bonjour

[caroljane]

Thanks for the primer Adam. Previously the only thing I knew about Silesia was Wodehouse's comment, looking around as he was being transported across it to internment in WWII:

"Good God! If this is Upper Silesia, what can Lower Silesia be like?"

Um, hmm, Eau de Schoolmarm swirls about me...nope, can't resist. Wodehouse quotes must be transmitted faithfully.

"If this is Upper Silesia, one wonders what Lower Silesia must be like…"

BTW the transcripts of the Berlin broadcasts are here:

http://www.pgwodehou...com/berlin1.htm

Young men, starting out in life, have often asked me 'How can I become an Internee?' Well, there are several methods. My own was to buy a villa in Le Touquet on the coast of France and stay there till the Germans came along. This is probably the best and simplest system. You buy the villa and the Germans do the rest.

I knew if I did not look it up you would catch me out. At least I am being kept honest though the Respectability is slipping somewhat.

Do I remember this one correctly? When he was badgered about "allowing" the Germans to commandeer his house in LeTouquet, he said, "I didn't ask them to come and scour their damned bodies in my bathtub." ?

[9thdoctor]

Do I remember this one correctly? When he was badgered about "allowing" the Germans to commandeer his house in LeTouquet, he said, "I didn't ask them to come and scour their damned bodies in my bathtub." ?

That rings a bell, but here's the relevant part from the first broadcast:

One's reactions on suddenly finding oneself surrounded by the armed strength of a hostile power are rather interesting. There is a sense of strain. The first time you see a German soldier over your garden fence, your impulse is to jump ten feet straight up into the air, and you do so. About a week later, you find that you are only jumping five feet. And then, after you have been living with him in a small village for two months, you inevitably begin to fraternize and to wish that you had learned German at school instead of Latin and Greek. All the German I know is 'Es ist schönes Wetter', I was a spent force, and we used to take out the rest of the interview in beaming at one another.

I had a great opportunity of brushing up my beaming during those two months. My villa stands in the centre of a circle of houses, each of which was occupied by German officers, who would come around at intervals to take a look at things, and the garden next door was full of Labour Corps boys. It was with these that one really got together. There was scarcely an evening when two or three of them did not drop in for a bath at my house and a beaming party on the porch afterwards. And so, day by day, all through June and July, our quiet, happy life continued, with not a jarring incident to mar the serenity. Well, yes, perhaps one or two. One day, an official-looking gentleman with none of the Labour Corps geniality came along and said he wanted my car. Also my radio. And in addition my bicycle. That was what got under the skin. I could do without the car, and I had never much liked the radio, but I loved that bicycle. I looked him right in the eye and said 'Es ist schönes Wetter' - and I said it nastily. I meant it to sting. And what did he say? He didn't say anything. What could we have said? P.S. He got the bicycle.