La Fête de la Musique

This Saturday and Sunday it's wall-to-wall music in France. It's La Fête de la Musique! This annual event (sometimes called 'World Music Day' in other countries) just gets bigger, and the events in our village were no exception. Although the official date is June 21 each year, many cities and towns are holding the event over the weekend - a much better idea than having the event on a Monday.

The original idea for this annual feast of music is attributed to the American musician Joel Cohen in the mid seventies. However, I believe much of the credit for making the event so popular must go to French politician Jack Lang, who as Minister of Culture in 1982 made a number of proposals to create and widen the appeal of the event. From then, the event has become a national day of music enjoyed by millions.

The basic principal is that music - all categories, should be enjoyed in as many public places as possible throughout France. One strict rule is that no matter how famous the artists who are performing, the event has to be free of any charges for people who attend. This weekend throughout France there will be more than 15,000 concerts, most taking place in the streets or on the main Place of a town or village.

In our village we have many events, catering for all tastes in music, scheduled to start on Saturday night on the village Place with Les Princess - a quite lively pop group. Unusually however we had some rain and the event was moved to the Salle de Fete next to the Place. No worries.

The opening group was followed by Groupe de Jazz, local jazz musicians playing a wide range of jazz music from Blues to Trad. The singer of the group is one of our friends, Ray Everitt*, someone we have known for many years. To quote the title of one of David's favourite photographic books, Ray is "World Famous Around Here!"**

So we listened to Ray and the musicians as they poured out some beautiful soulful jazz plus some lively New Orleans tunes. Wonderful.

Then 'comme habitude', a break for a drink and refreshment, with freshly cooked grillade, frites, crêpes, gâteaux - and local wine of course.

Back to the music and it was time for a local pop group, Elastic Blues, followed by music from the DJ - dancing 'til the early hours.

Sunday, the music continues.  But a change of tempo. Martine, our best friend in the village, was performing with her choral group 'Des Amis en Musique', the event being held in our church. There was a variety of songs, in French or course, but a couple in English - Broadway musical songs, and as always, the ambience and the sounds created in the church is beautiful. Their session was followed by violin and piano recital and finally a session of medieval songs.

Then back to the Place for more pop music. I'm sorry but we didn't last the night. As I said at the beginning, it was a long, and beautiful weekend, but time for feet up.

*Ray, born in Wembley in North London, is the son-in-law of the famous French chanteur, the late Boby Lapointe. Over the past quarter century Ray and his wife Martine (Ticha) have made their home in the Languedoc, in southern France. Here he has made a name for himself as a singer, jazz musician, local personality and all-round eccentric.

Ray - whose extravagant moustachios and generally dishevelled appearance have earned him the description "a cross between Asterix the Gaul and an unmade bed" - is a former bricklayer, merchant seaman, stuntman (in Cliff Richard and Roger Moore films), Twickenham rugby player and Borstal boy. "I've had a colourful career," he admits cheerfully, "and I'm not ashamed of any of it, including my tearaway youth."

He earned great praise several years ago when he made a 1,300 km ride on horseback, from here to Berne in Switzerland. The object - to raise money for Autism. A special website was created for this journey here:
www.black-et-ray.com. It's worth a read.

** "World Famous Around Here" is the title of a book of photographs taken by a local photographer from David's home town, Castleford, and is a wonderful collection of photographs recording real life in the town during the 1950s.

Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur

Today, Friday June 18, is a day commemorated by the French to mark the anniversary of Charles de Gaulle's radio appeal to German-occupied France.

In the UK the French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Carla Bruni will visit the BBC radio studio in London where the General famously urged his compatriots to resist Nazi occupation in a BBC broadcast on 18 June 1940. Later, Mr Sarkozy, joined by Prince Charles, will lay a wreath on the Mall at the statue of the Queen's father George VI. About 800 people from the Charles de Gaulle Foundation, the Free French Foundation and other groups have been invited to London to join events.

Here in our village of Montblanc it's a very important day too, and we attended a special ceremony with some of our good friends in the village, Robert and Myriam Chauvel. They gave us a special invitation to attend an event organised to celebrate the award to Robert of 'Le Grade de Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur' (Militaire) - a Knight of the National Order of the Legion of Honour, the day of June 18 being chosen especially to mark the honour of receiving the award.

 

The Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur' is the highest decoration in France and was created by Napoleon to reward and commend both civilians and military for distinguished service.

There are not many such awards and Robert joins an elite group which also includes foreigners and people outside of military service such as President Dwight Eisenhower (although he was given the award for his services during WWII), filmmakers Clint Eastwood, David Lynch, Steven Spielberg, Ellen MacArthur, sailor Dame Ellen MacArthur, author J. K. Rowling, playwright Harold Pinter, celebrities Barbra Streisand, Céline Dion... Wow! Our friend Robert joins the 'A' list!

However he was awarded the Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur not because he's a singer, film director or author but because of his many outstanding deeds during his long career in the army.

This included being part of the group that helped liberate Paris during WWII, and so many other acts of bravery carried out whilst defending the freedom of his country.

Obviously this is a great honour for Robert, and of course, his wife Myriam is just as thrilled, as can be seen by the photo below taken at the reception after the award ceremony.

Miriam went to great trouble to ensure the event was well celebrated, inviting close friends and Robert's friends from the military, both present and past.

It was an enjoyable and long day, and David was feeling quite chuffed that he should be invited (the only non-French person present!) to be at such an auspicious event.