Kippers and croissants

The news that France requested a merger with England* in the 1950s seems to come as a surprise to many but it shouldn’t. We go back a long way, ever since William the Conqueror came over and invaded us with Normans. Granted, the period that followed was a little confusing, with bits of France belonging to England and vice-versa…but in 1338, Edward III of England decided that he was going to be the next king of France and so started the hundred years’ war.

We did pretty well for a while, massacring the French at the famous Battle of Agincourt (1415), for example and also at lesser known battles such as the Battle of the Herrings (1429) where the French were repelled by a convoy of English fish, headed for the besieged Orleans (nothing new there - even today, English food defeats them). Unfortunately, Joan of Arc started hearing voices and spoilt it all. The English – led by Sir John Talbot, 1st Earl of Shrewsbury – were finally defeated at the battle of Castillon, near Bordeaux, in 1453. Sir John Talbot was killed and his body brought back to Shropshire where his heart lies beneath the porch of St Alkmund’s church in my home tome of Whitchurch. Since then, the English and French have maintained a love-hate relationship: the English are still convinced that France should belong to them and the French think England is a nation of kipper-guzzling hooligans…

So. As I said, we go back a long way. And if the merger had transpired, who knows? Perhaps the English would have discovered how to make coffee and the French might have learnt how to laugh at themselves…

* I know, I know - I should say Britain but it just doesn't roll off my tongue like England does... which is strange, given that I'm half-Irish and half-Welsh...