1968 and memories of a holiday gone wrong!

Regular visitors to this site might remember that last year we told the story of a school holiday to France in 1968 that went so badly wrong it made it into the Gazette - you can read the original article here. The main source for that article was Stephen Willoughby so I'm delighted to include his recollections of that fateful trip from 54 years ago. His memories of 6th form life will follow next week...

It was a school holiday I'll never forget! The staff accompanying us were Wendy Rowlingson, French teacher, Sheila Allison, head of Drama and her husband, Mike, who was then a mature student at Essex University. I think there were 12 of us altogether: the staff, myself, Terry Barton, Paul Henshall, Malcom Ward, Pippa Last and the remainder whose names I can’t recall, though I can picture them.

Wendy had bought the blue minibus from Last’s garage at the bottom of North Hill (Pippa Last in the group was the daughter of the proprietor). Quite early on during our stay it became apparent that the minibus wasn’t exactly the finest example of its type; it struggled to climb the hillier inclines during our trips out into the French countryside, and sometimes it wasn’t keen on starting. I’d had a Saturday job in Ted Ellis’s garage near North Station around that time, and fancied myself as a bit of a mechanic. So, with the confidence that comes with youth, I removed the distributor cap, cleaned things up a bit and somehow managed to improve things. It was pure luck, but from that point I became de facto minibus expert, and the distributor cap came off several more times in the days that followed.

 A few days before we were due to return home, Wendy fell ill with an ear infection and had to get some attention from a doctor in a nearby town. The medication (probably antibiotics) left her feeling exhausted and needing rest so, the night before we left for home, all the students piled into one bedroom so that Wendy, quite rightly, had a room to herself to rest for the journey ahead.

 

We set off the following day, bidding our fond farewells to Peyrilles, but it wasn’t long before we became aware of a rumbling sound at the back of the minibus which wasn’t to do with the road surface, and certainly wasn’t a fault that could be fixed within the distributor! Sure enough, when we had a look, one of the rear tyres had a huge bulge in its wall and we had no choice but to limp on to the nearest town, Souillac, in search of help.  

Souillac, Dordogne

Wendy’s account of her encounter with the local garagiste, whom she approached to assist us, was not complimentary to him since it apparently involved a lot of indifferent shoulder shrugging, and the suggestion that bringing a UK based vehicle to France was asking for trouble. As has been mentioned in the article, we contacted the AA in Paris who told us that replacement tyres would be delivered the next, or possibly, the following day.

 

Meanwhile, we were stranded with little money since this was the end of our trip and we were on our way home. However, we did have enough cash to put everyone up in an inexpensive hotel for one night, sharing a couple of rooms between us, in the hope that the tyres would arrive the following day. In the morning, though, it was clear that the tyres wouldn’t be arriving that day, nor perhaps for several days. By this time we were getting a bit desperate, so it was decided that a combination of Sheila’s drama skills and my passable French (Wendy was busy with the AA and other matters) might help persuade the local priest to help us out with a loan in exchange for a generous donation to the church when circumstances allowed.  The priest listened sympathetically, but the meeting didn’t result in the rescue plan we were looking for.

 

That day, then, we were seriously short of money, but we had enough to put the girls up for another night if the lads could camp out in what was then quite fine weather. We did indeed find a nearby camping site where we made a makeshift camp with our various clothes and luggage. A stroke of luck was that an Australian couple, camping in a motorhome on the same site, took pity on us and cooked us breakfast!

 

I can’t remember much about what happened after that, but Wendy managed to get some funds from the local tourist office, and we ended up travelling by overnight train to Paris and from there to one of the  Channel ports homewards. Wendy returned sometime later to collect the minibus which she kept as her main means of transport for some time afterwards. And, yes, she did ask me to have a look inside that distributor cap from time to time!