My mother gave me a fruitcake to give to the French. She’d arranged the trip for me with a friend who worked at the local girl’s grammar school. I was to be the only boy amongst thirty 16 year old schoolgirls going on a French exchange to Paris. Sounded reasonable to me, I might learn a thing or two. I did and it wasn’t all French.

To put this in context I was a boarder at the local all boy’s grammar school. My contact with any girls at all was minimal. Our school did no such sort of exchange with the French.

We were to stay as guests of a French family for three weeks after travelling to Paris by firstly a steam train ( I kid you not ) to the South of England, then a brief flight across the channel on a Dakota aircraft ( possibly one left over from the Berlin Airlift ) and then a coach trip into the centre of Paris. Where we were to be distributed to the various families. Myself and Pamela, one of the girls from the school were matched with Jean Claud and Anne Marie his elder sister.

As I recall the family lived in an area not far from Denfert Rochereau Metro station in a large block of flats. Not a huge apartment and I was given a bed in the same room as the small baby they had. My spoken French was almost as non existent as their English. It was a busy household. Father had a job in the civil service or something, mother just about managed everything else, and cooked for all of us each night. She was an excellent cook and the food was a discovery. She proudly served up my mother’s fruit cake with a chocolate sauce on day two. When I told my mother she was at first mortified and then curious. The ‘Franglais Pudding’ was I reported excellent.

At every evening meal I was given watered down red wine. I loved it and suspect I went to be bed pleasantly sozzled every night.

There was no programme on stuff to do. French Mother was kind and welcoming and almost every day sent us out, all us kids, with a baguette each and a bar of very dark chocolate, to get the Metro and go and see stuff. I recall going strolling down by the Seine looking at the Bouquinistes by the river, and we certainly went to a Fair of some sort as I have the only photograph of the visit. I’m assuming it was taken by the stallholder , I have no other explanation.

That’s me taking aim with Anne Marie next to me, Pamela in the background giving her impression of a drowned rat and Jean Claud, giving his impression of a maturing French gangster. We didn’t get on very well, his behaviour on the trip was simply to try and ignore me as much as possible.

I also recall one day we were driven in by Mother and the small car got a flat tyre, the Lego kit type of replacement tyre kit in the boot came in useful and I replaced the flat tyre with the spare in the middle of Paris with traffic zooming past. French Family fandom for me followed. It’s the only time in my life that I’ve ever changed a tyre. Once was enough.

The family did have a small country property which they said we were going to go to at ‘le weekend’. I’ve no idea exactly where it was but it was about an hour or so drive in the 2CV. How we all crushed into it was a miracle to me now. I think they left the baby with someone at home. I do know that it was a medium sized barn with beds and some furniture, no bathroom and no loo. We were supposed to do what bears do in the woods that surrounded the place. A recipe for constipation. I think I slept in the same bed as the gangster and I do remember the discomfort of an unaired dampish bed. Junior Gansgter and I had a bit of a falling out on the last day of ‘le weekend’. For some inexplicable 14 year old boy reason he hammered one of his father’s favourite chisels into a large block of firewood up to the hilt. Skin and hair was sent flying as his father chased him around trying to swipe him. An uneasy truce ensued. I happened to be outside when gangster started throwing stones at me! Thinking that if I stood in front of the 2CV it would result in him stopping his barrage. I could not have been more wrong, one quite large pebbly stone passed close to my head and went straight through the cars side window. He stopped then. Father was almost purple with rage.

The journey back was cold and interrupted by a police stop, the gendarmerie curious to know why we were freezing ourselves half to death. ‘Formidable’ was a word used here as his torch lit up our freezing faces and straggled hair.

The thought of Junior Gangster coming to England, as was the plan, looked like something I wanted to avoid. It happened, and it was a disaster as I predicted. A sullen French Boy for 2 weeks ( I think he must have negotiated a reduced term ) was grim. I doubt that he ever visited England again.

In the last week I was mooching about the flat when the radio played ‘Love me do’. The first time I heard the Beatles. It stopped me in my tracks. Hearing it now always brings back that moment, the smell of Paris and that unique odour of the Metro, a unique aroma of French cigarettes, dust and electricity. Oddly not as repellant as it sounds.

The return journey was similar to the outward one with all the girls telling each other excitedly what they had been up to. My mother’s mission to improve my spoken French was very successful. I’d been listening for three weeks. I was greeted off the train by my parents and my Welsh grandad and when he asked me if I’d had a good time I responded : Oui! Oui!

I’d bought a packet of 200 cigarettes for my Dad, it’s what you did in those days. As we went through customs an officer asked me if I had anything to declare and I told him I had the cigarettes. He muttered something about that not being allowed and as he did so I was surrounded by all these girls I was with. He looked up and said “ Just you? And this lot?” I nodded, and he waved me through with an almost silent whistle through his teeth.