Rosie's War Read Online Free PDF

to sit on the right hand of French approval. ‘N’est-ce pas, petite anglaise …?’
    This small episode proved to be the turning point of my life in France. Having struggled for over half a year with speaking the language and adapting to the culture, I suddenly achieved self-confidence in both. From then on I began to love every minute of my new life. It seemed to me that this relaxed, undaunted lifestyle was truly living. The long meals where everyone was relaxed and witty were attractive and fun. It was so different from the carefully planned and tense entertaining of the English middle classes, with my mother frantic from having got up at six in the morning to start preparing the house and food for guests. I had no desire to shine in these French meals, just to be accepted. I was very happy.
    As I wrote to my parents, ‘French life suits your daughter exceedingly well … this enterprise is turning out completely successfully.’ I was now fearless even with the language. One evening towards the end of that second holiday I organized a small play with the children based on the French subjunctive. For some reason (inexplicable at this far remove) I found the conjugation both fascinating and hilarious. I assumed that the audience would as well. Much of the play was based on stilted sentences starting with phrases such as ‘Il faut que je fasse.’ I don’t know how Père Manguin and the family reacted to this. With polite bemusement, I suspect.
    A boyfriend was still the one thing I lacked for most of my time in Avignon and St-Tropez. There was, of course, the devoted Bobby in London who sent me gramophone records and news from home. Somewhat unfairly, I kept him going all the time without any promise for the future. He came over to see me at Easter, not long after my arrival, and we met in Paris. But it was terribly boring, walking the streets of the city without much to say to one another.
    It was not until I had been in Avignon for over a year that I had a boyfriend. He was a serious-minded teacher of maths called Patrice. Tall and with a very angular face, he would hold my hand nervously, trying to tell me how much I meant to him. I suppose that he was part of the reason why I was reluctant to leave Avignon when the war began in earnest for us that spring.
    I have often been asked over the years why I didn’t leave earlier. After all, I was in Avignon from January 1939 until June 1940 and France was at war for over half that time. Why did I leave it until absolutely the last minute to get out, indeed just days before France collapsed? 1
    One reason is that virtually none of my acquaintances talked of the possibility of war during my early months in Avignon. Perhaps such problems were not taken seriously in the Midi of France, traditionally so detached from Paris both emotionally and psychologically. ‘Let the Parisians get themselves worked up,’ seemed to be their attitude; the Midi did not concern itself with such affairs of state. Of all the people I knew, Monsieur Claude was alone in growling his prophecy that we should all be saved by Monsieur Churchill when the time came.
    My lack of concern during those early months about any future war may also have been due to the fact that I led quite an isolated life. I knew few people of my own generation and no one who was called up to serve in the armed forces. I knew no English people in Avignon or St-Tropez; if I had I might have seen them preparing to go home. So I was not in an atmosphere of panic or worry. When I discussed the war and speculated along with everyone else about what was going to happen, it was as a young French girl from the Midi that I was thinking. However, there was more to it than this. In my dreamy way I was refusing to face the truth until the last possible moment. I simply wanted everything to turn out all right.
    There was also the matter of losing face with my family. I didn’t want to be proved wrong in my decision to go and work in