My Favourite Samaritan

I am returning to the subject of Paris for which I make no apologies  so if you have lost interest feel free to make a cup of tea and change channels.

View from roof of La Samaritaine

Whilst tourist scale the Eiffel Tower for a bird's eye view of the city I have always preferred the more human scale available from the top of Au Printemps or Buttes Chaumont.  My favourite, however, was to climb the spiral staircase which emerged from the fifth floor of the main building like a conning tower (mind your head!) onto the roof terrace of  La Samaritaine department store. I have watched the sun go down from this vantage point many times whilst sipping a double express  and admiring the delicate construction of Le Pont des Arts.

Opened in 1870, the Samaritaine store was famous for its eclectic and comprehensive stock and for the rudeness of its staff.  It had the reputation for being able to supply anything from an elephant to an aeroplane. I never tested the former: nor can I corroborate  the latter as I found the staff no more rude  than any Parisian is to an Englishman. In fact one visit I made in 19991 ran quite contrary to that assertion:
At the time I was working in Paris, moving mainframe computers around the world. One of the transport companies I employed played a local radio station - Cherie FM - on their telephone system whilst callers waited for an internal connection.  A company I used  in the UK who operated a similar system abandoned it when they realised that a competitor was advertising on the radio station they were playing to callers. Towards the end of 1991 I kept hearing part of a song which I rather liked but was unable to identify either the title or artist. So one Saturday I took myself off to La Samaritaine  and  tackled the maze or stairs and aisles eventually emerging into the music department in the basement.
Here I sang  to an assistant the snatch I could remember of the song . He  was able to identify the tune as Un Homme Hereux by William Sheller. Having reinforced the assistant's belief that all the English are mad I purchased the cassette and departed happy.   Regular readers will no doubt have heard this story before as I recounted it on BBC Three Counties Radio on My De sert Island Disc a few years ago.

  

Inside the main building of La Samaritaine

You may be wondering why I have so far referred to La Samaritaine in the past tense. This is because in 2005, my having neglected the store for a few years , it was  purchased by the luxury goods group LVMH. They fairly rapidly closed it down "on safety grounds" but truthfully it was to punish me for not visiting.   Since then LVMH have been fighting for permission to redevelop the site. Various iterations of their plans have fallen foul of  the Paris public or the city council.  A final approval has been obtained which retains the main Art Nouveau building (but as a hotel) and replaces the adjacent buildings with apartments and shops.  This will include 95 social housing units and a creche and daycare centre.  I can't imagine the demand for the social housing units on the banks of the Seine!
La Samaritaine was founded as a result of two factors. During the 19th century the French government passed a law which permitted anyone to sell items which they had not manufactured themselves. Coupled with the industrial revolution this presented the ideal commercial environment for such a venture. The business started in the back room of Cafe de la Samaritaine on the site were the glorious Magasin No1 was built in 1910. 
Often referred to as the Jourdain Building after its architect, the four-story metal structure is laid out on a central hall surrounded by superimposed open galleries, then accessed by a cast iron grand staircase and topped by a glass roof adorned with a carved and painted frieze.
Francis Jourdain, the son of the architect, designed the stunning Art Nouveau facade overlooking the Rue de la Monnaie.
The painter Eugène Grasser designed the iconic Samaritaine logo.

Art Nouveau facade of Magasin no1

The master blacksmith Edouard Schenck and the master ceramists François Gillet and Alexandre Bigot were commissioned for the decoration.
The facade, originally painted bright blue, has turned a darker shade of green over the decades.
It is adorned with an elaborate decor consisting of metal volutes, mullion windows and arches, polished and enameled lava panels adorned with floral mosaics and inscriptions.

Magasin no2 showing Art Deco and Art Noureau styles

Magasin no 2 was enlarged in the 1920s and decorated in the Art Deco style. The solid and square stone facade is framed with woodwork painted in a bronze colour and is adorned with balconies and canopies.
Entirely free of any mosaic, I think it is a splendid  illustration Art Deco.

Detail of the Art Deco facade

Two more buildings were acquired with the profits from supplying army uniforms  for the Franco-Prussian war and Magasin no 3 & 4 were both enlarged and modernised during the 20th century.

So why name a cafe and subsequently a department store after a Samaritan woman?  In the 17th century a pump  was installed under the Pont des Arts to supply water to the Louvre . It was decorated with a statue of the  Samaritan woman who gave water to Jesus on his way to the cross.

LVMH impression of rue de Rivoli redevolpment

And now the Paris prefecteure has approved the redevelopment of Magasin 1 and 2 and the demolition of the later buildings which front rue de Rivoli. This building, with its wavy glass facade, has been dubbed the shower curtain by its detractors.

Detail from the Art Nouveau facde

For this, and many other photographs, I thank TravelFranceOnline

10th April 1858 -1912 - 1955

Loughborough boasts the largest bell foundry in the world - Taylors - where Great Paul, the 17ton bell at St. Paul's Cathedral in London, was cast. Local residents may also tell you that Big Ben was cast here but this is another of the many stories which surround this bell. It was actually cast in Stockton-on-Tees and weighed 16tons. As St. Stephen's tower was unready, Big Ben was first hung in Palace Yard but it cracked in use. The metal was recast at the only other bell foundry now existing in England - Whitechapel Bell Foundry in the east end of London. In this process it appears to have lost 2.5 tons. Along with most natives of this country and all tourists - I have never seen Big Ben- but I am very familiar with its sound and with Elizabeth Tower, as it is now known, which houses it.

Colne  in Lancashire has many claims to fame but more of that in future. For many people it is famous for its giant outlet centre - Boundary Mill - and Banny's Fish and Chips.

Today, however, we are interested in the cemetery in Keighley Road.






First, I would like to draw your attention to the Cemetery Chippie on the opposite side of the road.

If you are not shy of associating your food outlet with a cemetery why would you not use the slogan
Chips to die for

The reason  we have come to Colne Cemetery is to view this gravestone.



Have you guessed yet?

On 10th April 1912 RMS Titanic sailed from Southampton on her maiden, and only, voyage.

The band master on that voyage was a Colne man - Wallace Hartley who was interred here 33 days after the sinking.

 


The last woman to be hanged in Britain for murder was Ruth Ellis.

On 10th April 1955 she shot David Blakely in London after he had beaten her up and caused a miscarriage.









She was initially buried in Holloway Prison but her body was later moved to St. Mary's Church in Amersham, Bucks.

The headstone read Ruth Hornby  1926-1955  but this was destroyed by her son just before he committed suicide.

J'ai Deux Amours

 Following my recent  piece about Maigret I have been made aware that some people are unfamiliar with Josephine Baker's song.

I found this for you to enjoy on YouTube

The Key to Understanding Women?

Research into stem cells has been quite intense recently but has the Museum of Lancashire in Preston really discovered the key to understanding women?

A Good Read

I could never be a literary critic: I do not analyse  a book when I read it. My rule of thumb is does it hold my interest?   If it fails this I don't continue with it. I have referred to the seven canal-based crime stories by Leo McNeir in the past. On the whole these pass  my test but the penultimate novel - No Secrets - really did not grab me and I did not finish it. One author who has not failed me yet is Nevil Shute. I was introduced to his work by my elder sister when I was a teenager. She lent me Landfall and I have since read most of his stories.  Like the Maigret stories, they evoke the time in which they are set so vividly. I am currently re-reading all my copies before offering them on Ebay. I don't suppose the paperbacks will sell but some of the hardbacks might do so. If not, the charity shops of Preston will be awash with them.

A Penny For Them

A couple of weeks ago we took a walk along the old railway line which ran to Longridge as far as Grimsagh then returned to Preston by bus. Last week we took the bus to Grimsagh and walked back.

While this was interesting and enjoyable it was put in the shadows by seeing this chap riding an Ordinary Bicycle, often referred to as a Penny Farthing. He had cycled from Longridge to visit his mother on this modern replica.

Mr Bean as Maigret

This evening Rowan Atkinson (aka Mr Bean aka Blackadder) is portraying Maigret in the first of two feature-length stories on TV. Whatever wonders the make-up and wardrobe departments manage I will not be able to watch those eyes and see them as Jules Maigret.
For me the archetypal Maigret was Rupert Davies in the 1960s, enhanced, I am  sure, by the monochrome film medium. When he struck that match on the wall and the accordion music started I was transported to Paris in an era before la Grande Arche.
I suppose to film appropriate architecture nowadays they would have to go to Prague or somewhere, but when Rupert Davies was driving around Paris in his Citroen Traction Avant much of the city was relatively unchanged from the 1930-50 era in which the stories were set. If you would like to view the last Maigret story involving Rupert Davies  Maigret' Little Joke - click here.
However, you will not see the Citroen as it does not feature in this episode.
After the series was complete, Rupert Davies bought the car and we used to see him driving it around Amersham.
The Citroën Traction Avant was the first front-wheel drive, steel monocoque car ever put into wide-scale production. In many ways the Traction Avant was revolutionary. Itwas designed by André Lefébvre and Flaminio Bertone (remember his unrelated curves in Italian car design?). It was incredibly successful over more than two decades of production, with 750,000 units distributed worldwide between 1934 and 1956. Other cars produced at the time were essentially a chassis under a box. The Citroën was far more advanced, boasting an all in one body with independent front torsion bar suspension and hydraulic brakes. 
 
After Rupert Davies's death in 1976, the Maigret car was owned by his wife. It has changed hands since then and the last time I can trace, which was January 2015,  it was looking decidedly sad.

When I worked in Paris we used to frequent a cafe not far from the Citroen factory in Levallois  - J'ai Deux Amours -  which was  the title of a song made famous by Josephine Baker.  Co-incidentally I came across the following photograph and article in France Today. I am reproducing it in full for the Maigret nerds amongst you.

Georges Simenon & wife, Tigy, with Josephine Baker and fiance

Georges Simenon's Paris: Following in the Footsteps of his Fictional Sleuth, Jules Maigret

by Thirza Vallois

March 16, 2016

No wonder Georges Simenon set most of the Maigret stories in Paris – 63 out of 75 of them in fact. Because Paris is a compact city, it provides an unrivalled stage for crime fiction, where the investigation can progress at speed. But the Maigret stories also make wonderful guides to the flip-side of pre-gentrified Paris, the Paris of black and white photos, a shabby conglomerate of closely-knit communities, yet alive with the pulse of authenticity. Simenon crisply encapsulates that Paris of neighbourhood bars and bistros, of payphones and platform buses, sparing us neither the gloom of November nor the heat of August. He even takes us past the loge of the concierge into private homes, and gratifies us with the smell of floor polish or the cooking smells of ragoût de mouton, blanquette de veau or tripes à la mode de Caen.
With a Maigret in hand you can comb every bit of Paris. Be aware, however, that Simenon fiddles with street numbers and place names, throwing in existing ones alongside those he invents, or shifting places around. And to complicate it further, many of the real-life places have since disappeared. He also throws bits of his own life into Maigret’s, the devotion to pipes and beer not least. Maigret’s persona, on the other hand, is largely inspired by real-life Commissaire Guillaume, le grand patron of the Police Judiciaire (PJ, pronounced pé’ji), who was in charge of the most famous criminal investigations of the time. A smoker of cigarettes rather than pipes, he was also significantly slimmer.
Simenon’s Parisian life begins at the Gare du Nord, as does the first Maigret, Pietr le Letton (Pietr the Latvian), published in 1931. Arriving from Belgium in December 1922, he was underwhelmed: “The coldest, draftiest and busiest of Paris’s stations, with trains arriving from Belgium and Germany, bringing in their loads of crooks.” In the story, a body is discovered aboard the Étoile du Nord, the luxury Paris-Bruxelles-Amsterdam Express introduced in 1924; hence the lady in mink and silk stockings waiting at platform 11. Today the line is used by the speedier but less glamorous Thalys. Built under Haussmann, the station never lived up to expectations and is currently an unsafe mess. (May its refurbishment, scheduled to be completed by 2024, allow it to vie with London’s St. Pancras.)
Also in 1924, the recently wed Simenon and ‘Tigy’ moved to a one-bedroom flat at 21 Place des Vosges, overlooking the backyard. Built under Henri IV, the then Place Royale was the aristocracy’s ‘holy of holies’. Was Simenon aware that his flat had been sliced out of the mansion of the Duc de Richelieu, the Cardinal’s great-nephew, with whom he shared an insatiable sex life? Whereas the Duke claimed to have seduced all the females of the square, Simenon’s alleged number of conquests is 10,000. His liaison with Josephine Baker, however, was no fiction. By contrast, Maigret led an irreproachable marital life at 132 Boulevard Richard-Lenoir. Built over the Canal Saint-Martin under Haussmann, to prevent it being used by insurgents, from 1869 to 1969, during Holy Week, the Boulevard hosted the famous Ham and Scrap-iron Fair, a tradition that began in the Middle Ages in front of Notre Dame. The fair is now held in Chatou, west of Paris, but you can still drool over the Thursday and Sunday morning market.
While work was carried out in the Maigrets’ building, Simenon moved the couple to his own real address on Place des Vosges, but the no. 61 of the murder scene in L’Ombre chinoise (The Shadow Puppet) doesn’t exist: Place des Vosges has 36 houses, nine on each side. The upscale square was a social mix in Simenon’s day; witness the spacious first floor of a former ambassador in L’Ombre chinoise compared to the shabby lodgings above.

1930s Book Cover

The Canal Saint-Martin, too, has been upgraded since Simenon’s time. The footbridges are as atmospheric as ever, but its lock-keepers are gone and the barges have given way to cruise boats. Built under Napoleon to supply to Paris the water of the Ourcq, it soon proved useful for the transportation of raw materials. The ports of La Villette and of L’Arsenal followed suit; industry, poverty and knife crime at the ready too. It was not uncommon to recover a dead body from the water, the arm of a dead man in Le Corps sans tête (The Headless Corpse). This happened at the bend of the canal, level with Rue des Recollets, where it obstructed the passage of a barge. The nearby L’Atmosphère, which caters to a laid-back Bobo clientele, is the very site of working-class Paupol in the story.
Simenon first settled in Batignolles, west of Montmartre, where he liked to spend time. Au Rêve, a hangout of his, is still there at 89 Rue Caulaincourt, across Place Constantin Pecquer, a genuine local spot to this day, yet a stone’s throw from the tourist-ridden Sacré Coeur and Place du Tertre. The café has been popular with the arty and literati for decades. 2014 Nobel Prize winner Patrick Modiano mentions it several times in his novels.
Simenon wrote an early novel here, while Tigy tried to sell her paintings at the art fair on the square across the street. Was it due to nostalgia that Rue Caulaincourt appears some 20 times in the stories, more than almost any other location? There is a statue of Steinlen inside the little garden, Montmartre’s artist who created the famous Chat Noir poster. The heating business at the bottom of the steps was Chez Manière in the stories, although the real-life Chez Manière was at 65 rue Caulaincourt, now Le Cépage Montmartrois.
The affluent Avenue Junot curves pleasantly across the square to the west. It boasts impressive Modernist villas, Adolf Loos’s no. 15 notably, designed for Tristan Tzara of the Dada movement. In Maigret et le fantôme, an art collector living here is involved in art forgery on an international scale, including a forged Van Gogh.
Van Gogh himself had lived nearby on Rue Lepic, home to Les Deux Moulins café from the movie Amélie, and Le Moulin de la Galette immortalized by Renoir. Tucked more discreetly on Rue Tholozé is Studio 28, where Simenon liked to watch a movie, as does Amélie in the film. Opened in 1928, this is Paris’s oldest cinema still in operation, premiering that year Abel Gance’s Napoléon, and Buñuel’s L’Age d’or in 1930, thus provoking a riot and the banning of the film.
Le Cyrano, next to the Moulin Rouge, on the corner of Boulevard de Clichy and Rue Lepic, is now a fast food outlet. André Breton gathered here daily his fellow Surrealists. Le Cyrano also appears in Maigret au Picratt’s, a strip club on the corner of Rue Pigalle and Rue Fontaine, where Breton actually lived, on the 9th arrondissement side of Place Pigalle. The Picratt’s was Simenon’s creation, but there were plenty like it in this district. The leafy courtyards to the south are survivors of 19th century Paris, when this was its artistic hub.
The city’s ‘palaces’ (luxury hotels, pronounced the French way) were not immune to crime. Maigret found the “infinity of red carpets” at the Majestic sickening and took in the evening gowns and furs, the wafts of perfume, the jazz… Those were the “Roaring Years”. In 1922 a famous dinner united here Diaghilev, Stravinksy, Picasso, Joyce and Proust. In 1928 Gershwin composed An American in Paris here. But the hotel in Pietr le Letton and Les Caves du Majestic is situated on the Champs Elysées – it is Claridge’s in fact, while the Majestic was on the Avenue Kleber and played a sinister role in the deportation of the Jews during the Occupation. After the war it became the seat of UNESCO and later an international conference centre where the Vietnam and Cambodian peace agreements were signed, in 1973 and 1991 respectively. In 2010 it was resurrected as the plush Peninsula Paris.
Across the Seine, in Montparnasse, La Coupole epitomised the Roaring Years, shining new in December 1927, outshining its neighbours with its doormen in dashing garnet uniforms, 450 staff and 600 seated guests – the largest eating-place in France. Everyone came here – Picasso, Chagall, Man Ray, Charlie Chaplin, Josephine Baker, Simenon… La Tête d’un homme is largely set in its Bar Américain, where lost souls found shelter.
Last but not least, the epicentre of Maigret’s Paris is 36 Quai des Orfèvres, uncannily just around the corner from the geographical centre of Paris, at Notre Dame. Head there fast, because in 2017 the judicial world is moving to Renzo Piano’s new glass tower in Batignolles, where Simenon’s Parisian life began.
From his office window, Maigret looks out south to the Pont Saint-Michel and the Quai des Grands Augustins across the Seine. Like a leitmotif, beer and sandwiches are sent for from the Brasserie Dauphine – Aux Trois Marches in reality, on the corner of rue D’Harlay and the Quai de l’Horloge, off Place Dauphine, which is now a lawyers’ meeting place, La Maison du Barreau.
Place Dauphine echoes the much better preserved Place des Vosges and was famously the home of Yves Montand and Simone Signoret. Facing the Pont Neuf on its western side, la Taverne Henri IV has kept Simenon’s corner with some old photos above his table. Its previous proprietor, Robert Cointepas, was the last Parisian to have seen Simenon, having visited him in Lausanne, just before his passing in 1989.

And for super-nerds  to absorb the atmosphere>:

Simenon’s Paris Essentials
L’Atmosphère, 49, rue Lucien Sampaix, Paris 75010. Tel: +33 1 40 38 09 21
Au Rêve, 89, rue Caulaincourt, Paris 75018. Tel: +33 1 44 85 05 75
Au Cépage Montmartrois, 65, rue Caulaincourt, Paris 75018. Tel: +33 1 46 06 95 15
Peninsula Paris, 19, avenue Kléber, Paris 75016. Tel: +33 1 58 12 28 88
Le Claridge (Fraser Suites), 74, avenue des Champs-Elysées, Paris 75008. Tel: +33 1 44 13 33 33
La Coupole, 102, boulevard du Montparnasse, Paris 75014. Tel: +33 1 43 20 14 20 ( I have eaten here and it has a wonderful interior)
La Taverne Henri IV, 13, place du Pont Neuf, Paris 75001. Tel: +33 1 43 54 27 90

A First Class Post?

When I was courting (that dates me!) communications were made via the Royal Mail or the General Post Office telephone. The telephone was preferable as it was free if you knew how to "tap" the number. Letters were generally written in the evening after returning from work and deposited in the main post office (which is now a Wetherspoon's Pub) later that evening.The journey from small town in Bucks to larger town in South Devon was accomplished by the next morning - door-to-door.
Around 1pm today, Thursday, I received a letter in central Preston which had been posted in an Oxford suburb on Saturday. As it was important, a first class stamp was affixed. The stamp was not franked so I have no evidence with which to complain about the service. That's progress!