Thomas at Château de Douriez, Airaines, France
Probably 1985
In 1985 I drove to Brussels with Thomas aged about six. I think we stayed for about a week chez my Tante Bernadette at her flat in the centre of Brussels. Then, for whatever reason, we drove to the village of Airaines in Picardie, Northern France and paid a visit to the Château de Douriez. Part of the reason is that the Château is where, in the early 1960s, I twice spent a month with my French exchange Robert Devaux, a year or so older than me and the only son of Ginette and Maurice Devaux, Ginette being an old friend of my mother's from before the war when they were at the same school in Holland close to the German border. As well as a son, Ginette and Maurice also had six or seven daughters, including Pascale Devaux, the French exchange of Carolyn Cheetham. Carolyn came with me those two months.
I discovered the name of the Château only now when I looked it up to see how it looks today. Apart from Street View, I only found what it looked like probably some time in the late 1800s:
Downloaded off eBay.
The Château had a 'sub' ground floor with the main ground floor up the steps. When I was there, the middle of the 'sub' ground floor was a table tennis room with the kitchen at the back. At the top of the left hand steps was a long dining room through to the back and the main living room was in the middle. My bedroom was on the top floor at the back on the right hand side. In the garden behind was a swimming pool and a tennis court, and beyond, a wood with a gate leading to the main road to Abbeville. The general region, I think, is the Somme.
Thomas is stood on the steps on the right of the building. It does not seem to have changed much in all those years. I don't remember any of the Devaux family being there in 1985 but they may have been. Or perhaps someone else there let us take the photo. When Thomas was older he exchanged with Alex Devaux, the son of Robert who became a doctor in Amiens. I am fairly sure that in 1985 we also called in on him and his wife because I have seen his wife and it can't have been any other time. We lost touch some time ago however, which seems a pity.
Anyway Thomas stayed at the Château with Alex in the early 1990s.
Robert came for a month with me the year before I went for a month with him. I am guessing he came in 1960 and 1962 and I went to France with Carolyn Cheetham in 1961 and 1963. My parents, Ken and Françoise (my Belgian mother) spoke French to each other at home in England so apparently I spoke French before English. The Devaux in France were a very large family with perhaps eighteen or twenty people, including guests, and meal times in their Château. I could not understand a word at first but towards the end of the month they said I could pass as French. That's where I learned to speak French, not really with my parents who spoke their own kind of French (but I did get Grade 1 French O-Level).
