Oooh La La

1980 (15 YEARS OLD)1 month ago

The evening before I left for my school-exchange program to Besancon, France, my parents gave me a stern talking to. I say parents, but I mean my mum. My dad was only there because he was told to be.

So I got the lecture that, because my exchange partner Dominque Berthoz (yes, apparently that’s a boy’s name) had an older sister, I wasn’t to be “acting like an 18-year-old.”

My dad had been a bit of a lad in his day, so I think he was secretely roooting for me.

I’m not sure where my parents were getting their information from. At that time in my world, 16-year-old girls looked down their noses at 14-year-old boys, if you were lucky; more often than not, you simply just didn’t exist.

Then compound that with the fact that French people think of English people in the same way as they do towards what they find on the soles of their shoes after a day walking through the beautiful streets of Paris.

Anyway, I’d seen a photo of Dominique, so if his sister had any resemblance, my parents could rest assured.

She turned out to be gorgeous, of course.

But there n’était pas frolicking. She said “hello” when I arrived, “goodbye” when I left, and almost pee-peed (pretend I am saying it with a French accent) herself laughing when I ate brains for dinner one evening, thinking that they were dumplings. Fishy-tasting dumplings, granted.

The French gits.

And that was the extent of our interaction.

Even in provincial Besancon, there was a multitude of beautiful girls. The school we had to attend was no different. They put our lot to shame.

Granted, we weren’t fielding Cathy Hughes, Jo Rice, Helen Kirk, or Catherine Hunt. But it wouldn’t have made much of a difference. We’d still have been Banbury United playing against AS Saint-Étienne (the best French team of the time).

And, of course, not a single bloody one of us “pulled a French bird.”

Even Kieran King, the Tom Jones of our school (that’s a literary reference, but if you want it to be the singer, knock yourself out), came up empty handed.

One early evening, having just got ready for a disco at the school I was going to, I went into the Berthoz’s living room to watch TV while I waited for some of the lads to knock on the door.

The sister was sitting in one of the chairs, nonchalantly ignoring me while she leafed through a magazine and watched some weird comedy and music show geared towards teens.

It was the most ridiculous thing I had ever seen in my life.

Until Lio came on.

And it wasn’t.

I sat there with my heart jumping out of my open mouth.

Later, at the disco, all of our boys found out we had seen the same show, and we spent most of the disco fawning over the memory of Lio and arguing about who she would fancy the most.

Kieran said her legs were a bit fat, and a scuffle broke out.

And amongst his shit, the DJ played Banana Split twice. So the dance floor came alive with aspiring Lios.

It was heaven.

We sang Banana Split all the way back home to Banbury, everyone with their own 45 in their luggage. The boys, at least.

It was probably the only French we learned.

On the train from Besancon to Calais, we sounded like Manchester United football hooligans to the French passengers.

But from Dover to Banbury, we sounded like sophisticated international travellers…