The Girl on the Versailles Bus

Charles Clunas

The date was Wednesday 13 July 1949 and the place was Paris, an exciting and mind-blowing place for me, very much the gangling youth, twenty three years old and as green as grass about the world outside the West of Scotland. I was one of the forty or so British tourists on a heavily organised group holiday which was the only kind of holiday to France or anywhere else abroad the money-strapped British government of the day would allow that year.

The night before, at the dance/social the tour company had laid on for us, I had met up with the Aberdeen Three - a dynamic couple in their early forties and a tall willowy girl of about my own age they were obviously chaperoning on this exotic visit. (That all made sense sixty years ago.) And the reason that I did meet up with them was that they were the only other Scots on the trip and I did not know the etiquette of forcing myself into others' conversations, especially if they were English for goodness sake. The young lady was very quiet as I remember it, but we made desultory small talk as we tried to cope with my limited knowledge of the quickstep for one or two circles of the floor, for the look of the thing, as you might say. The four of us chatted too about the next day's excitement- a bus trip to the former Royal Palace at Versailles. Wow!

When I mounted the steps up onto the bus next morning there were the Aberdeen Three and Caloo Callay the seat beside The Girl was vacant. Greetings all round, we settled down and were on our way. To tell the truth I don't remember much about the leafy suburbs and no doubt charming countryside. I know it was a long time ago now, but if you had asked me a month afterwards I still would not have known how to answer. For after some chatty sort of light badinage I found myself just opening up about my personal agonising. You see I was to some extent a refugee from my own angst. I had being going steady for some time with this nice attractive girl, the drama being that as things stood back home, Fate was remorselessly edging me towards a permanent commitment and marriage. But SHE WAS NOT THE GIRL FOR ME. Something had to be done but I couldn't find the right key. Why did I find myself telling The Girl all about this inner agonising? To be sure she was as near as could be a stranger and wouldn't go talking about my story behind my back, and even if she did would never meet the people concerned. Anyway, here was an intelligent person who could clearly understand my feelings. And then- SNAP! I was getting back confidences which were the mirror images of mine. He was kind, generous, good looking and so on and so on but she knew HE WAS NOT THE MAN FOR HER.

We saw in each other's eyes the question, "What's to be done?" I don't know about The Girl but I was closed off to the world about me. And here I was, sitting next to the first person I was really able to open up to, and whose feelings in turn I was able to explore. My life was getting better all of a sudden. Versailles Palace, the journey back, tourist Paris, all faded by and large soon after. But I have to tell you that even yet Saturday's communal breakfast stays very real.

I definitely must not lose contact with The Girl- that was crystal clear to me. It was not particularly logical I suppose but I was quite clear in myself. I managed to exchange names and addresses more or less at the last moment before our separate buses took us off to the Gard du Nord and the journey to the boat home. I didn't even know The Girl's name till then and got the first name wrong anyway.

Never mind. Once we were home, albeit at opposite ends of Scotland, we wrote and phoned and phoned and wrote and then I knew I had to put my career where my heart was. Which explains why I have been in Aberdeen living happily ever after since 1951, I am very happy to report. Our diamond wedding will be on us in less than three years.

If you ever get to Aberdeen yourself you may even see me, a chap in his eighties, strolling blithely down Union Street arm in arm with the girl from the Versailles bus.