1967 - THE SUMMER OF LOVE - THE ROAD TO FREEDOM

‘A’Levels were just a year away, and, as was usual for
Haberdashers’ Aske’s Hatcham Girls’School, an old and well-respected Grammar
School in New Cross, South-East London, several of the more gifted linguists
amongst the A Level students in the Lower 6^th were selected to apply
for a Greater London Council Travel Scholarship.  In those halcyon days, everyone studied
French and Latin usually at least to ‘O’ Level, and later you could take up
another language or two. In my case, Italian and Greek. Girls in my year were
put in for scholarships in German and French; I had eschewed German (a nasty
ugly language I thought), so it was French for me.

I duly filled in application forms with my parents, and
packed them (paperwork not parents) off to the GLC body, together with
recommendations from my teacher, the very venerable and dedicated Miss T E
Baggs.  I didn’t think I’d have much
trouble getting an interview, having passed my French ‘O’ Level a year early,
gaining A grade for both language and aural. 
I’m still quite proud of this, and feel obliged to boast at every
opportunity that in those days the ‘O’ level pass grades were ABCDE and O.
Below that were fails. This means compared with today’s now defunct GCSE
grades, at which the acceptable pass mark is ABC, my As would at least be A**!.
Anyway, enough of this self-congratulation. 

A few weeks later I was invited up to County Hall for
a written test, followed by an interview, and French conversation. With
trembling knees, I climbed the imposing stone steps. I emerged again hours
later, shaken but not stirred, and felt I had done okay.. Which some weeks
later proved to be the case. Four girls from my school, including me, were
offered French travel scholarships, and one, German.

The first 3 weeks of the trip were to be spent all
together, at the Universite de Lille Summer French course for foreigners, but
the remaining nine or ten weeks we had to arrange our own individual
accommodation with families in at least three different areas of France. No
easy task, but it was a well-trodden path for the school, and eventually it was
all sorted, including the minor details about grants and how to get our hands
on the Francs whilst abroad. No plastic and holes-in-wall in those days, actual
banks had to be nominated in the various places we were staying, .and
arrangements made for collection and payment to our hosts.

So round about the middle of June, we four assembled
in London, with large suitcases and hearts thumping with excitement and
trepidation,, bound for the Dover-Boulogne ferry. We hugged our families and
tried to look cool and groovy as we set off for our first big adventure.