There has always been an intense rivalry between us English and our nearest Continental neighbours, France.
I have been thinking about this relationship over recent days with the 20th anniversary now upon us of the Channel Tunnel, that much talked about but secretly resisted umbilical. We do fiercely defend our status as an island nation and without the clear water to Europe we may have certainly been overrun and subject to the more powerful forces of fascism in the 1940's.
There have been many crossovers between the populations and cultures of England and France either peacefully through natural migration or violently from invasion and domination. However, I have always contended that our respective countries are closer than we would care to admit in many activities and prejudices.
We ebb and flow in our mutual respect or hatred. Thankfully this does not take place on the battlefield or in skirmishes as it has in the past but is now more likely to play out in trade sanctions such as the ban on British Meat, in the withdrawal of labour by air traffic controllers just as we are setting off on our holidays, road blockages by farmers and the usual slanging match over culinary fare and personal hygiene.
Each generation goes through the same love-hate process but in varying degrees and persistence. Those in my own age group, shall we say now between 50 to 55 years, may have one of the strongest cases to perpetuate an animosity towards our Gallic cousins.
This is because of a great and notorious injustice and disappointment visited upon us in our impressionable younger years. I am talking about the 1960's TV series of "The Flashing Blade".
In direct contrast to the output of TV stations in more recent years which is heavily dominated by United States sit coms and dramas, mostly police and detective based, the programming during the hours allocated for children's entertainment in the mid to late 1960's were very, very French. I am amazed that I was not fluent in the language by the age of 7.
"The Flashing Blade" was just one of four french originated series that I could enjoy in that period also including, in no specific order, The Aeronauts, Belle and Sebastian and Robinson Crusoe. These other three were based on the adventures and antics of fighter pilots in Mirage Jets, a moon faced boy and his shaggy dog and the much loved creation of Alexander Selkirk. All four series were announced by rousing and melodic, almost singalong title tunes which would summon us siblings to the old black and white valve operated televison set and keep us captivated and thrilled for the following 20 or 30 minutes.
Most catchy and requiring energetic involvement was "The Flashing Blade" theme and even today I can recall without any problem the tunes and lyric. It started with a vibrato beat before that strong anthemic chant of "You've got to fight for what you want, For all that you believe". It was an emotional thing but even better to shout and shriek as you ran about in the garden or street re-enacting the battles that had just been played out on the small screen. The series had been made in 1967 and was evidently regarded to be exportable on the basis that it was high action and big budget and therefore quite rare for a TV production. It was first shown on daytime BBC in March 1969. I was only 6 years old at the time so my recollections must have been from the many subsequent repeats in the schedules. The swashbuckling main characters were The Chevalier de Recci or Francois to his friends, a handsome dark haired horseman and his ugly, gawky but loyal and good natured sidekick Guillot.
The series was based on the period 1628 to 1631 and the War of Mantuan Succession in Castile with the adversary being the Spanish, clearly differentiated for the benefit of black and white viewing in their wholesale sporting of goatee beards and head hugging steel helmets. The French heroes were more flamboyant in their dress sense with epaulettes, big hangey-down sleeves, upholstered doublets and tights.
The action usually centred on our two heroes riding away from pursuers or an artillery barrage as fast as they could or being captured by the Spaniards and then escaping in a most audacious manner. We fancied ourselves as skilled horsemen on our bikes or swordsmen using the garden canes from the back of the potting shed. I will not dwell too much on the dubbing into English suffice to say that we became well practiced in moving our mouths out of sync with our actual speech. In my memory the series went on for ever but in fact had been remorselessly edited down to only 12 episodes each of 22 minutes duration by the BBC who it seems were not overly impressed by the quality of the physical film and manufacturing. This latter point brings me to the reason why many of my age group continue to bear a hatred for the French in spite of the ready availability in our later years of cheap wine, good soft cheese, crusty baguettes and va-va-voom generally by way of compensation.
The notoriety of "The Flashing Blade" lies in the last two episodes of its sole series. The generation of children completely engrossed in the drama were eagerly following the development of the story. It had everything from musket bangs to the swish of rapiers, smoke and mayhem, blood and gore but underneath the special effects was a sound tale of bravery, friendship and ultimately the quest for a safe return to hearth and home for Francois and the underbite afflicted Guillot.
I wanted at one stage a faux leather sleeveless jerkin just like Chevalier but they were not stocked by our local Marks and Spencers.
Episode ten saw a final desperate effort by our heroes to save a besieged garrison but with the dreaded Don Alonso, the Beatle haircut bearded leader of the Spanish determined to bring about a suitably nasty ending and claim overall victory. A thump on the side of our Mum and Dad's Decca TV brought about a little improvement to the quality of Episode 11 which had been building nicely to an ultimate showdown of the main characters. It was difficult to make out any recognisable faces or action in the hazy and interference riddled broadcast. We could however imagine the magnitude of the conflict but had great hopes that we, I mean Chevalier and his intellectually challenged sidekick would ultimately prevail.
Episode 12 lost vision completely due to an inherent deficiency in its quality which the BBC producers had suspected all along. The screen went blank and all was deathly quite apart from a low resonance humming from the hot glass valves inside the teak casing.
I have never, even in this day of the wide availability of boxset releases of old classics, seen the conclusion to the series .
In an illustration of my disappointment still strong after 40 odd years I paraphrase one of the verses of the stirring theme .
And we should never count the cost
Or form our fists in clench
It's better to have fought and lost
Than trust the bloody French
Than trust the bloody French.........and fade out...........
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