Cole D’Azur Tour: Gisborne Folk Get Together At Mentone

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 22824, 20 December 1948, Page 4

Cole D’Azur Tour: Gisborne Folk Get Together At Mentone

Many older residents of Gisborne will find particular interest in an encounter , which a young lady from the district, now working in London, relates in a recent letter to her parents on the incidents of a journey through France to the Cote d'Azur.

The effective part of the journey, as a holiday, began at Nice, where the Gisborne girl, Miss Joyce Armstrong, alighted with her friend from the crosscountry coach in which they had travelled from Paris Bound for Mentone. they had to take advantage of a local bus service for a journey of about an hour along the Mediterranean coastline, passing through Monte Carlo en route.

This part of their journey was made after nightfall and consequently they did not see much of the vaunted beauty of the Riviera. The bus was crowded for the first part of the trip, but at Monte Carlo a number of people alighted, leaving some elbow-room for those who remained.

“We had not gone far past that point when a very excited elderly lady moved up to the seat alongside us and opened a conversation. She had seen our luggage with the Rangitata labels and had asked the bus condluctor to identify the owners." Miss Armstrong writes. "It turned out that she was a New Zealander who had lived in France for 25 years, except for the war period. “You can imagine how excited sha was to see us and how much more interested to hear that I came from Gisborne —since she had been born there. We found that she was Miss Dorothy Pollen, a daughter of the late Dr and Mrs. Pollen, who at one time lived in Gisborne and were very well known there.

“Loveliest Spot on the Riviera”

“Miss Pollen lived about 10 minutes by bus from Mentone, in the loveliest snot on the Riviera, we found later and she invited us to go and visit her. Two days later we followed up her invitation and found her living in the loveliest house overlooking- the sea, high on the hillside but at road level. Wa had tea with her on the porch, which is covered by a huge vine laden with grapes, which we ate freely. “She proved a very gracious hostess and vei-y interesting in conversation. She talked of the people she formerly knew in Gisborne and with' some of whom she still corresponds and also of how she came to live in France. It was a lovely visit and we parted with mutual regret.”

At a later stage in their visit to the South of France Miss Armstrong and her companion accompanied Miss Pollen on a visit to the casino on the island of Monaco. Their new-found friend was well acquainted witb-the casino and its regulations and showed them its more impressive features. From the “kitchen,” where small ■ gamblers congregate, she escorted them to the inner room where high stakes are the rule.

In the kitchen the lowest betting chip has a value of 50 francs—equivalent to about Is 3d sterling—and the two New Zealand girls had a mild flutter at slight expense before visiting the inner room where the stakes were beyond their level. They found roulette a most fascinating game, but concluded that it was not for tourists with only moderate means.

“The inner room certainly opened our eyes, for there were huge piles of chips on the tables and even if the people remembered what they had bet on I was astonished that the croupiers could,” Miss Armstrong states. “They are the most amazing men, who see everything although they appear to be taking no notice There is rarely a dispute. Miss Pollen explained who was who among various prominent customers of the tables; and we found that most of them were regulars who lived in or about Monte Carlo, while there were quite a few English people there. Later, after seeing the whole of the Mediterranean Coast between Cannes and San Remo we agreed that Miss Pollen still lived in the nicest spot.” Day Trip to San Remo

An interlude in the New Zealand girls’ tour took them across the FrancoItalian border to San Remo, where they found the atmosphere reminiscent of the time they both spent with the New Zealand forces in Italy. They made a day trip of It and found bathing on San Remo’s beach most attractive; but a personal contact made late in the day was what remained most warmly in their memory. “On our way back to the bus, Ruth wished to post a letter from San Remo, but as we had no lire we were in a fix at the post office,” the letter states. “A nice Italian woman came to our assistance and took us down the road to meet her husband, who gave Ruth the necessary lire in exchange for francs.

“We had a drink in a cafe with them, and in spite of the fact that they could not speak English and we could not speak Italian, we all had quite a conversation. They really were a most charming pair, and had a sweet little girl—who probably wondered what in heaven was going on!” Of Miss Armstrong’s further experiences on tour, one of the most striking was a visit to the church of Notre Dame, in Paris. There she and her companion were entranced with the beauty of the church interior, lit by wonderful stained-glass windows, and watched with interest a French wedding. The bride was lovely, but the little flowergirl ran down the church crying and thereby spoiled the effect rather noticeably. “We were pleased to find in this church a memorial to the Australian and New Zealand soldiers of the 191418 war—something rather unexpected and touching,” was one of the Gisborne girl’s notes on Notre Dame.