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| "Have you boys seen the bad news?" |
Barter was a big item on the programme for some people here. A lot of kids came along at first and then even a few older people with all kinds of fruit to trade for cigarettes. Later the men began coming round and we could always get 4/- for twenty cigarettes. As at that time we were getting over a hundred cigarettes a week one could soon get quite a bit of cash. I did not bother for some unknown reason. The only thing I did get one day was a bottle of Champagne for 120 cigarettes. This was cheap to me as the cigarettes had only cost me a total of 4/- in the N.A.A.F.I. A cheap bottle of Champagne I thought. One could also get 2/6 for an ordinary tablet of toilet soap. One slab of chocolate would fetch 2/-. This may seem a bit rotten on the French but we found out that the stuff was being resold at a higher price than we got for it.
I made one visit to the cinema in Carvin when there was an old Tarzan picture on. The sound track was in English and the French translation was shown on the bottom of the screen. I have found out that the continental cinemas do not allow smoking. I suppose it is because of their inferior ventilation and lack of fire precautions.
Not long after we got to Camphin we were able to organise a game of football with Carvin. I was picked to play left back. When we got to the ground we found that the stand was full and there must have been quite a few hundred spectators. We got changed and ran out on the field in single file and turned to one of the goals for some practice shots. When the home team came running out a few minutes later we found that the French had a different way of doing things. They ran out in single file, formed a line facing the stand and bowed to the spectators. Then they ran to the opposite end of the field. The game started and although we tried hard we decided the result was a foregone conclusion. We lost the game 9-1. I got an injured thigh for my trouble. We found out later that there were only three of the usual Carvin team playing against us. The other players had been brought in from other town teams over a wide area, including an international goalkeeper.
That's the French way. One other thing we didn't expect was for our captain to be handed a bouquet of flowers by the opposing captain while tossing the coin at the beginning of the game. We did hit on the right thing to do at the end of the game however, when we decided to drive to the town war memorial and put the flowers there. After that we all went to a café and the Champagne was brought out. Toasts were proposed from both sides and then the party broke up. All of us went back to camp for tea.
