Lille

I offered a company house in Croydon for Jean-Luc and Jeanne-Bernadette and that he should start work after their honeymoon. I would employ Jean-Luc in England since that would be less complex than him being employed by the French company but living in England. That evening Jean-Luc and I explained what was offered to Jeanne-Bernadette. She was slightly nervous as her English was almost non-existent. Jean-Luc and I reassured her. Living in England she would soon acquire English and evening classes were easily available. She liked the idea of a house but what finally convinced her was that I told her Jean-Luc could have a company car, and if he wanted, the Jaguar Mark X. As long as he lived in England, and the car was registered in England, he could drive it in France for up to three months in any year.

The Jaguar's engine size was almost twice that feasible under French tax laws and the rules on company cars in England meant Jean-Luc wouldn't have to pay anything to use it. Jean-Luc liked the luxury of the Jaguar but was worried about driving such a large and powerful car. His current car was an older small Peugeot. I let him drive it around the Lille factory's car park. He was surprised how easy it was to drive and how responsive. The sheer size was still a problem but as long as he allowed for that, driving the Jaguar was much more pleasant than his Peugeot.

When I went back to England I took Jean-Luc and Jeanne-Bernadette with me to show them where they would live. They would return to Lille by train and ferry from London.

When I had moved my company to a newly built factory in the early 1950s the council planning officers accepted the proposals with modifications. The site was a large one between a major road and a railway line but they wanted the residential nature of the major road preserved. We had added four large four bedroomed houses. Two faced the major road and two were either side of what appeared to be a short residential street, wider than such a street would normally be. The end of the street was a barrier of trees but a wide turn to the left was the inwards access to the factory and from the right was the outwards exit, wide enough to take large vehicles. The only indication that the factory was there were signs erected beside the two houses on the main road, advertising the factory.

The two houses facing each other on the access road were used by new recruits from outside the local area -- one for young men, the other for young women. Each could take up to eight but currently there were only four in each. After a year, new employees were eligible for subsidised mortgages and usually moved out to houses they were buying. One of the houses on the main road was occupied by the factory manager and his family. The other, until a few months ago, had been occupied by the new deputy manager but he was now buying his own house. What had been his I had offered to Jean-Luc and Jeanne-Bernadette until they decided whether to move to Croydon permanently.

They were surprised at the size of the house and the cost to them -- nothing. All bills for rates and utilities would be paid by the company. They agreed to move in after their honeymoon. Jean-Luc would start as an employee with my company, working in France, for a week before the wedding and I would arrange for him to have the Jaguar delivered to Lille as soon as he was an employee.

Of course I was invited to their wedding in Lille. Anne-Marie was Jeanne-Bernadette's principal bridesmaid but she spent more time at the reception wrapped around me than with the other bridesmaids. I had driven Jeanne-Bernadette and her father to the church in my new company car -- a series S3 Bentley, M Dupont felt he couldn't compete with that car which would be impossibly expensive to run in France but was ideal for a wedding car. I drove the bride and groom to the reception in the Bentley.

After the reception Jean-Luc and Jeanne-Bernadette drove off in the Jaguar to spend their honeymoon at a relation's villa in Provence. I went back to the Dupont's house that evening but I wasn't alone in bed. Anne-Marie decided she had waited long enough. She joined me in bed and rode me mercilessly until I was asleep with her lying over me. In the morning, while still in bed and recovering from another determined assault, I proposed to her. She accepted but told me I had been slow. She had wanted me since Valentine's Day. I protested that I had only met her forty-eight hours before that evening but she informed me that she had wanted 'her Englishman' then.

Monsieur and Madame Dupont were not surprised when we announced our engagement at breakfast. They had known Anne-Marie wanted me. They were only worried whether they could afford another wedding so soon. We agreed we would marry on Valentine's Day next year -- enough time for the Duponts' finances to recover.

Over the next few months the cooperation between the two companies was successful. The French company and mine made complementary products and having a base in both had increased our mutual sales by at least twenty-five per cent and we were both more profitable.

Things seemed to be fortunate for Jean-Luc and Jeanne-Bernadette too. We had employed a part-time cleaner to look after the four company houses. She wanted more hours temporarily because her husband was on half sick pay after a motorcycle accident. While he was recovering and would be back at work in a month or so's time, their finances were suffering. The cleaner, Amelie, had a French mother and she was bilingual. She became Jeanne-Bernadette's cook, cleaner and advisor on how and where to shop locally.

Andrea, a cousin of one of the company's employees, had recently qualified as a teacher and had taken a position at the local boys' secondary school. Her degree was in English but with a subsidiary in French. She needed somewhere cheap to live locally until she had finished her probationary year and was on the full pay for a teacher. Her cousin was a new employee in one of the company houses. Jeanne-Bernadette was happy for Andrea to stay with them in exchange for English lessons.

But Jeanne-Bernadette was also useful to Andrea. Andrea was teaching French to the younger pupils. The school employed Jeanne-Bernadette as a French Assistant to help those studying French for University entrance. Jeanne-Bernadette was very popular. Apart from being a young, attractive and elegant French woman, her car was admired. As part of the wedding presents for Jean-Luc and Jeanne-Bernadette, M Dupont and I had bought them a new bright red Jaguar E-type convertible. Jeanne-Bernadette wasn't sure whether the senior boys liked her for who she was, or for the car.

I had decided, now we were associated with the French company, that it would be useful if more of my employees were competent in French. I employed Andrea to run an evening class once a week for my staff, assisted by Jeanne-Bernadette. I asked my employees to pay a notional fee but if they passed examinations in French, they would get an allowance of their pay. Andrea as a new teacher, still learning, couldn't afford the time for more than one evening class a week. But as she was an employee, after a year she would be eligible for one of our subsidised mortgages. That was very attractive to her as she had thought she could only afford to rent. As she was staying with Jean-Luc and Jeanne-Bernadette her outgoings were very small and by the time her year was up she would have saved enough for a deposit to buy her first home.

In Lille M Dupont had been able to arrange for evening classes in English with five separate classes a week -- free to employees as it was paid for by the local authorities. That was one of the few advantages of working in France. Anne-Marie was also attending once a week.

Anne-Marie was coming to England frequently, often with Jean-luc in the Jaguar mark X, returning by train and ferry and apparently staying with Jean-Luc and Jeanne-Bernadette, but she was often in my bed, ensuring that I didn't forget we were engaged.

But she was jealous of her sister who had a large house, helpers and a Jaguar E-type. That led to our first serious argument. She felt I was giving Jeanne-Bernadette too much when I was engaged to her sister. The E-type was the final straw. When Jeanne-Bernadette took Anne-Marie out in the E-type, Anne-Marie contrasted it with the old 2CV that she was using back in Lille. Why should her sister have the use of TWO Jaguars, one a very sexy bright red E-type, when Anne-Marie had to make do with a slow rusty heap?

I objected that things would change when we were married, but that wasn't enough for Anne-Marie. She had driven the Wolseley 6/80 around Lille and although it was still a comfortable car, it just didn't compare with Jean-Luc's Jaguar Mark X or Jeanne-Bernadette's E-type. The Wolseley was slow, lumbering and hard to drive. As yet I couldn't insure her on the Bentley because she was still resident in France and didn't have an international driving licence although she had applied for one. The French civil service were very slow about such matters.

Anne-Marie was so annoyed with me that she actually stayed with her sister on the next two visits to England. She only finally relented when I bought a catalogue of new cars available in England and promised, once she was qualified to drive here, that she could choose her own car. She applied for a UK provisional licence, using Jean-Luc and Jeanne-Bernadette's address and booked a driving test for March.

I sold the Wolseley 6/80 to a local second-hand car dealer. I was sorry to see it go since it had brought Anne-Marie to me but compared with the Bentley or even Jean-Luc's Jaguar it was slow, difficult to drive and had poor handling. I bought a new Triumph Herald, as used by the driving school she was attending when in England. I bought a UK specification Herald from a car dealer in Belgium at fifteen per cent less than I could get it in the UK.

M Dupont was impressed with the low price I had paid for the Herald and he bought a French specification one from the same Belgian car dealer to replace his wife's and Anne-Marie's old 2CVs He also had Jean-Luc's old Peugeot as a back-up vehicle..

Anne-Marie found the language of the Highway Code difficult at first. Andrea and I had to give Anne-Marie specialist instruction so she could understand enough to pass her test.

Anne-Marie had decided she wanted a 'different' car and chose a Morgan. We had to drive to the Malvern factory to order it which would be built just for her, but she would have to wait a year for delivery. It would be in French Racing Blue.

The delivery of the Triumph Herald and the order for the Morgan satisfied Anne-Marie so much that she spent a whole week of nights wearing me out with incessant love-making. Eventually she had received her international driving licence so she could drive the Herald in the UK without L-plates except when she was in the driving instructor's car. He, I, and Andrea had no doubt that she could pass her English Driving test in March satisfactorily. She was already a competent driver and only had to learn how to drive on the left and understand the UK Highway Code. Her English was much better after months of tuition.

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Our marriage on Valentine's Day was much less lavish than Jean-Luc and Jeanne-Bernadette's had been. That is how we wanted it. We wanted to be together and the marriage ceremony was just the formal acknowledgement of something that had already happened. We actually married three times. We had a simple registry office wedding in Croydon on a Thursday attended by Monsieur and Madame Dupont and Jean-Luc and Jeanne-Bernadette. That made Anne-Marie a British citizen. On the Friday we drove to the ferry at Dover. I was with my new wife in the Bentley. Jean-Luc and Jeanne-Bernadette were in the Jaguar Mark X, and the Dupont parents were in the Wolseley 4/50. The Duponts were a quarter of an hour later arriving at Dover.

On the Saturday Jean-Luc drove Anne-Marie and Jeanne-Bernadette to the local Marie for a French civil ceremony before going to the church for a Catholic wedding attended by many of the Lille factory workers. The reception at the Dupont's house was just for the family and a few close friends. That evening Anne-Marie and I drove back to Dover to catch an evening ferry. Our honeymoon would be in a couple of West Country hotels as we toured Devon and Cornwall.

On the way from Dover we stopped at the Harrietsham transport café at about eleven pm. We startled a couple of truck drivers who had never seen a modern Bentley in the lorry park. Anne-Marie and I walked into the café. As we had hoped, the woman who had been there a year ago was still on duty.

She recognised me -- I suppose it was the Saville Row suit, a total contrast from the usual customers' attire.

"Hello, Sir," She said. "How did you get on with the French women?"

"One of them is now my wife," I replied, introducing Anne-Marie, "thanks to you."

"You married her? Congratulations," She said.

"And I've brought you a present to express our gratitude." I said.

I gave her a large box of pieces of our wedding cake, and two large catering tins of French and Italian instant coffee.

"We couldn't forget your coffee," Anne-Marie said, "So this is some better versions to try."

"My coffee? It is intended to be very strong to keep tired truck drivers awake, not for people who appreciate better. But thank you. I'll try this."

She did. She made French coffee for us and all the other customers who also had a piece of our wedding cake. All the truck drivers congratulated us and complimented Anne-Marie on not just her command of English, but on becoming a UK citizen.

We left, just before midnight on Valentine's Day, to start a new life as husband and wife.

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