Lost in France

JUST back from a week in Boyardville in France. It's a small town on the Ile D'Oleron in western France and its claim to fame is that when you lie on the beach you look out on Fort Boyard, one of Napoleon's maritime fortresses which has gained fame in more recent years as the venue for a game show.

We flew with Jet2 from Leeds/Bradford to La Rochelle and from there it was just an hour and a half's drive to our destination. Both airports are tiny compared to the main ones and La Rochelle's runway must be one of the shortest around as the brakes and reverse thrust were put on the moment the plane touched down which didn't help a nervous passenger like me.

We stayed at a camp site just behind the town. It was just two minutes walk from the harbour where all the cafes were situated and five minutes from the beach.

The weather was very good with only one rainy afternoon and the rest of the time was sunny with temperatures in the high twenties. Boyardville is very French and we didn't hear an English voice for a week apart from that spoken by the entertainer at the lively L'Echoppe bar when he played my Kinks' request. The local food is mussels (moules) and the everyday fare is 'moule frites' which is mussles and chips. I had it twice during the week once with bacon in a white wine and cream sauce and then with a mustard and cream sauce.

We like the Ile D'Oleron because it was our holiday and weekend escape when we lived and worked in France for four years back in the mid-nineties. We were happy to stay in Boyardville for the whole week and just had the one day trip out to see our old house and place of work just outside Civray. Everything was very much the same here, except that there had evidently been an explosion of English families moving in to the area. Our local Super U supermarket in Sauze Vaussais now has a whole section of the English food that we used to send home for when we were there 13 years ago.

Tina and the children liked the sandy beach and went there every day. I preferred the shade of the pine trees of the campsite and stayed there with my sole duty to prepare lunch for 2.00pm when they came home. Salad, cheese, bread and wine were very cheap so lunches were quite substantial and lasted for over an hour. It was quite reasonable eating out in the evening too and the five of us could have one course and a large jug of wine for around £33.

I spent my time reading. I had one political book The Political Brain by Drew Westen which explained how to capitalise on peoples' emotions in order to win their support. Although the book is concerned with American politics, it is really a blue print for political propaganda on how to win the hearts and minds of voters. It's a good read and I can recommend it and I have picked up some useful points for Freedom.

The rest of my reading material was very light but ideal for a holiday when you want to just switch off and escape for a few days. So I can also thoroughly recommend Stephen Booth's Black Dog, Elizabeth Corley's Grave Doubts and Cold Granite by Stuart MacBride. All crime thrillers, but all very British and with excellent descriptions of the Peak District, southern England and North East Scotland.

It's always difficult to get back into things after a break, and this morning I shall try to get into the swing by answering 110 emails which need a response. I then have my July work record to complete and prepare a report for a meeting tomorrow in Wales.

When we got back late yesterday, I had a quick sweep of the usual websites to get back up to speed with what is going on politically. I see that I got a mention on one of the 'rebel' websites. It implied that I'm naive because I believe the Party is far more professional than it has been in the past. When you read what my former colleagues say, and then compare it to the websites of our sworn opponents, there is very little difference because both appear to be seeking to undermine the British National Party. It's all very depressing because what these dissidents are trying to do is, in fact, undermine the very progress that they worked so hard over a two or three year period to bring about.

As they acknowledge, I've been around in nationalist politics for thirty years and have been involved in a number of internal disputes. I know only one thing for certain about them - our enemies love them because they can destroy us.

But I shall finish on a good note and that is that Freedom correspondent Louise Scott is back writing for the newspaper again. Louise is an authority of all aviation matters, as well as a host of other topics, and her contributions will be an asset again to Freedom.