Normandy Fahrt Day 3: Omaha Beach

We spent our third day in France reliving the American experience on Omaha Beach. I felt I knew most of what happened there from endless re-runs of The Longest Day (shot on location: we saw photos of local involvement in the filming) and the more recent Saving Private Ryan, but nothing had prepared me for the sheer size of the cemetery that takes up the whole area on the cliffs where the German defences were sited above the main beach. There is something about the starkness of the white crosses rising straight out of the cropped grass, crosses that had name, rank and company as well as home state and date of death, that depersonalised the loss for me - no emblems, no age given for the dead, no flowerbeds around the graves. Instead, I was forcibly aware of the anonymity of these ranks - look at the lines, which flow straight in every direction - and the dedication that ensures that every single grave has this cropped grass round the foot of the cross (or Star of David: you can see one to the right of centre in the photo). There were clumps of heather round the pine trees grouped occasionally around the site, a multi-faith chapel that was too over-run by visitors to give me any sense of anything, and a Garden of the Missing where a 22-foot statue ‘The Spirit of American Youth Rising from the Waves’ looks west over the headstones - over 9,000 graves,  among which are the stones of 45 sets of brothers, and 1,557 missing in action.

But even more than among the graves, it was down on the beach that I felt the hopelessness of the  task faced by these young men from halfway across the world as the ramps of their landing craft fell forward and they saw what they had to climb, under withering fire, if the invasion was to succeed.

 The photo on the left shows Mr B and friend on the sand where so many died just as they left the sea, and beyond them, the trees standing distinct on the skyline show where the guns overlooked the whole area, while other fortifications were, I think, among the dunes where the vegetation starts. The photo below shows the same section of beach from what is now the viewpoint; it would have been a  viewpoint with a rather different purpose in 1944. The area to be covered is now traversed by a neat path that you can see disappearing in the middle of this photo, but even with its steps and easy gradient it took us a
good 15 minutes to climb back up. The area in between is now covered in shrubs that I imagine have been planted to deter wandering in this site, which is entirely given over as a memorial.

After a break for lunch had turned into a truly French affair (because some of us went looking for a crêperie and ordered galettes complètes and while this is fast food for one it isn't for 14), we visited another sobering site above the Pointe du Hoc, where the American Rangers had to climb the cliffs to reach the huge guns which actually for the most part faced inland because the Germans didn't think anyone would make that climb. The whole area was pitted with the holes from the shellfire from the Allied ships, and we were able to go inside the concrete gun emplacements and see the view made famous by a scene in The Longest Day when a German officer first saw the invasion on the horizon.  We went from there to another iconic site, where an American paratrooper famously caught on the roof of the church in Ste Mere Eglise and hung there for hours pretending to be dead to avoid being shot. A museum stands on the site where on the fateful night a house was on fire, and - somewhat bizarrely - we could see from the town square the torn parachute and (model) paratrooper still hanging from the church roof.

That evening, like the previous one, was spent in raucous entertainment. The young staff of the Chateau flocked, like little moths, to the door of the room where this mob of ancients acted Allo Allo in execrable French accents and sang wartime favourites and French songs at the top of their still-unbelievably-loud voices to the accompaniment of a small keyboard pounded to great effect by Mr B.

As I've said on previous occasions, you really had to be there ...

6

School, but not as we know it ...

I've been anticipating the holiday season by reading Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld - maybe it's all this sunny weather that we've been having, uncharacteristically, in Argyll. The author's first book, it's the school story for grown-ups, rather in the way "Catcher in the Rye" is - though I hated Catcher and enjoyed this. It's the story of an outsider at boarding school in Massachusetts, the grant-aided student surrounded by wealthier kids, observing them in some detail as she struggles to find where she fits in.

School stories like this all benefit from the isolation of the setting - think The Chalet School, Tom Brown, Harry Potter, but think also the Agatha Christies set in remote country houses, or on a non-stop train. Any setting where the outside world cannot break in intensifies the emotions and the relationships within that setting, and that, I imagine, is as true in life as it is in fiction.

As such, Prep is a good example of the genre, well-written, perceptive and revealing. The foreignness of the American education revealed is an added attraction - though the effects of such an education could, I imagine, be hard to shake off. I was particularly interested in the interaction between the sexes in the school - but that may be a generational thing: there were no boys at The Chalet School.

I read Prep in a British edition, so was spared the irritation of American spelling; the dialogue and narrative are not noticeably American. Is this because Massachusetts isn't? In fact, apart from the slight puzzle working out stages - sophomore etc - and relating them to age-groups, the most extraordinary thing was the names. A girl called Dede (turned out to be the name of the author's aunt); a boy called Cross - both first names - and another girl called Aspeth: names I had never, ever come across. Girls whose first names I would give to a boy: Lee, Curtis (the author). I was sufficiently interested to enquire of a friend in the States what all this was about. (She has a perfectly recognisable name - no worries there)

This is what came back:

Southerners, especially, name their children family names - no matter the gender - or something like Jimmie Rae for a girl because the father wanted a boy! In the North we use family names, too, but usually as middle names. Rednecks usually choose Bobby Sue or some fly by night name. Also, they name boys Bobby or Jimmy, or Charlie - not real names.

So there's obviously a hierarchy of names, just as there is in the UK.

Prep is an entertaining read, with no infelicities to distract you in the sunshine. And though my borrowed copy was a pristine hardback - meaning no sun oil or hand lotion! - it is now available in paperback.

BIG deal?

I should have known better. Some time last year, in an idle moment, I sent one of my lighter poems to a site which promised a prize - a cash prize big enough to be tempting - for the best submission. Since then, I've been bombarded with vanity publishing offers, commemorative pins, plaques ... you name it. I could have filled my house with laudatory tat. I have deleted all these as they arrive, vowing each time never, never to do such a thing again.

And then yesterday's mail arrived. For a fairly princely sum, I can attend a Convention and Symposium in Las Vegas, where I can read my poem aloud and where Tony Danza, star of several long-running hit TV shows, will be entertaining you and thousands of other poets at our Gala Dinner and Banquet on Saturday evening, July 26, 2008.

The mind boggles. Obviously my font is boggling too, as it has stuck in some alien form at the thought of a return to Vegas. But I must remember to check out the site on the appropriate date - just to see if people actually go to these things.