The Early Years
My very early life remains much of a mystery to me. I am only able to roughly piece it together from documents and friends and relatives’ memories.
I was born Pierrick, in France in September 1958, in a military hospital near Paris. My parents, both in the French army never married and I remained in the sole care of my mother. To this day I have no first-hand knowledge of the circumstances that united my parents and then drove them apart. My biological father was simply never an active part of my life.
Late fifties, the French-Algeria conflict, I end up with my mother in the suburbs of Algiers when a Poliomyelitis (Polio) epidemic strikes. Like many I succumb to the virus, also as with many it will leave profound marks on my body and psyche.
Age 13-18 months and it’s back to France, an almost completely paralyzed baby and a desperate mother. The search for a cure, or at the very least treatment, leads to Brittany (a region in Western France) where there existed a hospital then specializing in Polio cases. Mum obtained a posting in a nearby army base and I started the long process of recovery. Again, I have no recollection of this period. I am told I spent some time in artificial respirators (iron lungs), I underwent painful tests, and of course lots of physiotherapy in order to regain as much muscular function as possible.
Eventually, after the virus had run through its course, I began to slowly regain some mobility. My life outside the confines of a hospital could resume.
A family discovered
First came a short transitional period where I was transferred into a convalescence home. And soon, around 4 years of age, I had recovered well enough to be discharged in my mum’s care.
Working for the military involves odd hours’ duties and mum had to find someone who was ready to not only baby sit me, but also who had what it took to take on a severely physically disabled child. One day this lady –Mrs A– appeared, and life took a decisive turn. It became apparent very soon that it didn’t make much sense for Mrs A to come to my mum’s place when mum could drive me to Mrs A’s place in the nearby village. That way Mrs A could also baby sit other infants, a private day-care system that still exists in France.
Mrs A was not just this lonely figure; she was married and had a son of her own, 7 years my senior. As months passed I spent more and more time in the care of Mrs A and her family. Where other children came and went, I had been adopted in, so to speak. In fact I now consider Mr A as my father, more so than my biological one. I immensely cherish the time I spent in this village, with the A family. I started my schooling there, in the old rural school. I witnessed the last days of a dying world. A world with no television, where entertainment consisted of evening games (palets or belote) at the local café and other various community events. A world where very few mod-coms existed: clothes were still being washed in the communal lavoir outside in the village square; a world where harvesting and threshing belonged to the village calendar; a world where my playground involved the village and the countryside around it. But more so, a world where I had found a home and a loving, caring family. Even after mum and I moved away I still came back to spend school holidays back in the village, back home. To this day the link remains.
There are also fond memories of holidays in northern Brittany, with my biological family on mum’s side. Mum had two sisters (one died) and a brother, and very happy moments were spent in the company of my cousins in the family house, and playing on the nearby beach. I cherish those times as they too played an important part in my life –then and now.
I was fortunate too to have known my biological father’s parents. While I remember meeting my father only twice in my life, his parents seem to have kept in relatively close contact with mum. The all too brief encounters left me with memories of being loved; I was their first grand-child, regardless of what had happened between my parents.
My Second Mentor
The time came for me to leave. Mum wanted me to follow the standard French education path, and although I could walk my physical condition meant that I would need a school accessible for wheelchairs, all ground-floor or with lifts. Now in France, mid-sixties, with schools historically operating from sometimes centuries-old buildings, locating one that offered both a standard education curriculum and access for physically disabled children would have been no mean feat. The search eventually led us to Versailles, south west of Paris. Mum was transferred to a local army bureau, bought an apartment a short walk away from Louis XIV’s famous palace. The school bus picked me up round the corner from the flat. We lived in Versailles for about 9 years, and during that time we moved once, I went to three different schools and underwent three operations on my lower legs and ankles.
While nothing much can be said of the first two schools I went to, the third one, in the person of the chaplain, was to provide a very important element in my early teen years: a mentor. Father L was a Roman Catholic priest, who through family and other connections was able to offer us young disabled youth’s rare opportunities. There were yearly holidays in the Pyrénées, in a house where we all lived in a camp-like/community environment. Thanks to Father L I learned essential values: taking initiative and taking responsibility for my actions, and going beyond self –and other– imposed limits.
With Father L I also encountered an enacted spiritual life, not one taught from the pulpit in a church, but one manifested in everyday life. A spiritual life based in service to others (mostly us disabled kids) and respectful of our own spiritual development, never imposing or coercing, always open for discussion.
But my longing for Brittany, for Mr and Mrs A’s village, and my insistence on returning there finally won out. Mum obtained a civil servant position in Vannes, and we moved back closer to my ‘home.’
Emancipation
As I grew into my teen years and beyond, I increasingly freed myself from mum and asserted myself –awkwardly at times– as a young adult. As the parental influence abated I started exploring more of my character traits.
One of those was travelling. And during this period I was fortunate to go to Israel, to the US twice, to Canada, several times to the UK and Germany. Somehow I realised then that I wasn’t going to live in France for very much longer. My eyes had been opened to new horizons, Brittany now seemed so small and France so provincial. And eventually on a September day I left France for the UK: the start of a 25-year world tour!
Another trait that grew to the forefront is my passion for electronics generally, and computers in particular. After the BAC I naturally chose to follow a university course in electronics. It soon became apparent that I had made the wrong choice and flunked the second year. Fortunately I had learned enough basics to get by in the job market. As it turned out the passion really started to blossom when the first ‘personal’ computers appeared on the shelves of high street shops. At which point I started working in the field, which I have never left since.
An interesting development also occurred: I abandoned my links to the Roman Catholic faith. I had already been ‘doubting’ for a few years but, for various reasons including my friendship with Father L, procrastination, etc, I had not faced the plain fact that my faith in the Church lacked sincerity and commitment. I finally stopped all pretence and simply discarded it, and for a long time it didn’t feel necessary for me to fill this gap. I lived, ‘convinced’ myself that rebirth was the answer to the after-life, and gradually adopted a hedonistic lifestyle.
Hedonism however wasn’t quite enough; I also wished to work, to ‘belong’ more fully to the society in which I lived. At this point my future in France involved two alternatives: go back to university and get a degree that could land me a job or live on a disability benefit. The travelling bug reared its head and the decision was made: let’s try my fortune in the UK. After all if the worse came to the worse I could always come back, and at least I would have learnt some English.
And there I went, autumn 1980, to the ferry port of St Malo, my car loaded with the few possessions I hadn’t left behind.
More later...