When he was 16, My Friend Harry had a chum named Len Brown. Both were a bit on the cocky side, given to showing off. Len was also given to accepting 'dares’, most of which involved the reluctant but craven Harry. Came the day when, during a breathless discussion among the fourth-formers on the heady subject of French ‘establishments’, Len instantly declared that he would accept a dare to visit such a place and that Harry would go with him. To put the dare on a proper commercial basis, the entire Lower Remove would each put 1 shilling (5p) Into a kitty, the total to be shared between Len and Harry on their triumphant return. That represented a yield of 15s each (75p). A fortune! Naturally, such a scandalous enterprise had to be undertaken in absolute secrecy, for expulsion would be automatic if the facts came out. Not to mention pandemonium at home. A trip to France was no problem for lads living at Gillingham, in Kent, for there was a regular daily service by paddle steamer from Sun Pier, Chatham, to Boulogne, with no passports being required. Both families gave hearty approval - and coughed up contributions towards the cost - when Len and Harry said they wanted to go on a day trip to Boulogne, for they always knew their offspring were made of the right stuff. Adventurous, self-reliant and all that. So, the boys left their school caps at home and set off in the early morning to board the Medway Queen - which did valiant service some years later in the evacuation of the British Army from Dunkirk. Fortified by lemonade and their sandwiches, they contemplated the approaching French coast with suppressed misgiving. Neither had the slightest idea how to set about their ‘dare’ or how to find an ’establishment' or, come to that, how they would know they had reached an ’establishment’ if they ever got there. When they actually set foot on the quayside at Boulogne, with porters swarming and exclaiming and gesticulating, they began to quail. Harry was all for calling the whole daft enterprise off there and then, but Len, the RAF Squadron-Leader-to-be, was made of sterner stuff. He led the way to a shopping street, found a cafe and, greatly daring, went in and ordered two coffees. It was 10 a.m. After a couple of sips, the resolute Len went over to the chap behind the counter, a fat, genial, moustached individual in a blue-striped apron. He tried out his halting schoolboy French, furtively and conspiratorially and out of Harry’s hearing. The barman stopped polishing the glasses, stared at Len in astonishment and then burst into a roar of laughter. Harry cringed in his chair and prayed for Len Brown to drop dead. The barman called to the back room and out came a buxom woman, presumably his wife. She listened incredulously to what her husband had to say between guffaws, and then burst out laughing as well. Mystified, the six occupants of the cafe asked to be let into the joke-and the cafe then gusted with hilarity fit to shatter the glassware. All this shook even the resolute Len and he backed away to join the palpitating Harry. With no word spoken, they upped and made a bolt for it - but were intercepted by one of the customers, grinning all over his face. Not to worry, he said to the boys. He’d set them on their way. And he did, conducting them through a maze of back streets until they came to Rue. St. Pol. At the house numbered 13 he motioned to them to wait and then banged on the door. It opened to reveal a massive woman dressed severely in black, whose eyes widened as he told her what the lads wanted. The guide, duty done, patted the boys encouragingly on the back and left them alone with the fearsome figure in the doorway. Shaking her head in wonderment, she beckoned them inside, through a hall filled with aspidistras and greenery and into a large room with a bar at one end. There were red velvet curtains, red upholstered armchairs and couches, mirrors on the walls, mahogany-topped tables and exotic, over-coloured pictures on the walls. Through an open door at the side of the bar, the boys could see a courtyard and an iron spiral staircase. The woman in black had no English, but her French was plain enough, even to schoolboys. What did they want? she asked. That was a good question. What on earth did they want? “Lemonade,’’ Harry quavered, that being the first thing that came to mind. It was produced and, sipping it indecisively, Harry looked at Len and Len looked at Harry and the woman in black looked at them both. She pointed to the clock behind the bar and spread her hands in bewilderment.
Obviously, at around 10.30 a.m. they were a shade early for the normal business of the establishment. As the silence grew oppressive, the woman had an idea.
She went into the courtyard and yelled up the spiral staircase. It was clear, even to the dithering lads, that she was yelling names and the proof came in a few minutes when two dishevelled girls stumbled down the steps, if not actually rubbing the sleep from their eyes, then looking as if the last thing they wanted to do was entertain two abject English schoolboys after a hard night’s work. They wore silk dressing gowns and slippers with bobbles on, and although they clutched their gowns, their clutches were not such as to disguise the fact that there was nothing but skin underneath.
Fearful of what demands might be made of them, My Friend Harry resolved to put the cards on the table before worse happened. He was assisted in this, and most unexpectedly, by one of the girls who had at least some English. Harry explained all about the ‘dare’ and emphasised that all they wanted was proof that they had actually entered the ... the ... He groped for words which would cause no offence and finally came out with 'house of young ladies’. This was greeted with squeals of delight from the girls and a matronly smile from the woman, who not only introduced herself as Madame Marie but gave them a couple of the establishment’s business cards as the essential proof they required.
The jovial Madame then opened a bottle of wine and they all drank a toast to each other and to France and the entente cordiale and, maybe, to I’amour, too. The girl with the smattering of English asked Harry for ‘a little souvenir*, so he searched through his wallet. The only thing he could think of as a ‘souvenir’ was a cigarette card featuring Charlie Buchan, the renowned full-back of Sunderland Football Club, but something told him that a lively French girl might not find that to her taste. She solved the problem, anyway, by reaching into the wallet and extracting a 10s (50p) note and putting it in her dressing gown pocket. As that procedure caused the dressing gown to fall open before Harry’s very eyes, he was in no state to argue.
They all saw the bottle off and Madame and the girls waved them a happy good-bye from the door as they made their unsteady way back to the town centre to spend the rest of the day more conventionally. When the summer holidays were over, Len and Harry became heroic figures in the eyes of their schoolmates though, to their great relief, no word of the exploit apparently reached the staff.
That was just as well, for the story which Len and Harry concocted between them concerning the exploits at No. 13 Rue St. Pol had been considerably more adventurous than what actually happened. Well, boys will be boys ...
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