We meet at a hotel in the outskirts of London for a Christmas lunch each year.
We are old. And as we die off, our numbers naturally decline.
But we get resurrected as well. When, soon after the war, some of my fellow Codgers went to lodgings I had in London, they were told by the landlady that I had “gone”. As they knew I had contracted TB at the end of the war, it was presumed that I was dead – there being no cure for TB in those days.
It was not until much later that one of them saw my second BBC 2 Gardeners’ World programme. Word got around that I was alive. So I became a Codger.
The meeting is a reunion of RAF pilots – or rather, those of us who obtained our wings in Oklahoma at the end of the war.
I think that we had all done a little operational flying as part of our training to be pilots. Mine was 20 hours in Coastal Command, flying from Davidstow Moor, in Cornwall, out over the Bay of Biscay looking for baled-out aircrew. We flew Vickers-Armstrong Warwick aircraft, with a specially moulded, wooden lifeboat strapped beneath. These lifesaving boats would be released to descend to the briny, suspended beneath vast parachutes.
One of the great benefits to all who took part in the 1939-1945 war was that men and women from all walks of life were thrown together. Both Lords and paupers found out that our desires and aspirations were all much the same. So it is with Codgers.
None of us, I believe, took up permanent employment in the RAF. One became an airline pilot, one a country vicar, another a Bishop and so on. Many of us had left our schooling to fly. As we were released slowly into a peacetime world we had to decide on a career. It was easier for those with pre-war jobs to return to. For myself, I became a medical student at St Thomas’s Hospital in London.
Skip sixty or more years and there we were, or what’s left of us, eating turkey and Christmas pudding, and drinking wine in each others’ delightful company – Codgers all, with the exception of our seemingly younger and more sprightly wives.
I hear much the same stories each year, mainly about how I crashed an aircraft into small pieces right in front of many of our company, and how, in hospital after it, a drunken orderly amused himself by playing Russian Roulette, spinning the chamber of a revolver, while pointing the weapon at my head. It was an incident that I cannot recall (possibly because of concussion) and, anyhow, would rather not.
But there was something new this time. One of our number told me that I had probably saved his life.
It came about like this. When flying from an auxiliary grass field in wet and freezing conditions in Oklahoma, the controls of my aeroplane (PT 19, Cornell) started to stiffen up. I landed, found my instructor, with his feet up in a warm shed, and reported the matter. “Carry on if you feel like it,” he said.
In the constant quest to accumulate flying hours, I took off from a slushy field into the freezing air again, only, this time, to have the controls go completely solid – iced up. I was too low to jump out with my parachute, so did my best to crash back into the ground as advantageously as possible.
My fellow Codger told me that at the time of my crash he was experiencing exactly the same freezing-up trouble with his aeroplane.
After I had splattered bits of my aircraft about the place, flying was abandoned for the day.
So, unknown to me, I probably, and inadvertently, did save his life.
It was nice to hear, after so many years, that at least some good came from what we might then have called “a wizard prang”.
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Dieppe Artists 2007
I often seem to be writing about Dieppe. It is simply because we go there three or four times a year for a break, a change, but mainly to re-stock out shelves with wine, which is so much cheaper than it is in England, where such items of civilised life are so highly taxed.
France, although near, is, to me, still a very foreign place. So all the differences between England and “abroad” are of great interest, be it food, manners, plumbing, the rituals of life, art connections, and all the rest. And to witness change (progress?) is also of great interest, for I have seen many changes since I first went there soon after the war – some 50 years ago.
Take the Pollet, for instance.
The Pollet is a small fishermen’s quarter that takes the form of almost an island between the main import dock (now virtually unused, but once a busy dock for imported tropical fruit) and the very active dock for trawlers.
In years gone by the Pollet was rough. It was appropriate that a cider factory there produced very rough cider. It has gone. But what made this small area such an interesting place were the many smoking chimneys, beneath which, fish, mainly herrings, were cured and smoked over smouldering wooden fish boxes. So the Pollet had its own smell, imparting character to the place.
Perhaps fishwive’s children are still fathered by artists there, as has happened in the past. The fishwives are still to be seen nearby, but selling from their stalls on the quayside near to the centrally placed Information Centre. The fish offered by them is so fresh that plaice may still be alive and flapping on the slab.
Artists of the past found much to portray on the Pollet “island”. From the days of sail and then to steam, the work by sailors and dock workers was hard and poorly paid. But for the artist it was real life – life in the raw. Portrayals by present-day artists seem to be more of picturesque cliffs and yachts, colourful and bland – seaside art.
There were several bars on the Pollet island where fishermen and dock hands could quench their thirst, though the bars with girls offered their services by the then railway station across the harbour. But the girls, I think, were more for the use of visiting sailors than artists and locals.
Some ten years ago there was a sudden change in the fortunes of the Pollet. A smart restaurant opened there, called Bistrot du Pollet. Right away it became crowded with discerning clientele, unknown to eat in the district theretofore.
The restaurant has changed hands, but Florence, the charming waitress has been serving satisfied clients for the last eight of those ten years.
Discerning artists, sculptors and musicians still frequent Dieppe, and the Bistrot in particular. If Sickert took a more physical approach to matters on the Pollet, then, nowadays, Anthony Stevens, singer and songwriter, with Caroline, and Graham Gould of The What, eat at the Bistrot (where you might hear in the background a recording of Anthony Stevens singing with Count Basie, for instance).
One eats well at the Bistrot, where the set lunch may introduce you to three courses of food you might not normally choose. So, without choice, there is an element of pleasant surprise at hand. And, being in the heart of the fishermen’s quarter in a fishing port, whatever aquatic delicacy features on the menu is as fresh as it comes, and sure to please.
The success of Bistrot du Pollet has encouraged the existing cafés around it to upgrade. And now another restaurant/café (o’DkLé) (sic) has opened on the quayside nearby, supplying good food that is at about the halfway mark between standard restaurant/café and Michelin mentioned cuisine.
All this is symptomatic of the rise in Dieppe’s status from a smoky fishing port to the present clean and smart marina town.
Dieppe has two hub centres, joined by the Grande Rue, a pedestrian-only street of smart shoe and fashion shops, interspersed with those selling charcuterie, cheese, bakery, and fruit and vegetables – the last (Royal Fruits) offering wonderful value and freshness. For the Saturday market, the street and those leading from it, are coated with stalls, run by both professionals and farmer amateurs (though no live rabbits, chickens or ducks may be sold any more).
At the “town” end of this street stands the Café des Tribunaux, a large and well-run establishment, catering for customers who like to drink, read and talk outside in warm weather, and indoors when the seaside air is cold and windy. It has always been the place for a drink, and the haunt of artists, locals, and tourists alike. Wilde and Beardsley are reputed to have been clients. In such an old established café it is right that, in France, waiters are employed – and stay. For instance, a waiter there, asked how my sons were doing. He had encountered them as children thirty years beforehand.
The other end of the Grande Rue (the port end) is the jumping-off place for restaurants and cafés. And one of these, the Café Suisse, right on the corner, opposite where once stood the circular fish market (now an almost flat fountain), has always been the favoured venue of painters. Albert Lebourg may have frequented it, and others certainly did, like Camille Pissarro, Walter Sickert, Jacques-Emile Blanche, Eugéne Boudin, Frank Martin and Edward Burra.
I am indebted to the writers of an exhibition catalogue for paintings of Dieppe, held in Brighton’s Museum and Art Gallery in 1992, for the following information on artists of note who have drawn inspiration from Dieppe. Aubrey Beardsley, with his two black beauty spots, thought that Dieppe was “Really quite sweet”. Arthur Symons said of Dieppe that he had enjoyed a most amusing and irresponsible holiday there. Picasso remarked that “Dieppe seems to be most of France”. Bonnington loved the cliffs. Braque, who lived much of his life in Dieppe and Varengeville nearby, carved sculptures out of their chalk. Condor loved the place, saying: “The whole front of the sea is simply magnificent.” Daubigny painted the harbour. Delacroix could hardly bear to tear himself away from the “watery landscape”. John Duncan Fergusson painted a Dieppe firework display with S. J. Peploe in the foreground. Gaugin, who painted four pictures of Dieppe, may have met Whistler there. Harold Gilman painted a picture of Dieppe’s troglodytes, and miserable they looked, too. Charles Ginner depicted the quayside in bright sunlight. Spencer Gore was a friend of Sickert and painted much in Dieppe. Sylvia Gosse was Sickert’s pupil, and loved Dieppe as much as her master. Gerald Kelly painted several views of the port, as did Thérèse Lessore. Miro stayed at Verangeville next door, passing through Dieppe on his way. Ben Nicholson, William’s son, painted a picture of the now lost and lamented Sole Dieppoise Restaurant. William Nicholson spent summer holidays in Dieppe, painting streets and the harbour. Camille Pissarro, described as “sweet and patriarchal” toward the end of his life, liked painting the fish market, harbour and Pollet “in rain, sun and smoke”. His painting of a Dieppe Fair in the Place Nationale, depicts a scene almost identical to a market day now. Renoir favoured the region. Matthew Smith painted several works in Dieppe, favouring the harbour and ships. Turner sketched in the town, painting the magnificent Château d’Arques nearby in 1834. Félix Vollotton painted in Dieppe, and when Bonnard came to visit him in nearby Varengeville, he said he’d bring some paints “in case the contagion infects me”. Whistler stayed with Sickert in Dieppe and painted many pictures there, and lectured as well. Christopher Wood said that: “Dieppe was a complete happiness. I have not known it before”. The fact that these artists found such an affinity to Dieppe, shows how splendid and inspirational the place is, and will continue to be.
The Café Suisse has modernised considerably since the heyday of the previously mentioned painters. And at one time, with new owners, it had red plastic seats, so uncomfortable, that we declined to frequent the place. Now that the seating is better, it is a good venue for lunch (closed for food in the evening).
Dieppe is the great port for scallop (Coquille St Jacques) boats. So, when in season, it is the dish over which to linger and relish. And because this shellfish is so plentiful there, the amount served is on a very generous scale. In fact, after a few dishes of those tasty morsels (often served with potato in a Normandy cream sauce), we had had enough and found ourselves choosing other items from the menu.
The old ferries from Newhaven would sometimes opt out of crossing the Channel when the weather was rough. The two new ferries have efficient stabilisers fitted, and are more manoeuvrable. This means that the crossing (often, in the past, somewhat of a lottery) is now far more reliable – though our latest winter crossing back did rather shake and stir the insides.I often seem to be writing about Dieppe. It is simply because we go there three or four times a year for a break, a change, but mainly to re-stock out shelves with wine, which is so much cheaper than it is in England, where such items of civilised life are so highly taxed.
France, although near, is, to me, still a very foreign place. So all the differences between England and “abroad” are of great interest, be it food, manners, plumbing, the rituals of life, art connections, and all the rest. And to witness change (progress?) is also of great interest, for I have seen many changes since I first went there soon after the war – some 50 years ago.
Take the Pollet, for instance.
The Pollet is a small fishermen’s quarter that takes the form of almost an island between the main import dock (now virtually unused, but once a busy dock for imported tropical fruit) and the very active dock for trawlers.
In years gone by the Pollet was rough. It was appropriate that a cider factory there produced very rough cider. It has gone. But what made this small area such an interesting place were the many smoking chimneys, beneath which, fish, mainly herrings, were cured and smoked over smouldering wooden fish boxes. So the Pollet had its own smell, imparting character to the place.
Perhaps fishwives children are still fathered by artists there, as has happened in the past. The fishwives are still to be seen nearby, but selling from their stalls on the quayside near to the centrally placed Information Centre. The fish offered by them is so fresh that plaice may still be alive and flapping on the slab.
Artists of the past found much to portray on the Pollet “island”. From the days of sail and then to steam, the work by sailors and dock workers was hard and poorly paid. But for the artist it was real life – life in the raw. Portrayals by present-day artists seem to be more of picturesque cliffs and yachts, colourful and bland – seaside art.
There were several bars on the Pollet island where fishermen and dock hands could quench their thirst, though the bars with girls offered their services by the then railway station across the harbour. But the girls, I think, were more for the use of visiting sailors than artists and locals.
Some ten years ago there was a sudden change in the fortunes of the Pollet. A smart restaurant opened there, called Bistrot du Pollet. Right away it became crowded with discerning clientele, unknown to eat in the district theretofore.
The restaurant has changed hands, but Florence, the charming waitress has been serving satisfied clients for the last eight of those ten years.
Discerning artists, sculptors and musicians still frequent Dieppe, and the Bistrot in particular. If Sickert took a more physical approach to matters on the Pollet, then, nowadays, Anthony Stevens, singer and songwriter, with Caroline, and Graham Gould of The What, eat at the Bistrot (where you might hear in the background a recording of Anthony Stevens singing with Count Basie, for instance).
One eats well at the Bistrot, where the set lunch may introduce you to three courses of food you might not normally choose. So, without choice, there is an element of pleasant surprise at hand. And, being in the heart of the fishermen’s quarter in a fishing port, whatever aquatic delicacy features on the menu is as fresh as it comes, and sure to please.
The success of Bistrot du Pollet has encouraged the existing cafés around it to upgrade. And now another restaurant/café (o’DkLé) (sic) has opened on the quayside nearby, supplying good food that is at about the halfway mark between standard restaurant/café and Michelin mentioned cuisine.
All this is symptomatic of the rise in Dieppe’s status from a smoky fishing port to the present clean and smart marina town.
Dieppe has two hub centres, joined by the Grande Rue, a pedestrian-only street of smart shoe and fashion shops, interspersed with those selling charcuterie, cheese, bakery, and fruit and vegetables – the last (Royal Fruits) offering wonderful value and freshness. For the Saturday market, the street and those leading from it, are coated with stalls, run by both professionals and farmer amateurs (though no live rabbits, chickens or ducks may be sold any more).
At the “town” end of this street stands the Café des Tribunaux, a large and well-run establishment, catering for customers who like to drink, read and talk outside in warm weather, and indoors when the seaside air is cold and windy. It has always been the place for a drink, and the haunt of artists, locals, and tourists alike. Wilde and Beardsley are reputed to have been clients. In such an old established café it is right that, in France, waiters are employed – and stay. For instance, a waiter there, asked how my sons were doing. He had encountered them as children thirty years beforehand.
The other end of the Grande Rue (the port end) is the jumping-off place for restaurants and cafés. And one of these, the Café Suisse, right on the corner, opposite where once stood the circular fish market (now an almost flat fountain), has always been the favoured venue of painters. Albert Lebourg may have frequented it, and others certainly did, like Camille Pissarro, Walter Sickert, Jacques-Emile Blanche, Eva Gonzalès (the lady Impressionist), Eugéne Boudin, Frank Martin and Edward Burra. Other artists have certainly enjoyed the pleasures and sights of Dieppe. Names such as Cotman, Turner, Delacroix, Renoir, Degas, Whistler and Matthew Smith are recorded as having stayed there.
The Café Suisse has modernised considerably since the heyday of the previously mentioned artists. And at one time, with new owners, it had red plastic seats, so uncomfortable that we declined to frequent the place. Now that the seating is more comfortable, it is a good venue for lunch (closed for food in the evening).
Dieppe is the great port for scallop (Coquille St Jacques) boats. So, when in season, it is the dish over which to linger and relish. And because this shellfish is so plentiful there, the amount served is on a very generous scale. In fact, after a few dishes of those tasty morsels (often served with potato in a Normandy cream sauce), we had had enough and found ourselves choosing other items from the menu.
The old ferries from Newhaven would sometimes opt out of crossing the Channel when the weather was rough. The two new ferries have efficient stabilisers fitted, and are more manoeuvrable. This means that the crossing (often, in the past, somewhat of a lottery) is now far more reliable – though our latest winter crossing back did rather shake and stir the insides.
France, although near, is, to me, still a very foreign place. So all the differences between England and “abroad” are of great interest, be it food, manners, plumbing, the rituals of life, art connections, and all the rest. And to witness change (progress?) is also of great interest, for I have seen many changes since I first went there soon after the war – some 50 years ago.
Take the Pollet, for instance.
The Pollet is a small fishermen’s quarter that takes the form of almost an island between the main import dock (now virtually unused, but once a busy dock for imported tropical fruit) and the very active dock for trawlers.
In years gone by the Pollet was rough. It was appropriate that a cider factory there produced very rough cider. It has gone. But what made this small area such an interesting place were the many smoking chimneys, beneath which, fish, mainly herrings, were cured and smoked over smouldering wooden fish boxes. So the Pollet had its own smell, imparting character to the place.
Perhaps fishwive’s children are still fathered by artists there, as has happened in the past. The fishwives are still to be seen nearby, but selling from their stalls on the quayside near to the centrally placed Information Centre. The fish offered by them is so fresh that plaice may still be alive and flapping on the slab.
Artists of the past found much to portray on the Pollet “island”. From the days of sail and then to steam, the work by sailors and dock workers was hard and poorly paid. But for the artist it was real life – life in the raw. Portrayals by present-day artists seem to be more of picturesque cliffs and yachts, colourful and bland – seaside art.
There were several bars on the Pollet island where fishermen and dock hands could quench their thirst, though the bars with girls offered their services by the then railway station across the harbour. But the girls, I think, were more for the use of visiting sailors than artists and locals.
Some ten years ago there was a sudden change in the fortunes of the Pollet. A smart restaurant opened there, called Bistrot du Pollet. Right away it became crowded with discerning clientele, unknown to eat in the district theretofore.
The restaurant has changed hands, but Florence, the charming waitress has been serving satisfied clients for the last eight of those ten years.
Discerning artists, sculptors and musicians still frequent Dieppe, and the Bistrot in particular. If Sickert took a more physical approach to matters on the Pollet, then, nowadays, Anthony Stevens, singer and songwriter, with Caroline, and Graham Gould of The What, eat at the Bistrot (where you might hear in the background a recording of Anthony Stevens singing with Count Basie, for instance).
One eats well at the Bistrot, where the set lunch may introduce you to three courses of food you might not normally choose. So, without choice, there is an element of pleasant surprise at hand. And, being in the heart of the fishermen’s quarter in a fishing port, whatever aquatic delicacy features on the menu is as fresh as it comes, and sure to please.
The success of Bistrot du Pollet has encouraged the existing cafés around it to upgrade. And now another restaurant/café (o’DkLé) (sic) has opened on the quayside nearby, supplying good food that is at about the halfway mark between standard restaurant/café and Michelin mentioned cuisine.
All this is symptomatic of the rise in Dieppe’s status from a smoky fishing port to the present clean and smart marina town.
Dieppe has two hub centres, joined by the Grande Rue, a pedestrian-only street of smart shoe and fashion shops, interspersed with those selling charcuterie, cheese, bakery, and fruit and vegetables – the last (Royal Fruits) offering wonderful value and freshness. For the Saturday market, the street and those leading from it, are coated with stalls, run by both professionals and farmer amateurs (though no live rabbits, chickens or ducks may be sold any more).
At the “town” end of this street stands the Café des Tribunaux, a large and well-run establishment, catering for customers who like to drink, read and talk outside in warm weather, and indoors when the seaside air is cold and windy. It has always been the place for a drink, and the haunt of artists, locals, and tourists alike. Wilde and Beardsley are reputed to have been clients. In such an old established café it is right that, in France, waiters are employed – and stay. For instance, a waiter there, asked how my sons were doing. He had encountered them as children thirty years beforehand.
The other end of the Grande Rue (the port end) is the jumping-off place for restaurants and cafés. And one of these, the Café Suisse, right on the corner, opposite where once stood the circular fish market (now an almost flat fountain), has always been the favoured venue of painters. Albert Lebourg may have frequented it, and others certainly did, like Camille Pissarro, Walter Sickert, Jacques-Emile Blanche, Eugéne Boudin, Frank Martin and Edward Burra.
I am indebted to the writers of an exhibition catalogue for paintings of Dieppe, held in Brighton’s Museum and Art Gallery in 1992, for the following information on artists of note who have drawn inspiration from Dieppe. Aubrey Beardsley, with his two black beauty spots, thought that Dieppe was “Really quite sweet”. Arthur Symons said of Dieppe that he had enjoyed a most amusing and irresponsible holiday there. Picasso remarked that “Dieppe seems to be most of France”. Bonnington loved the cliffs. Braque, who lived much of his life in Dieppe and Varengeville nearby, carved sculptures out of their chalk. Condor loved the place, saying: “The whole front of the sea is simply magnificent.” Daubigny painted the harbour. Delacroix could hardly bear to tear himself away from the “watery landscape”. John Duncan Fergusson painted a Dieppe firework display with S. J. Peploe in the foreground. Gaugin, who painted four pictures of Dieppe, may have met Whistler there. Harold Gilman painted a picture of Dieppe’s troglodytes, and miserable they looked, too. Charles Ginner depicted the quayside in bright sunlight. Spencer Gore was a friend of Sickert and painted much in Dieppe. Sylvia Gosse was Sickert’s pupil, and loved Dieppe as much as her master. Gerald Kelly painted several views of the port, as did Thérèse Lessore. Miro stayed at Verangeville next door, passing through Dieppe on his way. Ben Nicholson, William’s son, painted a picture of the now lost and lamented Sole Dieppoise Restaurant. William Nicholson spent summer holidays in Dieppe, painting streets and the harbour. Camille Pissarro, described as “sweet and patriarchal” toward the end of his life, liked painting the fish market, harbour and Pollet “in rain, sun and smoke”. His painting of a Dieppe Fair in the Place Nationale, depicts a scene almost identical to a market day now. Renoir favoured the region. Matthew Smith painted several works in Dieppe, favouring the harbour and ships. Turner sketched in the town, painting the magnificent Château d’Arques nearby in 1834. Félix Vollotton painted in Dieppe, and when Bonnard came to visit him in nearby Varengeville, he said he’d bring some paints “in case the contagion infects me”. Whistler stayed with Sickert in Dieppe and painted many pictures there, and lectured as well. Christopher Wood said that: “Dieppe was a complete happiness. I have not known it before”. The fact that these artists found such an affinity to Dieppe, shows how splendid and inspirational the place is, and will continue to be.
The Café Suisse has modernised considerably since the heyday of the previously mentioned painters. And at one time, with new owners, it had red plastic seats, so uncomfortable, that we declined to frequent the place. Now that the seating is better, it is a good venue for lunch (closed for food in the evening).
Dieppe is the great port for scallop (Coquille St Jacques) boats. So, when in season, it is the dish over which to linger and relish. And because this shellfish is so plentiful there, the amount served is on a very generous scale. In fact, after a few dishes of those tasty morsels (often served with potato in a Normandy cream sauce), we had had enough and found ourselves choosing other items from the menu.
The old ferries from Newhaven would sometimes opt out of crossing the Channel when the weather was rough. The two new ferries have efficient stabilisers fitted, and are more manoeuvrable. This means that the crossing (often, in the past, somewhat of a lottery) is now far more reliable – though our latest winter crossing back did rather shake and stir the insides.I often seem to be writing about Dieppe. It is simply because we go there three or four times a year for a break, a change, but mainly to re-stock out shelves with wine, which is so much cheaper than it is in England, where such items of civilised life are so highly taxed.
France, although near, is, to me, still a very foreign place. So all the differences between England and “abroad” are of great interest, be it food, manners, plumbing, the rituals of life, art connections, and all the rest. And to witness change (progress?) is also of great interest, for I have seen many changes since I first went there soon after the war – some 50 years ago.
Take the Pollet, for instance.
The Pollet is a small fishermen’s quarter that takes the form of almost an island between the main import dock (now virtually unused, but once a busy dock for imported tropical fruit) and the very active dock for trawlers.
In years gone by the Pollet was rough. It was appropriate that a cider factory there produced very rough cider. It has gone. But what made this small area such an interesting place were the many smoking chimneys, beneath which, fish, mainly herrings, were cured and smoked over smouldering wooden fish boxes. So the Pollet had its own smell, imparting character to the place.
Perhaps fishwives children are still fathered by artists there, as has happened in the past. The fishwives are still to be seen nearby, but selling from their stalls on the quayside near to the centrally placed Information Centre. The fish offered by them is so fresh that plaice may still be alive and flapping on the slab.
Artists of the past found much to portray on the Pollet “island”. From the days of sail and then to steam, the work by sailors and dock workers was hard and poorly paid. But for the artist it was real life – life in the raw. Portrayals by present-day artists seem to be more of picturesque cliffs and yachts, colourful and bland – seaside art.
There were several bars on the Pollet island where fishermen and dock hands could quench their thirst, though the bars with girls offered their services by the then railway station across the harbour. But the girls, I think, were more for the use of visiting sailors than artists and locals.
Some ten years ago there was a sudden change in the fortunes of the Pollet. A smart restaurant opened there, called Bistrot du Pollet. Right away it became crowded with discerning clientele, unknown to eat in the district theretofore.
The restaurant has changed hands, but Florence, the charming waitress has been serving satisfied clients for the last eight of those ten years.
Discerning artists, sculptors and musicians still frequent Dieppe, and the Bistrot in particular. If Sickert took a more physical approach to matters on the Pollet, then, nowadays, Anthony Stevens, singer and songwriter, with Caroline, and Graham Gould of The What, eat at the Bistrot (where you might hear in the background a recording of Anthony Stevens singing with Count Basie, for instance).
One eats well at the Bistrot, where the set lunch may introduce you to three courses of food you might not normally choose. So, without choice, there is an element of pleasant surprise at hand. And, being in the heart of the fishermen’s quarter in a fishing port, whatever aquatic delicacy features on the menu is as fresh as it comes, and sure to please.
The success of Bistrot du Pollet has encouraged the existing cafés around it to upgrade. And now another restaurant/café (o’DkLé) (sic) has opened on the quayside nearby, supplying good food that is at about the halfway mark between standard restaurant/café and Michelin mentioned cuisine.
All this is symptomatic of the rise in Dieppe’s status from a smoky fishing port to the present clean and smart marina town.
Dieppe has two hub centres, joined by the Grande Rue, a pedestrian-only street of smart shoe and fashion shops, interspersed with those selling charcuterie, cheese, bakery, and fruit and vegetables – the last (Royal Fruits) offering wonderful value and freshness. For the Saturday market, the street and those leading from it, are coated with stalls, run by both professionals and farmer amateurs (though no live rabbits, chickens or ducks may be sold any more).
At the “town” end of this street stands the Café des Tribunaux, a large and well-run establishment, catering for customers who like to drink, read and talk outside in warm weather, and indoors when the seaside air is cold and windy. It has always been the place for a drink, and the haunt of artists, locals, and tourists alike. Wilde and Beardsley are reputed to have been clients. In such an old established café it is right that, in France, waiters are employed – and stay. For instance, a waiter there, asked how my sons were doing. He had encountered them as children thirty years beforehand.
The other end of the Grande Rue (the port end) is the jumping-off place for restaurants and cafés. And one of these, the Café Suisse, right on the corner, opposite where once stood the circular fish market (now an almost flat fountain), has always been the favoured venue of painters. Albert Lebourg may have frequented it, and others certainly did, like Camille Pissarro, Walter Sickert, Jacques-Emile Blanche, Eva Gonzalès (the lady Impressionist), Eugéne Boudin, Frank Martin and Edward Burra. Other artists have certainly enjoyed the pleasures and sights of Dieppe. Names such as Cotman, Turner, Delacroix, Renoir, Degas, Whistler and Matthew Smith are recorded as having stayed there.
The Café Suisse has modernised considerably since the heyday of the previously mentioned artists. And at one time, with new owners, it had red plastic seats, so uncomfortable that we declined to frequent the place. Now that the seating is more comfortable, it is a good venue for lunch (closed for food in the evening).
Dieppe is the great port for scallop (Coquille St Jacques) boats. So, when in season, it is the dish over which to linger and relish. And because this shellfish is so plentiful there, the amount served is on a very generous scale. In fact, after a few dishes of those tasty morsels (often served with potato in a Normandy cream sauce), we had had enough and found ourselves choosing other items from the menu.
The old ferries from Newhaven would sometimes opt out of crossing the Channel when the weather was rough. The two new ferries have efficient stabilisers fitted, and are more manoeuvrable. This means that the crossing (often, in the past, somewhat of a lottery) is now far more reliable – though our latest winter crossing back did rather shake and stir the insides.
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