Living in the South of France in a Naturist Camping, I saw an advert for Club Nature so applied and lo and behold got a job for Club Med in the Corsican resort of Cargèse. Didn't know at first that it wasn't a naturist resort! The guests did seem a trifle overdressed....... Anyway was soon put right the first night as to what a GO was, as being told to come for dinner in white I turned up wearing a white shirt and nothing else. Well, this initiation to Club Med was a continuing saga of the usual lack of communication that continued throughout my career.

Christian Joujon was the Chief of the Village and Florence Merignieux was the "Responsable Planning", who I am still in touch with to this day.

The highlight of this season was undoubtedly the last Night, when the locals were invited to the closing celebrations.The CRS misteriously disappeared, and it was only when some of the locals ran out of beads that we discovered why. One local poked a revolver up the nose of the Chief of Bar, "the bar is free now isn't it" or words to that effect. The Chief of Bar rolled down the shutters and then all hell broke loose like a fight in a Western Bar. The queue to the Nurse afterwards was like Harrods on Sale Day.

Back to Index

Cargèse, Corsica

However having survived the wrath of the Corsicans, I returned to Paris the next day, and was told to go home as there wasn't another season to be had. I got a job shifting mattresses in London at Heal's Department store. I was at work when I got the phone call that I was off to the Bahamas and the Resort on Eleuthera.Of course I chucked the job in and went to Miami via Paris, staying the night and picking up a new camera at "David's", a downtown Warehouse. A Flight to Nassau and a night at Paradise Island before transferring by small plane to Eleuthera the next day.

Amal was Chief of Village, and Christine Ducruez was my boss. Also amongst the team were Pierre Ruffaldi, Denis Amsellem, Carlos Castro, Freddy Leroux, Michel Verdure and Barry Cripsey.

Eleuthera was a beautiful spot, with a pink coral sand beach and near to Governor's Harbour, a delightful, small and typically Bahamian Village. The seaon was a great season with some amazing shows amongst which was "Barnum and Bailey", "Dream Girls" and "One". Was great friends there with Debbie Longdon (later Grandidier) who hailed from Maleny, near Brisbane.

Back to Index

Atlantic Beach at Eleuthera

The Church at Governor's Harbour

Arziv and the Phoenician village, looking North towards Lebanon

To much amusement to all in Eleuthera, Paris proposed to me that I go to Northen Israel for the summer season. I was quite happy to go despite there being a war on just over the border in Lebanon, with the Israelis engaged in "Operation Galilee". The Americans and the French were also involved, in fact you could hear the American Warships shelling the Shouf Mountains from their ships off of Beirut. In the village we had an armed jeep and security and barbed wire down the beach in to the sea. At night, spotlights would be permanently scanning the dark ocean guarding against surprise Palestinian boat attacks. Naharya is the most bombed town of Northern Israel and of course was our neighbouring town. Every morning we would be woken up by the train going North, which ran through the village, and then by the fighter jets and helicopters screaming over us Northbound at low altitude. Very peaceful.

Shalom......., However it was fascinating as the Israelis partied their arses off. As they said to me "today we party because tomorrow we may die!". Often the husbands would come back from the front in Beirut, direct to meet their family on holiday at Arziv. We stocked their machine guns etc. in the Bank with a small luggage label on them.Very reassuring as a deposit.

Here in the village, with an ineffective Guy L'Enfant as Chief of Village, I was especially friends with Wendy Kay, from Sydney, and Linda Quinn from Vancouver (born in Newcastle,UK). Managed to get around the country pretty well, as well as going to Jaffa and Tel Aviv Airport every fortnight, I visited the Sea of Galillee, Jerusalem, the Dead Sea and Bethlehem. To visit the West Bank makes you much more pro Palestinian, in their quest for their own homeland. The Israelis can easily withdraw to their pre-1967 borders. "Bref" had many interesting conversations on politics with Israelis, whom in Arziv I found to be open, fun and committed but not at all bigoted. No orthodox thinking people would venture any where near a Club Med!

At the end of the season we heard that the border was open between Israel and Egypt, so off we went (Wendy Linda and I) by bus from Tel Aviv to Cairo, Louxor and Hurgada. The Pyramids, Valley of the Kings and Queens and the Red Sea. Three weeks of eye opening amazement.

Back to Index