5 – Saturday 3rd June

Lost errand boys

Today would see us running errands for various people.

We set off from Rouen, through some light rain, to meet up with Albert Figg. Our assigned mission was to pick up some of his books and take them to the museum at Saint Martin de Besaces.

  Albert was book signing at an event at the Overlord Museum. Unfortunately, Colin typed Colleville-Montgomery rather than Colleville Sur Mer into the Satnav.  So, we drove some 70 miles out of our way. When we arrived at Colleville-Montgomery we realised our error. So, we decided to take the opportunity to go down by the beach.

 

 

 

 

 

 

In due course we set off  again to meet up with Albert and Annette- bombing down the motorway (in the modern rather than wartime sense). After stopping off for a quick snack, we arrived at the Overlord museum  as arranged, if a little later than advertised. This was first of what was to be three Normandy Museums that day.

As we looked around the outer tents we bumped into Gilles Osmont, the president of the Hill 112 Association. Though he denied it, he was being soundly beaten in a table top “Bolt Action” war game run by French representatives of Warlord Games.

There was also a fantastic display of dioramas featuring 12-inch high “Action Man” action figures (G.I Joe in America) in models of the relevant vehicles.

Picking up some scrap metal

Having collected the books from Albert we left the museum. We went to visit and touch base with Dominique Bidart at his home near Hill 112. Dominique showed us some of his research as well as some of  the World War II items that he has found in the area. He proved to be in a generous mood and, after our chat with him, we came away with a piece of a 4.2 inch Allied mortar shell, destined for Colin’s wargaming building, and several other small items. Dominique also offered Colin a Panzerfaust tube. Unfortunately Colin had to decline the offer of what would have been a fantastic addition to his wargaming and military history building. We could not take it through UK and French Customs, given the current heightened security levels. Especially as the propellant charge was still in the tube!

At the “Bluecoat” Normandy museum

On leaving Dominique we planned to head directly down to the museum at San Martin des Besaces (the second of the three Normandy Museums in the day) in order to hand over Albert’s books. We were also dropping off some books for David Mabbutt. These were copies of “The Search for Sidney” – the search for the exact location where Sidney Bates won his VC during the Normandy campaign. Unfortunately we missed the turning off the motorway (French motorways don’t appear to be well signposted!). We ended up travelling through a series of side streets with Colin getting more and more frustrated. Eventually we got back onto the motorway and made our way to St Martin. Where we met Mark Kentell, the new President of the museum.

We felt a little embarrassed about arriving much later than planned but Mark was quite relaxed about it. He told us that as he waited for us, four visitors turned up and paid the entrance fee. Normally the museum would have been closed and those fees not taken.

Having handed over the books, we went for a beer with Mark (you would expect nothing else!). We chatted about his plans for the Museum and strategies for increasing visitor numbers – all of which sounded good.

Pizzas and Bren Carriers

We then headed to our accommodation at St Pierre, a little village across the river from the town of Tilly sur Seulles. On the way Colin telephoned our friend Stéphane Jacquet who told us he was in the local bar with some owners of restored military vehicles (they had a Bren Carrier and a Daimler Dingo Scout car). He said as soon as we had dumped our bags to come down for a beer – which we did (surprise!).  Following the beer, Stéphane bought everyone pizzas which we ate outside of the museum in Tilly sur Seulles (our third and final Normandy Museum that day). The Museum was already set up for the following day’s Book Fair.

We then made our way back to our accommodation and had a relatively early night.