The Germans Are Coming

The move went smoothly and we settled into our ten-year renovation, building and decorating project under the supervision of my lovely wife, who I have to admit, looks very fetching in a swimsuit, hardhat and Wellington boots.

The first and I guess most important project was installing a swimming pool. This took priority over just about everything else including a new kitchen, a new bathroom and building a loft type room in the roof. "Being without a pool during the summer would be a nightmare" thus spoke the brood.

That said we did have a slight problem with the loo, a small but perpetual leak, which had to be mopped up every couple of days. I phoned Lyvian the main plumber we work with, only to be told it would be at least three months before he could fix it as we had given him so much work with our clients houses he didn?t have time to sort us out, now that?s gratitude for you.

A couple of weeks later he came over to examine our new abode with a critical plumber?s eye, checking out the horrible pink bathroom with a half sunken bath (its still pink and still half sunk), the oil boiler, which he sarcastically said some outsider had installed and that anyone from outside a twenty kilometre radius shouldn?t be trusted especially a plumber, then he fixed the loo, took him about two minutes!

A month or so into our new residence we had a group of the kids' friends over for lunch and got chatting about the town. As many of you will know the film Charlotte Gray was actually filmed in the town of Saint Antonin Noble Val.

They sat there and regaled us with stories of the filming, Cate Blanchett, the huge crew and German tanks swanning about the town and how much they all got paid to be in the movie. We all sat and watched the film on DVD that afternoon with me on the pause button every time somebody spotted themselves playing their theatrical role.

"She got more than me because she had two parts"

"His costume was warmer than mine"

"That's Monsieur Axa" in other words Alain, the town's insurance agent, "he got paid the most because he had a speaking part"

"The guy in the back of the car dressed as a Nazi is the man that cuts your hair" and yes the chap in the peaked cap and long leather coat was in fact Claude, the owner of one of the local hairdressers.

"The waitress in the bar was our head mistress at primary school"

And so it went on, with multiple interruptions, gales of laughter and me working my fingers to the bone stopping and starting the DVD

At the end they all insisted on watching one of the DVD extras, which is a tour of Saint Antonin Noble Val, shot by the producer and crew at the end of filming the main movie.

It did however get me thinking and the next Saturday I was sitting in the local bar waiting to watch the rugby on the big screen television when Gerome, the owner, came over to have a chat. I told him about the lunch with the children and he went out to his office and came back with two huge photo albums, filled with pictures of the film sets, the stars, the tanks and his mothers hat shop next door that had been converted into a restaurant.

Within a couple of minutes I had been joined by six or seven other locals who told me how upsetting the filming had been for some of the older residents, seeing the storm troopers marching over the bridge, the tanks parked in the centre of our medieval town and the inhabitants all dressed as they would have been back in 1944.

He then shocked me by saying that the first house we owned here in Saint Antonin had been the headquarters of the Gestapo for over three years and the family that had owned it were restricted to one bedroom with bathroom and occasional use of the kitchen. Truth perhaps is stranger than fiction.

Now cappuccino is not your normal French cup of coffee here in town and the producers of the film bought a machine for Gerome to ensure cast and crew got their regular hit of caffeine. He said that every hour or so he would take multiple cups of cappuccino to various places in and around the town to feed "le boche".

So if you ever come to our little town be sure to have a cappuccino at the ?Bar des Halles?, I can assure you if its good enough for Cate Blanchett..

By the time the rugby started on the television there were probably fifteen people all discussing the film, what happened in the town during the war, La Resistance, how much money they had made, and how pretty Cate Blanchett was.

We were not residents when they made the movie, but we were when it launched having its premier in our little cinema in town, and all households were given free tickets to see our town on celluloid, I can assure you it was very odd, with everybody whispering "look theres so and so" and "there's the Mairie", and "she looks fatter on screen"

Anyway back to the swimming pool.

www.saintantoninnobleval.com