My father – who visited us this week – passed through Basse-Normandie on two occasions during the second world war. The first time was fleeing the German advance that had cut off a route to the Dunkirk retreat in 1940. He was eventually ferried back to the UK in a Breton fishing boat.
The second time, he arrived at Arromanches two weeks after D-Day in 1944. He worked as an anaesthetist at the military hospital outside Bayeux and then set up a dental laboratory at the small seaside town of Langrune-sur-mer, just north-west of Caen.
The reason that the army needed a dentist so soon after D-Day is an interesting one. The combination of the rough seas of June 1944 and the fashion for young men to have false teeth meant that a lot of dentures ended up on the seabed. My father's laboratory was busy producing and fitting new dentures for the British troops.
So our trip to Langrune this week was an important family pilgrimage. During a previous visit in 1963 my father had failed to find the chalet where he had lived or the dental laboratory. But he felt in his bones that they were still there.
Whilst the rest of the family opted out of this wild goose chase, me and my 92 year-old dad trekked around the town. Taking the old church as a landmark, he narrowed down our search to the western edge of the town – still quite a large area.
Just as we were about to give up, my dad suggested we try just one more road, even though it was right on the boundary with the next town. As we turned down the small, unpaved road it looked like the old black and white pictures my father had taken in 1944.
About halfway down the road he spotted the chalet, still called “Marie Louise” and looking just like it had 65 years ago. It was a fabulous moment – not only had we succeeded in our quest, but it was very emotional for my father to reconnect with his past so concretely. And it was very moving for me to be there with him.
The dental laboratory was in the next street. It has been set up in a small workshop, which was now converted into a house. We had really hit the jackpot.
After living in Langrune for 3 months and looking after local people’s teeth as well as the soldiers', my father followed the advancing army to Belgium where he was based in Antwerp and Brugges.
Having a family connection to the events of 65 years ago probably helps to remind me of the history of this region of France. It is not a pleasant history. Even as the region was being liberated, thousands of civilians were killed in air-raids and ancient towns and cities were razed to the ground.
The Nazi occupation had divided the local people between those who resisted, those who collaborated and those who did neither. The memories of these divisions are deep and painful and the wounds still have not healed today.