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Juno Beach Centre in Courseulles-sur-Mer, Normandy A love of Normandy
I am the secretary and chairman of Poole Anglo-French Society and a very enthusiastic Francophile. My father was in the Canadian Army during World War II and took part in the Dieppe Raid and landed early D-Day morning at Bernières on Juno Beach, which is next to Courseulles with the new Juno Beach Museum.
Until recently with the Covid restrictions, I have taken both my mother and son to Normandy every September and visited all the war museums along the Landing Beaches. We always stay at a very nice small hotel in Bayeux in the Place Saint-Patrice. Any articles on Normandy I am especially interested in! We travel over from Poole to Cherbourg and then drive down to Bayeux, stopping at Sainte-Marie-du-Mont. The language section you have added is really good. I used to enjoy this in the France Magazine as I am bilingual and used to work for the UN in English and French.
jacquetta44@yahoo.com, Hants, UK Editor’s Note: Don’t miss our next issue when Normandy is one of our Great Destinations!
TWIN TOWNS We have subscribed to France Magazine and now France Today for decades. Love it. We were delighted to read your feature on Luchon [FT192]. Lovely piece – here comes the “but”! – the bits you missed… 1. Twinned with Harrogate since 1953(!) one of the oldest in the UK and very active. Trail running. Pétanque. Flower Festival. Cycling 2. History… above Luchon is Hospice de France where Spanish refugees crossed in 1939 and in 1943 Jews and stranded Allied crew crossed in the opposite direction. (Sadly Esther Dingley went missing very close by). 3. Flaubert’s visit 4 Sixty stage starts/
8 ❘ FRANCE TODAY Feb/Mar 2023
fi nishes in Tour de France history. Only Paris Bordeaux and Pau have more. Dennis Richards Chair of Harrogate International Partnerships
Dennis Richards, Chair of Harrogate International Partnerships, on a visit to Luchon
A LIFETIME’S EXPERIENCES I’m fresh from the victory of England over France in the wheelchair fi nal of the Rugby League World Cup, at which I roundly cheered the England team’s success. But I do have to thank France and the French for some of the most memorable and amazing experiences of my life. Many of them took place while I was studying for a Bachelor’s degree in French Studies at Warwick University, during which I was required to visit and travel in France – a fabulous educational tool. Walking with a heavy back pack and coming across the Tour de France in Chalon-sur-Saône; wandering towards Pont Neuf in Paris with forks of lightning piercing an incredibly dark and broody sky and lighting up pop band A-ha while they were fi lming a music video; the wonder of seeing a huge Monet at a tiny museum in a central France town whose name escapes me 30 years later. A few years later, I visited Paris with my sister and will never forget the look on her face the fi rst time she saw me conversing with a Parisian. It woke me up again to the beauty of both the French language and the joy of being able to communicate with others on their own terms. I may be English through and through, but I do have a lot to thank the French for! Lisa Best, Crewe, UK
IMAGES © JUNO BEACH CENTRE/FACEBOOK; DENNIS RICHARDS
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