11th. November Armistice Day at St Remy au Bois

Tea Together’s fermette is bounded, on one side, by the main street of the village.  A minute’s walk up the road is the corner where you take a right to the little church. It’s marked by the St Remy au Bois War Memorial, the site of the annual gathering to remember – the handful of young men from the village, the woman whose name joins theirs on the role call, carved into the stone – she was killed by an Allied bomb while  buying butter – and all the others slaughtered on the nearby battlefields. The Mayor intones the names and after each one,  a senior inhabitant responds with Mort Pour La France. A message issued by the State and sent round to every Mairie in France is then read out, always  firmly non-military in tone.  And then, taking up the invitation to share a Vin D’Honneur, the school room doors are flung open and the petillant vin blanc offered around, along with the  langues de chat biscuits. Once upon a time, this was a village with three cafe-bars. Tractors and television did for them, and these days formal occasions are a way to refresh contacts between villagers. As for the horrors of War, there is little chance that those will be forgotten yet awhile. The detail of life under an Occupation lives on everywhere, still, both in family memories and in the practical realities of the present.