1960s PRIVATE LIFE
0130 Honeymoon
For our honeymoon we flew from Heathrow to Paris Orly airport. This was so unusual in those days that the local paper reported our wedding under the headline ‘Couple fly to Paris for Honeymoon’. Indeed, it was our first time on a commercial airline, and it was jet engined airliner at that -- a Caravelle which was unusual in those days. On the way across the pilot proudly pointed out all the piston-engined airliners we were overtaking. On the way back, on a piston-engined Constellation, the pilot didn't point out the jets that were overtaking us!
We had five days in
Paris, in December. You might have thought that would be rainy or at least
overcast. In actual fact it was brilliant sunshine, though terribly cold. It
was so cold the oil in my camera froze up when we were on the first level plat
form
of the Eiffel Tower -- as far up as we were allowed to go up
in Winter. We
stayed in a little hotel off the Rue St. Honore. A nice little hotel, but the
bed squeaked and this, combined with our arrival in the middle of the night,
put paid to our sexual activities for most of the week! So much for the
carnal pleasures of a honeymoon.
The marriage bed!
But, even so, we had a wonderful time.
Pat
on the Seine by Notre Dame
We did the usual tourist things - Notre Dame, the Sacre Coeur and the Eiffel Tower, for example - and had dinner on a bateau mouche.
On the Eiffel Tower
In fact we had some very good food in the local restaurants, especially French casseroles. I also encountered steak tartare for the first time. I thought I was ordering an ordinary steak with tartare sauce, and was shattered when the raw minced beef arrived. I couldn't eat it! I still don’t like it.
We also went out to Versailles, but mostly we strolled through the central Paris and visited the shops – such as the Galleries Lafayette which was decked out in its Christmas lights - and saw places like the Place de la Concord and Des Invalides. Paris is a wonderful city for strolling about on foot.
Having flown back home again we went to my parents for Christmas itself, and thus ended our honeymoon.
Pat had already moved to new digs in Napier Avenue, backing onto the Hurlingham club by the river. This was because Marion and Pistol needed her bedroom for their growing daughter. Accordingly, after the wedding, the two of us moved back there. Fortunately it had a large double bed in the bedroom and Marion and Pistol gave us a gas grill which was fitted up in the box room. Thus, in one way or another, we had our first flat.
It was there that I prepared for my finals. When the time came, or rather after the time came since I was very late starting, I desperately tried to catch up on all work I had missed over the years; and got myself into such a state that I had to get tranquillisers from the doctor. Even so, as I have said many times, I barely scraped a third!
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