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    Vendange1: Short Stories, #1
    Vendange1: Short Stories, #1
    Vendange1: Short Stories, #1
    Ebook81 pages1 hour

    Vendange1: Short Stories, #1

    By Ian Campbell

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    About this ebook

    Vendange is a collection of short stories about my time in the Haut-Medoc, France making the grape harvest during the years 1979-1986.

    It was a time of great change when the great chateaux stopped employing hundreds of itinerant workers to using modern harvesting machines. One chateau moved from employing 350 grape pickers in 1979 to 12 people in 1980. Only the top chateaux still pick by hand to maintain the quality of their wine.

    The experiences are moving, informative and funny.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherIan Campbell
    Release dateSep 12, 2016
    ISBN9781536515299
    Vendange1: Short Stories, #1
    Author

    Ian Campbell

    There was piece of advice that I had before I started writing and that was 'write what you know about'. My first Crime Thriller was about a reasonably young man being taken for a very expensive ride by his wife and he uses his skills learned in his former employment to commit fraud and recoup the money that it cost him. The necessary skills were those of a studio photographer, a printer and the operational side of Travellers Cheques. I had those skills and employed them in the novel. In the reviews of my book, it is the details of these processes that make the story real.

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      Book preview

      Vendange1 - Ian Campbell

      Preface

      As you will learn in these adventures I had in the Haut-Médoc, the cause was my interest in learning about wine. Of course, it wasn't the only reason. You see I hate holidays where you do nothing. I don't like the beach or the sun or the heat or lazing around doing nothing. I just find it boring. So, in 1979, having just sold my photographic studio I had decided it was time for a change and so the summer found me working as a waiter in an Italian restaurant for six months and after that I needed a holiday, but a working-type holiday. So, I visited my local library and discovered that the vineyards of Bordeaux employed seasonal workers for the annual grape harvest.

      The employment was overseen by the Bureau des Jeunes Agriculteurs who found me two jobs; one in the Haut-Médoc and the other on the Dordogne. Obviously I couldn't be in both places at the same time so I asked a new acquaintance if he was interested in a holiday. He was an actor with the Royal Shakespeare Company and married to 'Dot Cotton'. The rest, as they say is history, and the stories and anecdotes in this book are all true and I hope you will find them informative, interesting and quite often, amusing.

      Chapter One

      A la callarta!

      Although I was born just after the Second World War, it was 1979 before I took charge of my life. I had started work the day after I left school as an ‘apprentice’ learning photography in a local studio. That escapade took thirteen years to work its way through my system. Thirteen years in which I learnt the hard way that although I was good enough to earn a living from photography, it didn’t automatically follow. Other factors play a large part in your success. There followed a period when I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I toyed with the idea of becoming an HGV driver. It was a romantic notion; exploring the world from the truck-driver’s seat in a very large lorry, but the world was no longer as safe as it had been. Safety stopped at the borders of Europe and places further afield were just a little too risky. So while I pondered the few options that existed, I took a job as a waiter in a local Italian restaurant in sunny Folkestone on England’s south coast. Now this

      ––––––––

      wasn’t as strange as you might think because I already knew the people who owned the restaurant and the food was very good.

      My restaurant acquaintances needed a waiter and I needed somewhere to hang my hat so I worked from mid-day until closing, which could be mid-night or one o’clock in the morning. I had a room at the top of the building and breakfast, lunch and dinner with wine were included. I was in clover! Each morning, I would rise at seven and have a full-English breakfast, followed by a round of golf at the nearby sports centre; then back to the restaurant for a mid-day start after whatever was the ‘dish of the day’ for lunch.

      The proprietors of the restaurant were husband and wife and were a real pair of characters. How a typical Italian mama had ever attached herself to a captain in the Royal Engineers was beyond my imagination but they had probably met during the war. Franca was a lovely lady; generous to a fault but with the fiery temper of someone with Latin blood in her veins. Cooking was her life. Bill, on the other hand was typical of the British Officer class... reserved and aloof... at least until he was drunk. Now, considering he was invariably in that state by ten o‘clock every morning, it will help to give you the picture.

      The restaurant had the largest menu I had ever seen and Franca insisted in preparing everything fresh. Considering this involved baking her own bread every day, those of you who have done this will know how much time this takes. Once or twice a week, Franca also made lasagne which is a double cooking process... where you cook all the ingredients, then assemble the lasagne and then cook the whole dish in the oven. It is very labour intensive!

      There were three or four different steaks on the menu and five or six different sauces. Add to them ‘coteletta a la Milanese’, ‘veal cordon bleu’, ‘spaghetti Bolognese’ and something ‘al forno’ and you get the idea. It was a busy menu. Unfortunately, the more choice you give customers in the menu, the more difficult it is for them to make a choice. Believe me, I know!

      Into this mix, add the fact that our genial ‘mein host’, Bill was a dipsomaniac with a constant, uncontrollable lust for alcohol, which started when he got up and lasted throughout the day. One day, when we weren’t busy, I watched Bill take the order from a table of four. It included an order for wine. We decanted wine into half-litre carafes and served from the carafe at the table. So far, so good. Then, while  I watched,  I saw Bill   pass  through  the restaurant from the kitchen to the front door and as he passed the table he had just served, his hand shot out; picked up a customer’s glass of wine; drank the lot in one gulp and then replaced the empty glass on the table. He did this without hesitation; on the move and without missing a step! I could hardly believe what I had seen and neither could the customers. They laughed nervously among themselves,

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