T0 CATCH A... FROG
Peter Jones, Francophile, reminisces about the time he went frog catching at the behest of a French Mayor…
1958 must have been a very good year for my father, he purchased his first ever car, a maroon Hillman Minx registration PUE 16, we had our first ever television set which was rented from Radio Rentals - and we went to France for our summer holidays.
We flew from Lydd in Kent to Le Touquet in northern France with Silver City Airways in a Bristol Freighter especially designed to hold about four cars on the deck below the passengers.
Our holiday destination was the village of La Loupe (which means magnifying glass in French), about 40kms to the west of the Cathedral town of Chartres. We were to stay there for two weeks with Renée and Jacqueline, two old school friends of my mother’s from before the war.
My passion in those days was fishing, and as luck would have it, within a few yards of our hosts’ house was the Etang du Gallou which then, as now, was a very popular fishing venue.
British people in French villages off the tourist track were a bit of a novelty in those days. I like to think that the French girls all wanted to know this stunningly good looking boy that had come to stay in their village… but all I wanted to do was go fishing.
Mother and father were more than happy to sit around all day talking to their friends though we did have an excursion to
Pictures: top left, the famous Rose Window of Chartres; above the lake at La Loupe