, driving fast and smoking cigarettes all the way.

  I was relieved when we arrived at a countrified and quite unpretentious villa just outside the town. Madame Odette Manguin was waiting to meet me. She quietly showed me to my room so that I could have a few more hours of sleep.

  When I awoke later that morning I found that I was in a neat, pretty room that in some indefinable way could never be English. Maybe it was just the light, which even in January had a yellow glow to it, utterly unlike the hard grey of a London winter morning.

  Miraculously, my precious suitcases had already arrived. I got up and began to unpack, pulling out clothes to wear that day. I hurried downstairs to find Madame Odette and her children still at the breakfast table.

  ‘Good morning, Pat. Pour yourself some coffee and come and sit down.’ She smiled and pointed me to an empty place at the table.

  ‘I hope you managed to get some more sleep. You’ll find that everything starts very early in this house. Monsieur Claude left for work an hour ago.’ She spoke French very slowly and clearly with almost no trace of a Midi accent.

  ‘Thank you,’ I replied gratefully. Gulping the coffee, I looked across the table at the three children who were watching me unblinkingly.

  ‘Bonjour,’ I said. ‘Tell me your names.’

  ‘I am Henri,’ said the eldest in English. He was tall and slim, with fine features and brown hair swept elegantly away from his forehead. A real ladies’ man for the future, I thought.

  ‘Pleased to meet you, Henri.’

  ‘But my friends call me Biquet,’ he continued. ‘I am ten. I like playing ball and swimming. Don’t you think my English is good?’

  ‘Very good.’ I smiled. ‘I can see that you will have to teach me French.’

  He smirked. Perhaps it was at the wonderful thought of him being the teacher. It struck me that I might have some trouble with him. Very spoilt. He continued by introducing me to his siblings, pointing first to the little blonde girl with ringlets who was intently chewing on a piece of toast.

  ‘This is Catherine. She’s five and she likes ballet.’

  Well, that seemed very clear. I began to think through what I could remember from my own ballet crush at the age of eight.

  ‘You will have to show me all your dancing steps after breakfast.’

  Catherine smiled but said nothing. She couldn’t understand me.

  ‘And this is my brother Jean-Pierre. He’s seven and his ears hurt.’

  The little boy was wonderfully sweet. He had a thatch of fair hair set on a wide face. His two top front teeth were missing, giving him a goofy smile. He nodded his head politely.

  ‘Oh dear,’ I said, looking towards Madame Odette.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ she replied, patting Jean-Pierre on the head. ‘He has mastoids in cold weather but I find a good, thick cap keeps the pain away.’ She rose from the table.

  ‘Now come along, Biquet,’ she said. ‘It’s time for school and we have to show Pat the way. She will collect you this afternoon. You two can come as well.’ I don’t think that the younger children were very keen on accompanying us to school but they obediently trooped after their mother.

  So began my new life with the solid, bourgeois Manguin family. I would settle quickly into the household, with the children choosing the nicknames of Patoun and Meese for me.

  Monsieur Claude, the son of quite a famous artist, was a commercial traveller for a chemicals firm selling potasse d’Alsace (potash). He would start for work early each morning to visit his local customers. He was a busy man of few words and I was to have little to do with him.

  His wife was very different. She was not considered a proper Manguin, coming as she did from Paris. She was amusing, talkative, intelligent and unflappable. She was to become my security over the months ahead.

  Madame Odette was also very elegant. She was probably in her mid-thirties but to me she seemed much younger. Dark haired, immaculately groomed and with beautiful make-up, she had perfectly shaped eyebrows that might have belonged to a film star.

  Compared to her, I felt all the clumsiness of my tall, big-boned body. I was not fat, far from it, but I was very athletic with a large frame and a big bust. I still had all the energy and awkwardness of a schoolgirl who hasn’t quite come to terms with her body. Unlike Madame Odette, my movements were gawky and ungraceful. I was certainly, despite my smart suitcases, the antithesis of French chic.

  Within a couple of days of my arrival, Madame Odette took control of my wardrobe. She went through all my clothes, seemingly as a matter of course.

  ‘Patoun, what is this colour?’ she said, holding out my treasured suit that I had recently bought with such pride in the Marshall & Snelgrove sale.

  ‘Cyclamen,’ I said weakly.

  ‘Yes, ma petite, I know what it is.’ She smiled at me pityingly, as though at a rather feeble-minded child. ‘But how can the English do this to such lovely material?’

  I had little defence. The colour was dreadful. She put a number of my outfits on the bed.

  ‘We’ll dye these dark blue, Patoun. If you could buy two packets of dye before you fetch Biquet we can do it first thing tomorrow.’

  I did what she asked and a few days later we went to Madame Simone, the dressmaker in town. She did what she could with the shape. My transformation was underway.

  As for the three young Manguins, my first impression of them had been correct: they were very well behaved and would prove easy to look after. My initial
reaction towards Biquet had also been right: he was certainly spoilt. But I found that I could keep him under control with the threat of reporting any misdeeds to his father. It was Jean-Pierre who quickly became my favourite. He was a delightful little boy, always very worried about being teased over the large woollen hat that completely hid his ears.

  My duties as an au pair were not exactly onerous. I was expected to get the children up in the morning and dress them. At night I bathed them and put them to bed. Taking Biquet to and from school was one of my main duties. The two younger children often accompanied us on these trips. I was also expected to give Biquet piano classes of a sort and daily English lessons.

  There was no general housework to do, as Peggy had promised there would be. Madame Odette was far too organized to need a rather inept English girl to help her run the house. At most I would be asked to do some mending.

  The two younger children were left very much to their own devices during the day. I would sometimes be asked to keep an eye on them. This proved an easy enough task once I had enlisted my mother’s support from London. Throughout that first winter a steady stream of cards and children’s books arrived, much to the delight of Jean-Pierre and Catherine. The latter, in particular, was thrilled to find out the names of the seven dwarves in English. ‘Atchoo, non. Sneezy, oui,’ she would say delightedly to anyone who would listen.

  Apart from these tasks, the time was largely my own. I knew few people, especially of my own age. It was quite a lonely existence but I was content with this. I would spend much of the day reading on my bed, from where I could look out on to the apple orchard below. A couple of times a week I cycled into town for an afternoon matinee at one of the cinemas, with only a scattering of other people to keep me company in those vast, art deco buildings. At the weekends I would play tennis across the river at the sister town of Villeneuve lez Avignon or mix with the Manguins’ friends who came to supper. But I had little in common with these people who were, for the most part, much older than me. My evenings were often spent babysitting.