Postcards from Hennebont, France

In between my recent weddings I spent last week with Caroline and Corrina in Caro’s hometown of Hennebont in the northwest of France. It’s always great to be here – it’s where we married in September 2003 and the place is full of happy memories for both of us.

Photographs have a great power. They can bring back a memory of a person or a place. A couple of years after we married in November 2005 my Granny Sadie sadly passed away. Naturally, her big box of photographs and postcards stretching back 100 years came to me. As we sifted through it, wondering who half of the fancy people were, out popped a little postcard from Hennebont.

The postmark on the card was dated August 1986 and, unbeknownst to us, my Uncle Roy had actually travelled through France that summer. Of all the towns and villages he must have passed through he decided to send the family a series of postcards from little old Hennebont. In his typical humour all he wrote on the back was “C’est jolie ici”.

Roy lived in Whitley Bay in the northwest of England and days after he came back from France he welcomed my Granny Sadie and I who stayed with him for a couple of weeks. It was my first ever trip away from home and it was the first and last time I’d remembered meeting him. He was a tall man full of gentle humour and great care for his wife and daughter. Sadly he himself died suddenly of a heart attack just two weeks later.

Every time I’m in Hennebont I picture Roy walking along with his family and when I think of his postcard sometimes I think it’s like he sent it twice – once to my Granny and then years later, to Caroline and myself.

Here are some pictures of Hennebont – as you can see, it is indeed a pretty little place.