Two Roberts taken prisoner

Rideau Place, one of the poshest "retirement residences" in town, was where I had tea this afternoon. Half way through my visit a young man in the house uniform interrupted with a selection of teas and sticky little tarts and an encouragement to take home a brochure and consider patronising the place on a longer term basis. Not yet, thanks, not yet!

Five of the eight ladies in the lounge had lived in Paris or came from Paris, so their French was beautiful to hear. Simone was a war bride who'd come to live in Nova Scotia in 1951 and, because she fell in love with the country as well as her Canadian soldier, had never since left Canada. Stella was born in Algeria. As young girls, so they discovered at the end of last month, these two had grown up on the same street. There's an overt solidarity between all the Parisian ladies, calling themselves the maudites françaises as opposed to the die-hards of Quebec. The only corner of Quebec, they said, where an approximation to proper French is spoken, is the Chicoutimi region. Interesting. I've heard this before but have not been up there yet.

We'd sat down to talk about the War, i.e. World War II, because Chantal had promised to read to us from the cahiers de journal de captivité written by her father, a handsome lieutenant in the French army. Captured in 1940, he'd become a Prisoner of War in Silesia, like my own father. Fin des illusions, he had written, against the picture that showed him wearing his prisoner's number badge. This French Robert had been incarcerated in Oflag VIIIG, Weidenau, in his thirties ; Robert Tullett, my father, in Stalag VIIIB, Lamsdorf, in his twenties. Paper being so scarce and precious during their POW years, both men used miniscule handwriting; Chantal said she'd had to use a magnifying glass to transcribe it. She showed us a photo of some of the French prisoners playing in a chamber music group; my dad created and directed a prison choir.