This is the story of my life so far: 68 years and counting.
Prequel: A Brief History of my Family in France
The story starts here
Previous episode: Part 48
Saint-Mandrier
Geneviève and I stayed for 10 months in Saint-Mandrier.
Aerial view of Saint-Mandrier
source
On weekdays, I would drive Geneviève to her high school in La Seyne-sur-Mer. She was 22 years old, which is 5 years older than all the other students. In the afternoon, either I would go get her in my car, or she would take the bus back to Saint-Mandrier. I was a student at the "École des Officiers Détecteurs" (School of Radar and Electronic Warfare Officers) at the CIN Saint-Mandrier.
Contrarily to most of my colleagues, I was more interested in technical stuff than in operations. In the French Navy, the radar officers (officiers détecteurs) are the ones that help the Commanding Officer of a ship to conduct naval operations. My comrades either did not like to study the technical stuff or were thinking that it was better for their naval career to not be known as too technical. My position was that to conduct successful operations, you need to have good equipment, so the technical aspect was at least as important.
During the weekends, we would visit various parts of the Côte d'Azur, known in English as the "French Riviera". For example, we went several times to Saint-Tropez during the spring when there are not too many tourists.
At this time, when you were an officer in the French armed forces, if you wanted to marry a foreigner, you had to ask for permission. So, I did ask for permission to marry Geneviève. She was interviewed by the gendarmes. They realized that she was not a spy and I got the requested permission.
However, as I knew that marrying Geneviève would greatly damage the relationship with my parents and part of my close family, I did not follow through.
At the end of the school year, in June 1975, Geneviève wrote the Baccalauréat, the exam at the end of high school in France and succeeded with an average mark of 12.5/20.
As for me, after the "École des Officiers Détecteurs", I was to become the computer officer for a new ship, first of its class, the Georges Leygues, that was being built in Brest. However, before moving to Brest, I was to be trained in Paris about the computers that were going to be installed on the ship. As the instruction was starting in January 1976, I would stay temporarily in the CIN Saint-Mandrier to be the boss of the "Cours des Électroniciens de la Marine".
During the summer of 1975, Geneviève moved to Paris and in September she started nursing school. And I stayed in Saint-Mandrier.
Continue to Part 50
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Summary
Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5 - Part 6 - Part 7
Part 8 - Part 9 - Part 10 Part 11 - Part 12 - Part 13 - Part 14
Part 15 - Part 16 - Part 17 - Part 18 - Part 19 - Part 20 - Part 21
Part 22 - Part 23 - Part 24 - Part 25 - Part 26 - Part 27 - Part 28
Part 29 - Part 30 - Part 31 - Part 32 - Part 33 - Part 34 - Part 35
Part 36 - Part 37 - Part 38 - Part 39 - Part 40 - Part 41 - Part 42
Part 43 - Part 44 - Part 45 - Part 46 - Part 47 - Part 48