Remembrance And Education

Remember, Remember

I have fun explaining to the French why we Brits celebrate November the 5th. After all, celebrating an attempt to blow up the democracy of which we are all so proud is ironic in a very British way. We didn't go through it this year in the English conversation class as we had already done that last year. Then I explained that although traditionally it should be Guy Fawkes who was burned there had been local variations. In the village in which my mother lived, for instance, it used to be the Pope who got burned. That would be politically incorrect nowadays of course and, anyway, I find the idea of religions persecuting one another rather obscene. However, I think the idea of burning (in effigy) someone almost unversally disliked has some merit. Anyone for Trump, Boris Johnson, Theresa May……?

It is also a time to remember the dead in both world wars of course: the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. For some reason I keep meaning to investigate, the ceremony in the village is at 12;00. I seem to remember that that changed from 11.00 a few years ago and I think it must be because winter and summer time didn't exist at the time of WW1, so 11.00 then would be 12.OO now. Maybe someone decreed the change in the last few years but I still don't know for sure. Anyway the ceremony went off almost smoothly in the village, when the names of those from the village who were killed are read out individually followed by the words «mort pour la France». I find it quite moving. At the end (before the obligatory communal aperitif) the children at the village school sing the Marseillaise. They were to be accompanied by the music but, enthusiastic as they were, they started off well in advance of the music and the singing and the music never really got together again. A shame, I suppose, but it had a very sympathetic Clochemerle feel to it. Perhaps that is how it should be, a living and improvised contrast to the otherwise formal proceedings to remember the dead.

Education

The last couple of English conversation classes have been particularly good, running seamlessly for 90 minutes. At the beginning of the one this evening I proposed an idea I had had and checked with Steve that we should offer the class toipics for conversation (generally of their choice) but that we should start with education. After all, we have all been through it (and may be continuing it) so we all have experiences, good or bad, to talk about. The idea went down well. Steve and I will provide a vocabulary beforehand to help the discussion along.

The idea came back to me while I was helping my son compose a rather sensitive letter. I well remember offering to read my daughter's thesis before she submitted it when she was at university and her refusal because, she said, I would criticise her grammar. Grammar was not in question when I was helping my son but niceties of expression and pereption were. Language can be such a supple and nuanced instrument for communication that I feel more than ever that the period when it was «taught» (in English schools certainly and, I gather, in French schools too) as simply free uncritical expression was almost criminal. Just tick the right box, or Eats Shoots And Leaves, if you know the book.

Cold Snap

I gather there has been a cold snap in the weather in the UK and so has there here, although the cold during the day is only evident if the wind is blowing (it's the Mistral) and you are not sheltered from it. However, snow has been falling on the summit of Mt Ventoux for the past week and that doesn't usually happen until around mid-December. I hope this doesn't herald a harsh winter but I think I'm now going to have to protect the plants I have that will not survive a hard frost.