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My Grandmother

My grandmother was a heroine who received a Croix de Guerre from General
De Gaulle at the end of the Second World War.

She was a modest, loving, very maternal and deeply religious Breton peasant woman who spoke her native language resorting to French only when she had to. She was born Sophie Le Jeune so always joked that she’d never grow old because of her name, and lived most of her life in Kerhuon, a little village outside the centuries old naval port, Brest. The people at the time lived very simple lives. Their men were sailors, either, if they were young, in the French Navy, or if they’d retired, in the Merchant Navy. Older men became pecheurs who went onto the River Elorn in their little boats, catching sardines which would be fried for lunch - and oh! how delicious they were - and in the evenings, spent time the Café Tabac mulling over the affairs of the world. The women got up at dawn, and worked the shore line, picking shellfish, some of which they’d set aside for the table and some which they sold to local restaurants. Each little “ferm” would consist of a farmhouse, barn, vegetable garden, little orchard of delicious apples and pears. They kept chickens, and my grandmother had a grumpy white goat called Blanchette and a dog, Gerie. The women cleaned the house, did the washing in an outside wash house called a “dui”, fed the animals, prepared food and brought up the children. If they’d lived in the West of Scotland they’d have been called crofters.

When she was in her mid twenties her father informed her that he’d discussed marriage with Francois Le Borgne’s father and the next time he came home on leave they’d get married. She didn’t know Francois and when they met didn’t particularly like him, but she had no say in the matter and duly married him. She told my mother that they grew to love each other: Francois was very handsome but cantankerous. She was a spirited young woman and although she didn’t ever go into details about their “growing together” she did admit that it was easy at first because he was at sea most of the time!
They had 3 children, Anna, Blandine and Henri, my father. At the start of the war Anna owned a shop in Brest and her daughter, Claudee lived on the farm, Blandine lived nearby with her husband Georges and son Daniel. My father had just left Technical School, joined the navy and was stationed in North Africa.

Brest, being such a strategic port, came under immediate bombardment by the Germans. Before long they occupied the city and, well aware of the hostility of the locals, proceeded to stamp their authority on them. They knew, too, that most of the young lads had joined De Gaulle’s Free French forces and they were eager to elicit information about their whereabouts and movements. Nenene’s – the Breton word for grandmother – first contact with the Germans was when a troupe marched into the farm, shot her dog and threw its body into the well, an act of needless cruelty which outraged her but also poisoned the water supply to the house so she had to walk some distance into the village water pump to get fresh water.

The Germans commandeered most of the farm produce and coke supplies in the village, leaving the families with barely enough to eat and heat themselves in the winter. Nenene and the other women used to follow the lorry carrying off their coke, to pick up pieces which fell off - and the German soldiers fired at them. There was no mercy shown. If you visit the village today you will see in the walls many little crosses which mark places where people were shot as reprisals for the successes of the underground because, of course, in such a climate, there was a vigorous “Secret Army”.

The Bosch knew that my father was on The Rubis, one of three Free French submarines and when soldiers came into the farm to remove the produce, they’d threaten her, demanding to know where her son was. She denied all knowledge of his whereabouts. In actual fact, of course, she knew that his sub was stationed in the Scottish port of Dundee, that he’d met a Scottish girl whose mother was treating him as her own son and she was greatly comforted by this.

One morning there was great excitement in the village because during the night there had been dogfights in the air and two English airman had been shot down but had not been found by the Germans who were searching everywhere for them. Nenene did her day’s work then had a stroll round about to see if she could find them. She did. Using sign language to overcome the language barrier, she got them into the farm, fed them then hid them in the barn before getting in touch with the underground. They were pleased but told her that she had placed herself in a very dangerous position. She said she understood that. They asked her if she could hide the men for 24 hours to give them time to contact the British and get the men home. She agreed.

In the morning soldiers came to the farm and stomped everywhere. They confronted her and told her that if they discovered that she was hiding the men not only would she be sent off to a work camp her husband and grandchildren would be, too. It’s almost a cliché nowadays, but she’d hidden the men at the very back of a pile of straw in a corner of the barn and stood impassively watching as the soldiers, the one in command hurling abuse and threats at her, forked the hay.

My mother asked her how she felt when this was happening. She replied that she hated them so much that it drowned out all other thoughts. When they were eventually satisfied that the airmen were not on the farm, the soldiers left and Nenene breathed easily once again. As promised, late that night the Underground took the airmen and secreted them back to Britain. The men got home and some time later her contact gave her a letter of thanks from them.

Why had she done it? Why had she risked terrible punishment, the certainty that if she had been caught she and her family would have been sent to a concentration camp? She said that in a foreign country a foreign woman was looking after her son and she felt it right to look after two foreign lads in danger in her country. I believe it’s one of the finest expressions of “The Entente Cordiale” I’ve ever heard.

I wasn’t there, of course, to see her receive her medal but I can picture her standing in line: a simple country woman in her black dress and white lace coif receiving the Croix de Guerre from General De Gaulle and my heart swells with pride that she was my grandmother.

Contact Lovina@yourstory-biographies.co.uk or telephone 07721777243

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