Alien abduction

I may have been kidnapped by a French family and returned when no-one offered to pay the ransom.

I have been reviewing the evidence for this thought that has been quite persistent in my mind following the chain of events that happened in 1978.

I had put my name down, with parental encouragement, for a school exchange trip.

The late 1970's was the heyday of the town twinning process and a spin-off was always a swop of cultures, industries and school-children.

The trafficking I enlisted in was for 2 weeks, the longest I would be away from home to date, in the Paris suburb of Clamart.

I was packed off with my suitcase and Adidas vinyl sports bag, now regarded very much as retro-chic, on the school coach for the long drive down to the ferry at Dover. I grasped my cardboard visitors passport ,as I had never been abroad before whereas many of my fellow travellers had already been on family holidays to Spain and beyond.

I felt a bit whoozy on the choppy channel crossing but thankfully did not show myself, or my packed lunch, up. Landing in France I got an opportunity to speak my schoolboy phrases but mortal fear meant I restricted myself to simple Bonjours, Merci Beaucoups and Au Revoirs.

The coach took us on a brief tour through Paris whereas I suspect the driver, from my home town, got a bit lost on the ring road. I got my first glimpse of the landmarks of the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe.

The twinning process was very much a numbers game and I had not actually been told with whom or where I would be billeted.  The Clamart school was a bit like an inner city comprehensive with a catchment including tenements, high risers and the leafy, affluent suburbs.

I was pointed out to my host family and whisked away in a battered old Peugeot accompanied by a chatter of language and the frequent laying on of hands in excitement.

Ann, my exchangee, was a strange girl, quite tall and a bit stocky for her age. Her not being very talkative or friendly was a bit foreboding.  Her parents were in their sixties, mother small, grey haired and wizened, father obviously disgruntled at having been forced to take an English boy into his home.

They lived in a block of flats amongst a whole mass of similar buildings but well kept and with fragrant stairwells. It was late on the first night and I was given a piece of meat and some rice. The meat was like no other I had tasted, nice but possibly horse.

I did not sleep much being used to a quiet housing estate but now bombarded with city sounds, traffic movements, car horns, sirens ,loud conversations  and the very stereotypical, but very real sound of Jazz music permeating from some upper floor.

Breakfast was a bowl of warm milk and a chocolate filled croissant, a staple of successive mornings.

Returning to the dropping off point at the school,  I was pleased to see familiar faces at the first morning meeting and we exchanged stories of accommodation and food.

The first week of the student swop went well. Mr and Mrs softened to me a bit more. We had long evening meals together trying to converse and find some mutually interesting topics, as much as a quiet 15 year old can with ancient french people. Do not, I warn you, try to tell an English joke through crude translation and then attempt to explain it's comic points to non-English speakers. "When is a door not a door? When it's ajar".

The second week coincided with a school vacation.

This was, I felt either clever planning to immerse us in true french family life, or a complete mistake by the organisers because I found myself packed into the Peugeot between Ann and her beefy thigh and two small children, the nephew and niece.

I had not had an opportunity to discuss contact details with our own trip co-ordinator for the next seven days.

I may have been the victim of a kidnap.

Apparently we were going on holiday. I have tried many times to work out the route we travelled.

The highways were long, straight and tree lined through stone built towns and villages. The only discernible sign I saw and vaguely recognised was for Le Mans. It was a very draining trip, Ann fidgeted and crushed me into the corner of the back seat with that beefy thigh. The two small brats were whining, irritable and irritating as though they were going down with some horrible sickness.

At last on the horizon I saw the reflection of the sea.

We had arrived in Brittany about, what, 400 miles or 8 hours drive from Paris. Spilling out of the car and stretching my cramped form I saw my next accommodation. A beautiful cottage farmhouse, low whitewashed walls and undulating pantile roof in tended gardens. This was the family rural retreat away from the grime and noise of the capital city.

Within a couple of hours the house was in quarantine.

Ann and the two brats had swollen up nastily with Scarlettine, scarlet fever.

Mr and Mrs were kept busy tending the awkward and needy sick. I was left to entertain myself. In the barn, adjacent to the house was an old but roadworthy bike, a real boneshaker. In the next few days I clocked up tens of miles in the rolling Breton countryside and soon perfected my favourite french phrase, 'Une biere blond, s'il vous plait".

In retrospect  rather foolishly I carried no I.D, personal or contact details. I was briefly without name, country or permanent residence. A true alien. Imagine that scenario in current times.

Later on in the week the family emerged,slightly less swollen, blinking into the light for some activities. I was taken to a town called Guerande, saw acres and acres of salt marshes and learnt the term 'Paludier', farmer of salt. This knowledge earned me a subsequent merit in my french aural exam some months later.

Best of all, I spent many hours cycling along the Breton coast with its wide clean beaches below, sand dunes and small cafes, all serving my new favourite beverage.

I must have been a bit tipsy for the duration.

Indicated in sign language as the last day of the holiday I helped the re-assembled family to paddle about at the shoreline to excavate coquillages for a wonderful white wine enfused seafood stew.

Squashed again against Ann's chunky thigh I took pleasure in remembering my week in Brittany during the long drive back to the suburbs of Paris.

It had been a great excursion and the first of a few subsequent trips to France, a country that I felt quite at home in. I didn't bother to ask my parents if they had been asked to pay a ransom for my return.