Our Ball Back
This cannonball stuck in the middle of Sandgate Road has a plaque which reads in both English and French –
This cannonball, fired by the English during the siege of Boulogne in 1544, has been returned to us by the people of Boulogne as a gesture of friendship now existing between us. 1976
No doubt that now we are on the verge of a fishing war with our friends and neighbours the French, some people here, particularly fishermen, would like to lob it back again!
I think my American friends find this feud with the French puzzling. “The past is never dead. In fact, it’s not even past” said William Faulkner talking about the Southern USA. That is so true of us and our French neighbours. We two nations, the English and the French, have ‘history’ so to speak, and we always seem to have different versions of the same events. And of course, ours is always the correct version.
I love France. I even have some French friends and I drive a French car for which I get vilified no end, but I love my Renault. But sadly we, the English, have been annoying the French for a thousand years and at this rate, ‘les Anglo-Saxons’ will carry on doing so for another thousand years.
Our Ball Back
This cannonball stuck in the middle of Sandgate Road has a plaque which reads in both English and French –
This cannonball, fired by the English during the siege of Boulogne in 1544, has been returned to us by the people of Boulogne as a gesture of friendship now existing between us. 1976
No doubt that now we are on the verge of a fishing war with our friends and neighbours the French, some people here, particularly fishermen, would like to lob it back again!
I think my American friends find this feud with the French puzzling. “The past is never dead. In fact, it’s not even past” said William Faulkner talking about the Southern USA. That is so true of us and our French neighbours. We two nations, the English and the French, have ‘history’ so to speak, and we always seem to have different versions of the same events. And of course, ours is always the correct version.
I love France. I even have some French friends and I drive a French car for which I get vilified no end, but I love my Renault. But sadly we, the English, have been annoying the French for a thousand years and at this rate, ‘les Anglo-Saxons’ will carry on doing so for another thousand years.