MEMORIES AND POEMS

By DENIS CHARLES PETER HARRISON

Peter Harrison was born in London in 1950 and moved to France in 1980.
Memories and Poems is a combination of two books. His first book Memories and Poems from a Sunny Clime, published in 2016, which recounted his living and working in France and later becoming a Butler for a very eccentric millionaire in Monaco, and the selection of his poems published in 2017.
His first novel WHEN TWILIGHT FADES AWAY was the Editors choice in the Connexion book review, Monaco, in June 2019.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Oct 30, 2023
• ISBN: 9781470933456

Book preview

LAVENDER

As a youngster I had a fascination for poetry. Unfortunately this was not always channelled in the right direction. At school for instance most of the unfortunate teaching staff became potential victims.

I remember one poor soul who taught Chemistry. I suppose looking back it was the way he was dressed that sparked off one of my first rhymes. His clothes hung on him and were very crumpled, he had a pair of metal framed national health glasses held together with sticky tape and what grey hair was left always seemed to stand on end. We nicknamed him Fossil. Unfortunately this poem is now lost in the distant past.

It was however an unqualified success from a fourteen year old who continued to fail big time in English. I was under the mistaken idea that just because I was English, I would never need to learn English.

Everyone wanted a copy so I bought a copying machine, his name was Broden-Tebbut, better known as Broken Teapot as this was easier to remember. Not only could he write quickly and legibly he was far and above the cheapest. In those days payment was made in liquorice sticks, one stick for ten poems. These in turn were sold for much better produce, fruit, someone’s grandmothers fruit cake, etc. etc.

Perhaps Shakespeare used the same method but I sincerely hope he paid in coin.

Soon I was producing poems left right and centre, no one’s self esteem was spared. Unfortunately I contracted the worst of childhood diseases, I grew up.

I was about seventeen when I left school and headed for the real world where an apprenticeship awaited my eager anticipation. Half a crown a week (eight to the pound), six days a week, ten hours a day. Suddenly all poetry was forgotten. How sad that this was how it would remain for most of my working life.

By the age of twenty nine I had made France my home and would work there until my retirement at sixty five. During all this time I often thought of poetry but due to the pressure of work it was the reading of it and not the writing. Life had put the composition of poems on the back burner, where it simmered but never boiled.

Why did I move to France? Quite simply to learn the art of cooking. I had tried many jobs in England but nothing seemed to satisfy me. Looking back I supposed that my love of cooking was ordained by the influence of the most incredible person to ever have existed in my life, she was my Nanny.

Both my parents had their own businesses to run and were fully occupied. No one could have wished for a better Mother and Father and whenever they had a spare moment they were dedicated to myself and my brother.

They had a very old rambling house in the countryside and needed someone to help out with the gardening and most of all the chickens. They found a very nice North Country man called Ned Caldwell. This was a part time job for him as he was a panel beater on the Slough Estates where they made fighter planes during the war.

When my brother arrived, followed by myself a year later my mother needed help and it was Ned’s wife Hannah who became our Nanny. Shortly after she started her husband died from a heart attack. She was devastated. They had never had children of their own, so it was that we became and always were ‘Her Boys’.

She had been a Matron in a hospital near Durham in Northumberland and ruled us with a fist of iron and unconditional love. She was also an incredible cook and once I had done my homework I would be allowed to help out in the kitchen. I was hooked. By the age of seventeen I had learned all the basics from bread making, jams and pastries to practically all the well known English recipes. So I left England to finish my education; where better than France.

I spent eleven years working in a little Auberge in the Var and then we moved to Le Thoronet. This is a beautiful little Provencal village famed for its Cistercian Abbey. We rented an old Mas Provençale next to the river Argens on the outskirts of the village.

Unfortunately as we moved at the beginning of the summer I missed a season’s work as a Chef. Once we were installed I drove down to Le Luc, the nearest town to us and visited the unemployment office. I was too late to find any kitchen work but they had a place free in some greenhouses for the summer, would I be interested? Why not? I went for an interview the next day.

The business was run by a German lady. I had once tried to learn German at Slough College but had been terrified out of my life by the enormous German woman who taught us. I think this was due to a misunderstanding at the beginning, as she had the habit of pointing at her pupils and shouting ‘Bitte’. I had no idea at the time that this meant ‘please’ and kept putting my hand up and saying yes as I thought she was saying Peter. I think this got on her nerves, so after learning one to ten I left.

I began to learn a few more German words as the boss’s favourite occupation was riding around all the greenhouses on a bright blue bicycle shouting ‘Schnell, Schnell, Schnell!’ I was now semi-fluent, not only did I know please and quick, I could count in German using two hands.

The best part of my time under glass was when we went up to the hills behind the Verdon Gorge to pick lavender. I was always impatient for these days to come around.

Later as I started to write poetry again one of my first poems, LAVENDER, recounted this happy event.

LAVENDER

Another day will soon be here,

The moon will fade, the sun appear.

A blackbird’s song for the lucky few,

To greet a morning of mist and dew.

The hills release that fiery globe,

Whose rays caress and gently probe,

Those fields that lie above the lake,

Where life has just begun to wake.

It’s there we see a strange affair,

Two Lorries parked and men that stare.

They look upon a purple plain,

Where only lavender now holds reign.

But why do they stand on the roof?

Some wave and shout, the rest aloof.

It’s just to study different views,

To help them judge, then pick and choose.

With tractor running the farmer waits,

To know their choice, he hesitates.

At last he’s clear which rows to cut,

He bounces off from rut to rut.

Machine in tow, the works soon done,

But not the case for everyone.

Men follow quickly with practiced ease,

To avoid the buzz of angry bees.

The final sheaf, one final heave,

With Lorries full, they take their leave.

Across the streams that gently flow,

To cascade down to plains below.

There people wait to sort and weigh,

Each fragrant branch in fine bouquet.

Once boxed to part by road or air,

For people’s pleasure and florists flair.

In Paris, London, as far as Rome,

Would late night-shoppers who hurry home,

Believe this lavender on display,

Grew wild in Provence at break of day?

TRUFFLE TIME

September came quickly and with it the end of my contract at the greenhouses.

It had been a hell of a good experience, I’d lost weight and now knew about half the names of the plants I had been destroying at home, making way for my vegetable garden.

My parents had settled in well, as they were by nature very sociable. Most evenings they had got into the habit of taking a bottle of cold sparkling wine and nibbles over the road to Mr and Mrs Bloch. They were a superb Parisian couple whom they had met by inheriting half a cat. She had belonged to the previous tenants and we took over the ‘contract’ to look after her, dividing the cost of food and vet bills with the Blochs. This was no hardship for my parents as we already had three dogs and two cats.

They had also become well established at the bar in the village. Most Sunday middays my brother would drive them down for their drink on the terrace. There were many English couples who had chosen Le Thoronet for their retirement, so it was always full on the Sunday with the clink of glasses and the happy cackle of English.

We became good friends with many of these people but my parents adored the company of Douglas and Jenny Gibbon. Their beautiful Domaine was situated just outside the village. It was a haven of peace. Both Douglas and Jenny ran an excellent bed and breakfast as they still do today. Their terrace looks over the swimming pool and vineyard to the hills at the back where the old Provençal bauxite mines were. Douglas had also become very well-known through his outside broadcast programme on the Riviera Radio, where every week he would choose a different location amongst the many historical and beautiful towns in our region. He was a mine of information on Provence.

We still keep in contact today and I try to go over to Le Thoronet once a year to meet up for a pizza. This way we catch up on local news and reminisce. They have always been such good friends and I will talk about them later, as they would offer to do something for me that really touched my heart.

My parents were complete opposites. My father was quiet and smiling. I can always recall him reading his copy of the Times at the bar in the village and his blue eyes twinkling as he discreetly looked over the top of the paper as some mini-skirted young lady walked past. He didn’t speak French, he didn’t need to!

On the other hand my mother was a real character. This ran in her family as her brother was exactly the same. Her strong character had been reinforced by her young days as a model and then later her attendance at RADA. This was followed by a stint in a repertory company. This experience became part of her charm and she never entered a room, she ‘made an entrance’. When I was young it always fascinated me how she was able to walk so majestically on her towering stiletto heels.

Her father had been a Captain, I believe in the Royal Engineers, and worked a large part of his life in other countries, amongst them Africa. It was therefore easier to have his family live in the south of France, so it was there that my mother spent a lot of her youth at Vallescure near St Raphael. As a result she spoke excellent French.

At Christmas of that year they had been invited to a meal at the local hotel for the retired people of the village. Before I knew it, she had sold me to the hotel and I was asked to go for an interview. This passed well and was for the position of second chef. The hotel only closed once a year and that was on Christmas Eve.

I was due to start in the New Year, so this still gave me time to finish my vegetable plot. Already half-finished I now had lettuce, tomatoes and courgettes thanks to an abundance of water pumped up from the river and the warm and clement weather. My father also loved his garden and the front and back of the house was now a riot of colour as he had a passion for growing geraniums.

One evening I went down to water my plot and I was alarmed to see that something had dug up a large part. I phoned Douglas to ask what he thought and he said it might be wild boars. Earlier in the year I had seen them in the vineyard next to the house, being followed lovingly by their young furry striped marcassins. I therefore decided to keep a careful watch that evening.

I had rigged up a system of string with some pans and cutlery, the idea being that whatever it was would make a noise. I was not disappointed as around eleven there was a cacophony of noise and some distinctive piggish sounds. I ran down with my torch and stopped in