Memories Lurking in Your Attic

A few weeks ago I found myself searching the attic in my house for an old suitcase. I am not sure why.

As I looked around, my torch flickered and I stumbled over a box of old 78 RPM records. I sat amongst them as I screwed the head of the torch back on and ‘made light’. My next few minutes were taken up looking at the titles and the singers as my mind drifted back to a bye gone era of music.

My reverie was rudely interrupted by a voice from somewhere below, ‘Have you found it yet?’

I was about to say, ‘Found What?’ But my self preservation mode intervened and I replied, ‘Not yet’.

It was as I swung the torch further round and pulled back some cobwebs that I saw them. A Gordon’s Gin bottle and an old brown beer bottle.

gordon’s gin, 1938 to 1941 label

I crawled over, sat on an old pair of curtains, neatly folded on the floor and picked up the bottles.

My memory peregrinated back to a summer holiday about a quarter of a century ago, in the Normandy town of Blay. A pleasant French hamlet nestling in the mixed woodlands, pasture lands and hedgerows of that area, situated a few miles west of Bayeux ( famous for a tapestry that is actually a narrative embroidery ) and a short distance south from the second World War ‘D’ Day landing beaches of Omaha and Gold.

Let me first transport you back to these fateful days immediately after ‘D’ Day, June 6, 1944.

As the Allied forces, the 21st Army Group, led by General Montgomery, made their way inland from the Normandy beaches they were met by heavy German resistance and slowed down by the difficult ‘bocage’ landscape and formidable hedgerows.

‘bocage’ hedgerow at Blay

On June 9, the village of Blay in Calvados, was liberated by U S Infantry Divisions, led by Major General Clarence R. Huebner, as they routed the then occupiers, the German, Grenadier-Regiment 916 (352. Infantry-Division).

June 23 saw General Bernard Montgomery arrive at Blay and install his command post on the outskirts of the town, occupying it until the August 3, 1944. It was there on July 26, he and General Eisenhower met and discussed their next moves to save France and defeat Germany.

Our tale now moves to the late 1990’s, about half a century or so after these days.

My holiday residence was a seventeenth century farm house, less than one hundred yards from the site of the 21st Army Group command post and camp.

the 17th century farmhouse with loft hatch at peak of gable

My host assured me that during these war days, his house was occupied by Senior Allied Army Officers. I have no documentary proof of that, other than his word and something else. Given the choice between sleeping under canvass or in a substantial building, and being a senior officer, what would most of you choose? I rest my case.

It was whilst exploring the old farmhouse that I made the perilous ascent of old creaking timber stairs into the topmost loft, (see image) where a small hatch gave access to outside.

The loft, or attic, if you prefer, had a grit covered floor and it looked like nobody had visited it for years. Lying about were several of what I took to be long leather, draft horse, harnesses.

In one corner, furthest from the hatch, was a large pile of broken glass bottles, all brown in colour. They were well covered by dust and cobwebs. Whilst searching amongst the broken glass and other detritus, I eventually found an unbroken beer bottle, brown in colour and an unbroken Gordons Gin Bottle, complete with metal stopper and label. I rescued both.

My host said he had never been up there for years and that he was of the opinion the broken glass had most likely lain there since the war. He kindly allowed me to keep my treasure.

A few years later I carried out enquiry with the Gordon’s and Tanqueray Archive. They assured me that the label on that bottle was genuine and had been introduced in 1938 and was not altered again until 1941. In their opinion, it was highly likely it would have been shipped over in 1944 rather than later.

They added the following comment;

With that information and given the location it was found, a seventeenth century farm house adjacent to the Allied HQ at Blay in Normandy, where Montgomery and the other Allied senior officers were based while they planned and orchestrated the war in Europe, it is reasonable to conclude that the Gin Bottle, and in particular its contents, may well have been part of their ‘thinking’ liquid and therefore most likely did belonged to one of these officers.

I have to add, it is my understanding that Monty was teetotal.

Oh, coming across the bottles in my attic completely took my ‘eye off the ball’, and I forget why I had been sent up there in the first place.