Next day my mother went to obtain milk from the cowherd, who ‘was asleep under a rock with his arm round his pet lamb who had its head on his shoulder’. The excitement grew briefly too much for Richard, who was sick at supper. Next morning, however, he proved right as rain, and after lunch went on a further fishing expedition with his father. In their absence my mother picked bowls of bilberries and raspberries for lunch.
The herd proved to be guardian of the sheep of the commune of Encamp. Patrick asked whether a hut could be found for them to sleep in. While the cowherd enquired with the Consul of Encamp, Patrick set off to buy food and change money in the town of Andorra. Meanwhile, as my mother wrote in her diary that evening, ‘R. & I did nothing but laze, & we played piquet.’ The journey to Encamp was pursued along very rough forest tracks, and the next day Patrick succumbed to a bad attack combining fever and diarrhoea, which proved to be dysentery. For several days he remained in acute distress, the pain eventually alleviated by the local remedy of boiled rice, together with Entero-Viaform pills obtained from an Andorran chemist.
Richard, who continued in rude health, went off fishing again, and on his return was ‘very cheerful, keeps roaring from his tent’. Before long they were installed in primitive beehive huts used by the shepherds of Encamp. ‘R’s hut: how he worked at clearing & levelling the floor. P. crept over to look at it: it looks dangerous about its roof, is exposed & draughty but very, very beautiful.’
On 19 August my mother left Patrick, who remained sick in their camp, and obtained a lift to Andorra from a pleasant Frenchman. Arrived in the sleepy capital, she enquired about buying a home in the principality, as a refuge from the turmoil of town life in Collioure. By chance it was to the Consul of Encamp that she was directed for information, having been given a paper explaining the law on foreigners owning land in Andorra, together with a letter of introduction. After one and a quarter hours’ walk, my mother arrived in Encamp. At the Consul’s house, nine of his assembled relatives read the letter in turn: ‘some aloud’. This protracted introduction concluded, the Consul himself read the paper and letter, murmuring benignly: ‘Benez, Madame’ – but could not be pressed to name a price.
A visit afterwards with Patrick to inspect a suitable site involved a hair-raising drive by an accommodating local up a mountainside. My mother, normally immune to vertigo, confessed that she had ‘never been more frightened in my life as when we swerved fast round corners that cambred away into 10000 feet of abyss, on the outside of the road’. ‘Vous n’avez pas peur, Madame?’ enquired their driver solicitously. Frustratingly, it proved necessary to postpone the elusive question of the proposed purchase until after their return home, and they returned to camp ‘depressed, to fold & carry up tents’.
The great holiday adventure was drawing to a close: ‘Felt very sad to leave Andorra.’ After erratic journeyings by bus, they picked up the delightful touristic yellow train (it still runs) offering spectacular views of the Pyrenees, until they arrived at the picturesque fortified town of Villefranche de Conflent, in the narrow defile of the Têt. Finally, late on the evening of 23 August they arrived in Collioure, by which time even Buddug was exhausted.
Next day there was great excitement, when a massive backlog of correspondence awaiting their return at the post office was retrieved to be studied over breakfast. It included a parcel of complimentary copies of Testimonies from the USA, together with ‘Wonderful reviews from N.Y. Times & N.Y. Herald Tribune, Harper’s Bazaar wanting short stories’. Spencer Curtis Brown wrote to report that requests for foreign rights to the novel were pouring in – from Italy, Germany, Norway.
Despite his continuing ill-health and exhaustion, Patrick plunged back into his neglected writing. The holiday had been a brilliant success – if dangerously expensive. There remained but 55,000 francs (about £50) in their account. Nevertheless, he and my mother had decided that Richard, being now fourteen, should receive a quarterly allowance to spend as he chose. ‘Yesterday P. told R. about his £52 a year: R. much impressed & so pleasant about it.’ Naturally he could have had little idea of the sacrifice involved. A week later my worried mother ‘Went to P[ort]. Vendres & paid tax. So depressed.’
During the remaining fortnight of the holiday, Richard spent his days swimming, playing tennis, watching the sardana danced in the square, attending divine service at the old church by the harbour, and revelling in my mother’s rich cooking. ‘Made enormous rice – moules & sèches & all. Mme Oliva made us an ailloli. Dear R. likes everything.’ He made friends with Odette’s young son Robert, and travelled one day to Perpignan to buy a new chain for Buddug; on another he went to Port Bou on a shopping exped ition with my mother: ‘pleasant morning’. Willy Mucha invited him to stay with them whenever he liked. He made friends on every side. There was work, too, for him and my mother. At dawn on 4 September they were invited to assist René Aloujes with his vendange. They toiled from 6 a.m. until 9, paused for a hefty breakfast until 10.30, and continued until noon: ‘R. worked very well. Grapes not very good. A very steep, difficult vigne to work.’
In the evenings after supper the three stayed up playing endless games of racing demon and ‘prawns’ eyes’, in the company of Buddug, Pussit, and a new member of the family: ‘Kitten comes in to play; a very good, clean kitten.’
Eventually, the sad day arrived for Richard’s departure on 7 September. He was given a lively send-off, loaded with exciting gifts. The garrulous Willy Mucha bustled up, bearing a dried flying fish as a parting token. Finally, ‘R. got 7 pm train, so sad P & I: the house is dreary.’
A few days later they were rewarded with a letter, bubbling over with enthusiasm:
Thank you very much for a wonderful holiday; the boys will not believe my experiences, especially the golden-eagles. What a good time we all had. Thank you so much.
Andorra was about the most marvellous country that I have ever been to. What fishing it was! What fun it was in the camp …
Very [sic] thing was in tact and whole when I got home: even to scorpion and flying-fish and mostofall my porron.[fn9] I have a huge collection now dominated by my banderilla. Every-body shrinks from the scorpion, believing it to be alive. My precious [Andorran] flag is now the envy of all the boys at school who are extremely jelous …
The whole form, one and all and dumbfounded when I produced the [clasp] knife.[fn10] One boy produced a ‘sharp knife’, he skinned his arm but did not cut hair, all he succeeded in was cutting himself.
In addition, Patrick had concealed a sophisticated fishing reel in his luggage at departure, which further excited his friends’ admiration. As Richard explained, this was ‘a pleasant and exciting surprise’, especially as ‘Finn and Atkins, both seized with fishing mania have reels, not of my superior type … I am very much envied in that way to.’
With the reticence characteristic of schoolboys in those distant unsentimental days, Richard omitted to report a distressing aspect of his otherwise triumphant return to Cardinal Vaughan School. As before, I am indebted to his friend Bob Broeder for this revealing account:
When we returned to school for the autumn term, our English teacher set us the task of writing a composition about what we did in the summer holidays. Most of us wrote the usual mundane contents but Richard wrote a masterpiece, describing his journey to the South of France and how he and his father met and spent some time