The show must go on.... let it snow!

It began snowing in Germany on the Thursday, then in France on the Somme on Friday. PANIC STATIONS!!!
This meant that Wolfgang and Gaby couldn't get out of Dortmund.
It snowed on the day of the Christmas Truce Carol Service. More panic. Mr Frédéric Pelletier, always one to err on the side of caution, advised me to cancel the event. WHAT! after all our hard work? After all the money spent so far? (by myself I add - there are no subsidies)
After all our rehearsals in the cold? No we can't - I thought. If the soldiers could sing carols in snow-filled trenches, we can sing carols in a church surrounded by snow. I'll improvise I said to myself.
But I didn't need to.
If organising four yearly Christmas Truces has taught me one thing it is that I have had the humbling pleasure of knowing and working with some really delightful and loyal people. I was amazed at who managed to turn up. Braving the snow and ice and slippery roads, they made their way to Pozières and stuck around for both the musical Truce and the Truce buffet in the Tommy.
We were sad not to see the orchestra from the Combles district and many of the children from the Notre Dame Primary School in Bapaume; but it wasn't going to stop us.
We started off with a couple of videos projected onto the ceiling, most notably Man in the Mirror with its very thought-provoking images. The pipers, dressed in magnificent costumes bought especially for the Truce, entered the church playing I'm Dreaming of Home from the Film based on the Truce. This year the film-producer's cousin was in the church, so maybe she will give us some good publicity. The 2010 Christmas Truce Carol Service had begun.
A roller coaster of emotions and experiences was launched. From the solemnity of Stille Nacht and Entre le boeuf et l'âne gris we moved over to the speedier rhythm of Deck the Halls, Mary's Boy Child (Boney M version), I believe in Father Christmas and the rocking 99 Luftballons whose inclusion was incredibly timely. The song describes the cold war tension between the former two Germanies; a situation echoed by events in North and South Korea at this very moment in time. Our balloons didn't get any higher than the ceiling in the church but it was a fascinating sight for the children present. They were also given treats by our piper santa Jean-Luc SAINT, who went about giving everyone sweets during the service. Bless his cotton sockettes.

Powerful images of despair and hope and of war and peace were projected onto the ceiling. The feel-good story of 2010 was celebrated in this way with the release of the Chilean miners. This story reminds us of human solidarity and cooperation in adversity. The man of the hour was Manuel Gonzalez: the rescuer who volunteered to go down into the mine to help prepare the miners for their ascension. He was left alone down there after the rescue and was the very last to leave the underground prison. He was wise enough to tell the Chilean President that this should never happen again. Sadly 29 miners in New Zealand perished underground just before our Truce. Lessons need to be learned.

So many people deserve thanks for their work to make the Truce a success. I am indebted to so many people. They know who they are! They provided the music, the voices, the dance routine... the sound system. They also travelled difficult roads to get to Pozières, some coming from Lille and England.
A special thanks to Dominique Zanardi who lets us use the Tommy free of charge. His contribution is immense.
The photos attached to this article were taken by Nadia, Cathy Destarkeet, Claudie Llewellyn and Philippe Duban - merci à vous!

Who knows what will happen in 2011! I am thinking of buying a 4x4! Perhaps we all should.
BY PAULA FLANAGAN

Christmas Truce Carol Service 2010

How quickly the dark days are with us again. The clocks went back last Saturday and it really feels as if Winter has chased Autumn away. But never fear, this means you can wear your furry boots, woolly scarf and bobble hat and wait for Christmas time.
Winter in the UK never got to me as a child because I enjoyed Hallowe'en in October, then close on its heels was Bonfire Night... and before you knew where you were, it was time to start buying selection boxes and write out your wish list for Santa.
At school we did plenty of carol singing that really put us in the right mood to be jolly and deck the halls with boughs of holly. In fact my respective primary and secondary schools always made sure there was a Christmas Party for us to look forward to. Hmmm - it sounds as if I grew up in a golden age reading back through my text. Thank you to Kearsley Mount Methodist School aka Spindle Point School and Farnworth Grammar School. My teachers were obviously far more magnanimous than I gave them credit for.

Here in the Somme we are planning our 4th annual Christmas Truce Carol Service. We look forward to seeing the church filled with people of all ages from all backgrounds. The Truce is a moment of cosy fun with a large dose of remembrance and reflection thrown in.
This year we welcome the schoolchildren of the Catholic Primary School in Bapaume who are struggling with songs in Latin and English. I haven't tried any German with them yet.... but it will have to be done. We also thank our guitarists Vic Piuk and John Anderson, our keyboard player Marie-Geneviève Pelletier and we extend a welcome to the 13 musicians from the Orchestra of the Combles Community Council who have agreed to join us.
You can take a peep at the songs we will be singing by visiting pages 3 - 7 of my official blog:
http://pfk-battlefieldacademy.skyrock.com/
where you can exercise your vocal chords along to Gaudete with Steeleye Span, Mary's Boy Child, Deck the Halls (there we go again), I believe in Father Christmas, I'm dreaming of home ...plus a selection of French and German songs.

The Carol Service will start at 7pm on December 18th in the church in Pozières. The event is free, because all the participants are volunteers. However, we ask each family (or group) to bring a dish for the buffet that will take place in The Tommy Museum-Café on the main road in the village. Please leave your dish there before going into the church. Once we leave the church, having sung our throats dry, we head for The Tommy where we can mix and mingle to our heart's content, while enjoying an international buffet, given the presence of different nationalities.
We look forward to seeing you there.

Paula Flanagan

Walking in Werwyck Sud (F) and Plugstreet (B)

On Sunday August 22nd I joined my friends: a group of battlefeld enthusiasts accustomed to organising walking tours together, and we went up to the Franco-Belgian border where the French Werwyck meets the Flemish Werwik. Here we were met by our guide and friend on his territory : Michel Decru, a Flemish Belgian who speaks French and who is also proficient in English. Michel is a WFA member and has written two books on the history of Avelgem in the Great War.
The walk around the French Werwyck brought us into contact with a number of German bunkers and Hitler's place of convalescence after being gassed in 1918. The building is today occupied by the Education authorities.
A visit to the German cemetery led us to some interesting graves: Musician, Pilot etc... and one in French read chevaux légers.... most unusual for a German soldier.
We then drove to Ploegsteert and began a long walk that took in an incredible amount of history. We saw , to name but a few sites, the Ultimo crater, the location of the Birdcage and the site of the Christmas Truce football match, which was particularly poignant for me. Visits to numerous cemeteries revealed a host of different moving stories. I was taken aback to see a fresh grave dug for an Australian soldier, something I had never seen.
I was also especially thrilled to see the graves of the two Lancastrians buried in the last decade after being discovered in the Flanders mud with their ID disks on.

What was pleasant about walking in Belgium was the presence of cafés where we could sit down and obtain refreshments after tiring ourselves out.
A big thank you to Michel for all his research and hard work. I know what it involves and I really appreciate the time he spent on the project.
By Paula Flanagan

Fancy rowing your way down the Somme?

During the summer I like to make the most of the good weather and entertain my children with new adventures. For two years I have talked about canoeing down the Somme but my husband had always pooh poohed it- claiming that as we have lived in the Ardèche, canoeing here would be boring on a flat, spiritless river.
I finally got my way in August 2010 and booked a session via the Canoe Cappy website. I sent my request by email and was told to ring a mobile number to finalise arrangements. I chose to set off from the jetty near the public campsite in Bray sur Somme at 11 am to be able to stop and picnic by the river and row to Méricourt sur Somme where we would be picked up at 3pm.

There were four adults in our group, two teenagers and three children. Rowing was tougher for those who had children in their canoes - as they tended to enjoy the view rather than get stuck into the physical task required of moving the canoe forward. I enjoyed the experience immensely, getting a superb view of the river's course from my craft. The rowing was physical and tiring but it felt good. The Canoe Cappy Company owner, a man from the Dordogne, told me that he preferred having his business here because the river is gentle and presents very few risks. (Dordogne is of course the most British part of France where canoeing is a popular activity with tourists).

Having said that, I must point out the dangers that DO exist. If you try to stop en route to picnic, as we did, it is difficult to find an ideal spot to moor, and we had to be somewhat acrobatic in tieing our canoes up and getting ourselves out onto terra firma.

There are also two dangers en route: one is the fishermen whose lines reach right across the river. Some fishermen consider that the river is theirs alone and can be quite rude and unfriendly as you splash along. The other danger is the whirlpool zone where there is a possibility of being sucked in. Keep well away from it.
The final danger occurs not en route but at the very end of your journey - at the lock at Méricourt sur Somme. Here we were astounded to see a lethargic lock-keeper (working for the French DDE - who are fonctionnaires) open the lock while we were close by. One of our canoes nearly got sucked into the lock. The aforementioned lock-keeper then stood by mutely and apathetically while we struggled to moor our canoes, keep ourselves tied together and climb a one and a half metre high wall, before scrambling down the bank to drag our canoes out of the water. During this tricky operation one of our group, an eight year old boy, fell in the river. The lock-keeper did absolutely nothing (helping people isn't in his contract of course).

So, what I would say to tourists visiting the area is this: I can recommend this activity but I would warn you to keep an equal ratio of adults to children and you should only arrive at the lock at your pick-up time. We were early (such talented rowers are we) that the Canoe Cappy people were not there to help us. I would also advise you to encourage the authorities to arrange for a safe arrival zone with a jetty in Méricourt sur Somme.
By Paula Flanagan

Striking - a popular pastime and national sport

By Ava Donovan
The French word for strike is GREVE. I have lived in France for many years and have always challenged the French with my opinion that if striking became an Olympic Sport they would win gold hands down every time. They can't resist the temptation to down tools and pens the minute anyone mentions that word they dread and revolt against. That word is CHANGE.
It doesn't matter what is being changed: the school syllabus, the school timetable, doctors' fees, the colour of the curtains in the town hall etc.. any change is bad news per se and the knee jerk reaction is always to get everybody out on the streets (but only on a Thursday, so their salary isn't affected) and shout and demonstrate (but not between 12 noon and 2pm when they go home for lunch).

Today we are examining the punishments meted out to France's footballers who dared to go on strike at Knysna in South Africa at the world cup. The captain Evra is banned for 5 games and is considered to be the ringleader. Anelka is the real naughty boy who didn't even turn up to face the disciplinary hearing. He is banned for 18 matches - but doesn't give a hoot as he clearly has no intention of playing for France again.

I recall how the striking mentality was prevalent in the UK in the 70s and I do recall the winter of discontent that set me against strikes forever. A lot of British ex-pats settle in France because the lifestyle in France reminds them of bygone years in many ways. To be sure, the attitude to striking is definitely typical of yesteryear in the UK. So why don't the French move on? Striking is so infra-dig, don't you think? It's so banal because it's so run of the mill. There are other ways to protest and originality is needed in thinking of ways you can get people to sit up and listen. Nobody takes strikes in France seriously anymore and some French people are wholly ashamed of this old-fashioned reputation that they have in the eyes of the rest of Europe. The behaviour of the national football team was an embarrassing reflection of French society as a whole.

What has always stunned me is the way schoolchildren go on strike in France. I recall having to drive 30 kms to a doctor's appointment when I was pregnant some years ago. I got stuck behind a striking crowd of ....... schoolchildren, out on strike because the Minister had suggested that the education system needed reform (heavens, how dare he be so revolutionary!!!) I told the policeman who stopped me that in order to strike one needs to be earning a salary. This comment fell on deaf ears.

Hurrumph!!! French protocol my foot!

By Morag Smith-Jones
Summer 2010 is nearly over. Autumn begins mid- August despite what you might think. (June 21st is midsummer, so do the maths). I am left to reflect on the multitude of ceremonies I have attended (and those I decided not to attend) in the Somme.
I felt very disheartened this year and extremely let down.
I watched lines of British, Australian, American etc.... tourists carrying their poppy wreaths to different ceremonies, so clearly moved by what they were doing and by whom they were remembering. They lined up and waited their turn to pay their respects to a lost relative, a local regiment or a friend's friend.
Yes, they waited their turn, having travelled long distances to get here, they waited oh so patiently.
They had to wait because they are not important in the eyes of the French authorities. They are not as important as the French officials who don their number one suit for the occasion (they might be photographed by the local paper after all). They had to wait because the local dignitaries had made it clear at meetings and in emails that French protocol MUST prevail on French soil.
Ah, but hang on a minute. Most of the ceremonies are not on French soil. They are on memorial land donated to the allied powers who helped French soil to remain French soil. If you take the example of the Lochnagar Crater in La Boisselle; this is private land owned by Richard Dunning. By rights, he can do exactly what he wants - bar break the law of course.
I am weary of learning that the organisers of ceremonies are being made to ensure that Monsieur X and Madame Y be the first to lay their wreaths, when in fact Monsieur X and Madame Y have only a fleeting knowledge of why the ceremony is taking place and don't even understand what the battle was all about and which regiments were involved. This lack of understanding and input contrasts greatly with the attitude of the patient tourists, holding their poppy wreaths, waiting to be allowed to go forward and pay their respects.
I am also weary of seeing these often elderly poppy wreath-holders struggling to walk from their designated parking plot (miles from the monument) whereas Monsieur X, a very trim and sporty mayor of Gobbledygook-sur-Somme, has the right to whizz through the crowds and park right next to the monument.
Until a more reasoned, dignified and egalitarian approach is insisted upon by the ceremony organisers... I will be doing it my way, very quietly away from the crowds, in a place filled with a sense of history I can savour ALONE.

Banning the burka in France

By Boadicea
Only one MP in the French lower house voted against the new proposition to ban the face-covering garment worn by Muslim women. The law will not be adopted until the upper house has voted but it looks like the ban will come into effect without any real opposition. It should be added that the law will also apply to certain hoods and balaclavas used by bankrobbers and other lawbreakers.
I am frequently told by British visitors to the Somme that they applaud the French government's courage in pushing this law through the assemblée générale. They bemoan Britain's overly multicultural acceptance of all cultural differences; most notably those that betray a lack of respect and freedom for women.
On the other hand, a female friend of mine who is a South African working in Saudi Arabia, told me that she thought the French move "dangerous and provocative". It is understandable that westerners living in Islamic countries do not want to see friction and intolerance being used as weapons in more terrorist campaigns.

I personally do have strong opinions about this subject, as I am sure you do. I am British but I have lived in the Middle East, and I will soon be returning to live there once more. When I was living in Cairo I had no issue with the Egyptian custom of wearing a full length robe that left the face (but not the hair) free. I understood the prudish desire to keep things covered. I did however appreciate being able to look women in the eyes.
What used to disturb me greatly was when the plane came in from Saudi Arabia and women would walk into the arrival lounge covered in a black sheet, wearing gloves, socks and shoes so that no flesh was visible at all.

Roughly ten years later when I went back to Greater Manchester to work you can imagine my profound shock at standing in Bolton town square one day and counting about 15 women thus attired - in the space of about 20 minutes. They were not all together. Some were in pairs, some were with their children or husbands. While I fully understand their wish to cover up and not expose vast amounts of flesh (like some of the girls who were sharing the same pavement) I could not accept this vision in my home country.

I came to the conclusion that I didn't like looking at acres of fat belly flesh with piercings just as much as I didn't like not being able to see a woman's face as she walked by me on the pavement. There are two extremes: one is gratuitous nudity that is exploited by pornography that harms all women; the other is a sinister blacking out of a person's facial features. I opppose both and say one is as dangerous as the other.

For information you may be interested to know that the chador is Persian (Iranian) and leaves the face free (rather like Nora Batty's headscarf); the niqab covers everything but leaves the eyes free (rather like a royal mail post box) and the burqa is the Afghan covering with a mesh design in front of the eyes to stop poor women from walking into things.

Choosing the right bank

Paula FLANAGAN writes:

Our Association has been banking with the HSBC in France for over two years and have been astonished by the incredibly arbitrary way they apply banking charges. One month we are asked to fork out 25 Euros, the next 11 Euros and currently, because of my nagging, we pay 6,50 Euros or thereabouts. I have been told that this is due to the activity generated by the account but we sometimes lost 25 Euros in a month where nothing happened at all!

I only recently discovered that HSBC stands for Hong Kong Shanghai Banking Corporation. I actually thought it stood for Highly Suspicious Banking Charges. And yet, all is not lost. I have been back to the bank to complain about the charges and the HSBC has finally stopped being too international in its outlook and has created a service for French Associations: Assodirect, which will lighten our mood by not charging us for existing.

I hear you say: Just change banks. I agree, we maybe should. However, I am going to give the Assodirect service a try and see how it fares.

Nevertheless, the advice I would give an expat settling in France is not to join the HSBC. A French bank won't bleed you with hefty bank charges. No wonder the HSBC is one of the few banks to come through le credit crunch smiling.

Don't abuse the poppy!

It is interesting to note that Belgium is the only country whose national flower is the poppy. France abandoned the idea of a national flower a long time ago and we are familiar with the UK choices as they figure on the respective rugby shirts of England, Wales, Scotland and also the Republic of Ireland.

It is indeed very fitting that the Belgians have taken possession of the poppy, however this may well have been a recent acquisition (- if anybody knows the exact date of the adoption of the poppy as their national symbol I would be interested to know). After all, John McCrae made the poppy synonymous with the western front in Belgium when he wrote the poem In Flanders' Fields in 1915 (which has in fact been very incorrectly translated into French and printed on postcards that you can buy in The Flanders' Fields Museum in Ypres).

The poppy became the remembrance flower as a result of the Canadian doctor's poem; the wearing of the symbol being proposed by Moina Micheal, an American citizen. Her poem We shall keep the faith was her touching answer to McCrae's words and it is worth reading the two poems together to understand the emotional response given by Ms Michael.

The western front winds its way down from Belgium through northern France to the Somme battlefields, as you undoubtedly know. Here in Picardy a local borough of different communes (towns and villages) gave itself the name: Le Pays du Coquelicot in 2004. This was roughly translated by myself as The Poppy Country for the Somme Marathon website and the name has stuck. At the time I found this a fitting tribute to the men who fought and fell in the Somme in and around Albert (the main town in The Poppy Country). Now, six years on, I find myself cringeing with distaste at the commercial activity that has grown up around this name. The local inhabitants of The Poppy Country suddenly woke up to the fact that tourism was a possible money-spinner they could exploit (a mere ninety years after The Battle of the Somme). We saw more and more gites and B&Bs spring up in people's back gardens or in the second house they inherited from grandma. These were inevitably named after poppies or coquelicots to the point where it became repetitive and embarrassing. Then the local businesses jumped on the bandwagon; this trend in Albert has given us such delights as : poppy windows, a poppy launderette, a poppy flag team, a poppy driving school and a youth hostel named.......... yes you guessed: Les Poppies. No doubt, as one British tourist recently observed: we will soon be invited to gaze upon "The Poppy Basilica" in Albert. To add insult to injury, these names are accompanied by possessive apostrophes showering them like confetti, and as a result I have to control my desire to take out my jumbo red indelible marker and correct their sloppy grammar.

I finally felt the urge to write this article when I came across a selection of poppy products in one of the local DIY stores in Albert, popular with people building gites and B & Bs for battlefield tourists. The products that caught my eye were for the bathroom: a poppy toilet seat, a poppy toilet roll holder and a poppy loo brush. Now, if you are sensitive to the significance of the poppy, and I suspect you are if you are visiting the Somme, you may share my distaste for these items. I can well imagine that some poor British or Australian tourist will find him- or herself having to sit on a plastic wreath of poppies in order to perform daily ablutions. (I am fearfully waiting for them to start selling poppy toilet paper). Our tourist will then tiptoe down to a dining table covered with a poppy tablecloth, after having drawn back poppy curtains. Breakfast will be served on poppy plates and tea will be drunk out of poppy mugs.

Having said that, there are some very worthy gite and B&B owners, many of them British, who are wholly deserving of trade. They devote a lot of time and energy to Remembrance and go about it earnestly. Some of these are links on this blog.

A new pipe band was recently set up in Albert. The local French political figures urged the Pipe Major to call it........... go on, have another guess........... yep............. "The Poppy Pipe Band". Clearly big fans of alliteration! Luckily, concerns were listened to and it became The Gleannancre Pipe Band, remembering the toll of the Battle of the Ancre, as well as the Battle of the Somme.

The local political figures and business people see the anglophone tourist as a cash cow who will solve the financial worries of local companies and inject wealth into the area. They want to control this and reap the benefits on their terms.

If this flies in the face of respect and solemnity - so what.

I have always said that living in the Somme region comes with a heavy moral price. One must strive to be worthy of the blood sacrifice made on this soil. Many people are worthy, but many are not; and their behaviour can be quite selfish and shocking. I often wonder how the soldiers would feel if they could rise up and look around them at the greed and back-stabbing that is sadly so rife here. They would say their efforts were all in vain, and they would have a point.

I therefore wish to inform the discerning battlefield tourist of this reality. Beware of the crocodile tears that betray an empty consideration for the Fallen, and mask a greedy eye fixed on your wallet.

By Boadicea

EU pie: costly ingredients and a very bitter taste

Over the last 13 years I have corresponded with the European Commission in Brussels, the British government in London, and the British DFES in Yorkshire, and also the French Educational authorities in Paris and Amiens. In thirteen years I have made no headway whatsoever in my attempts to fulfil the European dream of integration and free movement across EU borders.

As a fully qualified British schoolteacher, able to speak and teach three languages, with 6 years at university under my belt, I would have expected to see the professional openings for people like myself become more frequent and more accessible across Europe, as the EU gets bigger and the possibilities for exchange are supposed to be multiplying with Erasmus programmes etc.......

However, I have been extremely disappointed to discover that this dream is in fact a one way street: traffic flows in one direction only - towards Dover!

The English system stands alone (and I stress the word English because, as I will point out later, Scotland has sealed its border and locked its foreigner-proof doors in a very similar, and shameful, way to France & Belgium). England is awash with foreign teachers, doctors, nurses, architects, all benefiting from a welcoming policy of official recognition of qualifications with the opportunity to apply for a job in the candidate's chosen sector. This permits a non-English person the right to earn a living and prove his or her worth in a professional context, thereby allowing him or her the right to self respect and a decent standard of living. This is something that English people can be proud of. However, when this practice is not put into place by the countries whose citizens come to England to take advantage of what Tony Blair called "our good nature" and our boundless capacity for tolerance, there has to be some reflection, and above all, some action.

In France I have been subjected to an insiduous policy of non-recognition and debasement since 1992 when I first tried to work here. As I attempt to understand why my son's language teachers have no formal teacher training and are unable to speak English to me, why their teaching methods are out-dated and unsuited to the needs of a global society in 2010, and why I am treated as an uneducated, unqualified person and told to return to academia and retrain; the French authorities send me staccato replies that dodge the issue in a most patronising way.

The EU Commission has done nothing at all to impress me since 1997 when I began to consult them via my Euro MP Gary Titley. Indeed, over the years, they have become far less friendly and understanding, as I up the pressure and complain about their refusal to act and their inability to comprehend the injustices of the way the French operate when it comes to recognising professional qualifications obtained outside France. (In short - they don't ............never short on arrogance, the French government, whether on the right or the left).

This policy, that successive French governments put into practice, is a covert form of racism. The EU allows them this luxury by quoting loopholes x y and z. In fact, I am convinced that France is in the EU for the following reasons only :

• Mr De Gaulle had a hand in setting up the EEC and making France one of its central pillars


• It gives them a feeling of being a sort of superpower in a European context


• They love the huge subsidies they get, especially for the farmers (who are extremely numerous and a very powerful voting lobby in France)


• They like to pretend to be all embracing of other cultures (blue EU flags everywhere), while scorning non-French qualifications behind closed doors and barring the route to non-French citizens

The latest letter I received from Commissioner Charlie McCreevy's office tells me to retrain and sit a competition to be able to enter the teaching profession. Well!!! Would you ask a vet to go back to veterinary school? Would you ask an EU commissioner to go back to grassroots politics and go knocking on doors on residential housing estates.......... I think not. They would be most affronted and extremely loathe to give up all the nice cash they are earning. However, I, according to the EU rulebook, am supposed to do just that.

As I realise that I will never make any headway in France (nor Belgium for that matter where I tried to get a job, only to discover that they operate the same anachronistic system as the French) I looked to a move to Scotland, as my husband had a chance of spending a couple of years there with his job. I was quite optimistic and full of hope when I wrote to the Scottish GTC (General Teaching Council). Cor lumme! I nearly had heart failure when I started to receive their feedback. The acceptance policy is both ageist and racist, as far I as can see. Applicants who are not twenty-somethings who have gone through the Scottish system will struggle to put all the relevant paperwork together. You need a Degree transcript (what the hell is that?), a list of your university credits (we didn't have them in the 80s!) proof of how many days / months you spent in Spain / France / Germany if you did a language degree (how do you prove 10+ years' residence when our passports are no longer stamped, and no residence permit is required because of the Schengen agreement?). I phoned the GTCS and was spoken to very sharply by a young lady who belittled me the way the French do. I have just received a letter explaining that, at the age of 44, having thrice been Head of Dept., among other things; I would have to do a probationary year in Scotland!!! What nonsense is this? (Gordon Brown - are you listening?)

I showed the GTCS letter to my Franco-Belgian husband (who is ashamed of his respective countries' political decisions cited above) and he concurred with me that Scotland can keep its ill thought-out, discriminatory tactics .......... yet another country to avoid. What is the world coming to?

I am so disillusioned I have joined UKIP. Why should we pay for the upkeep of an EU that allows jingoism and bigotry to be official policy in most member states? The EU costs 40 million Euros a day to run - to keep Brussels staff : bureaucrats and translators plus the EU ambassadors in posh residences all over the world and the MEPs with their expenses bills - now there's another can of worms. Having worked for 5 years on the African continent, I can assure you that such a considerable amount of money could be far better spent.

By Paula Flanagan