Let’s be honest, no one expected to hear Michel Durant break into song. Yet it was through music that the childhood memories of this former elementary school teacher, born in 1937 in Vichy, came rushing back. The retiree, however, had very carefully prepared for our meeting, scheduled for early July at his home in Gannat, a small town in the Allier region in central France where he lives with his family. The teacher had dug out photos and documents from his past, which he neatly arranged on the living room table so he could describe his summer of 1945, like hundreds of other children from Vichy emerging from the turmoil of war.
Suddenly, setting aside his notes and memos, a scout song popped into his head: “A ham from Mainz, it’s already off to a good start! We’re going to feast, at this banquet, nothing will be missing,” he cheerfully sang in one go. His voice carried us back 80 years to La Pierre-Follet, a rural property rented by the state-run Vichy Vacances organization, where children from the Allier region would go enjoy the fresh air of the Bourbonnais mountains near the spa town.
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