Paris – je t’aime.

An illustrated journal of pleasure.

 

                                                               le Musee de Paris

Paris, the capital of France and celebrated throughout the western world as the “ City of Love” is also just as well known as the “City of Art” ,and as frequent visitors will no doubt agree there are many good reasons for both descriptions.  In the 18^th century the city was also referred to as the “City of Light” after the first street lights in Europe were installed on the rue Dauphine in 1763, but for me Paris will always be the world capital of style and beauty.

                                            In the Montmartre studio of Henri Landier

My first visit to Paris was also the first opportunity I had to leave behind the (imaginary) safety of the country I was born in.   It was the early spring of 1957, I was seventeen years old and had spent the best part of a whole year organising this trip based around a fictitious cultural journey around the museums and art galleries of Europe.   Sufficiently believable to persuade my father to lend us ( I took my thirteen year old brother with me ) his new Ford Anglia motor car I took off armed not with a list of museums  but a detailed map of the most direct route from Paris to the South of France.   The truth was that in a purloined copy of The News of the World taken from my father’s secret hiding place, I had read about a place called St Tropez, where dozens of beautiful girls lay on the beach wearing only the bottom halves of their tiny bikini swimsuits - and I was determined to find it.  

                                         A colourful display of fresh fruit and vegetables   

In those days ordinary people like us were only allowed to take £50 out of the country without further government approval, but that restriction didn’t bother us at all - as in any case we were only able to raise £80 between us.  Packed and ready to go, with a tent just about big enough for both of us and the bare minimum of everything else, we were soon off in my father’s brand new car – courtesy of the Ford Motor Company - who would probably have had a fit if they knew it was about to be chained down to the floor of an old converted Hercules transporter plane.  With a few shudders and roars we were off the runway at Southend Airport, up in the air in seconds and soaring over the English Channel.  About a noisy and bumpy hour or so later we landed at a small airport just south of Paris. 

                                                             Erotica for sale on the Left Bank

Our destination for the first night was a small camp site on the western outskirts of the city and it was an easy route to follow then , even though it took us right through the very centre of Paris .  The camp site was a pretty little place in a woodland setting right on the bank of the river Seine and nothing like any other we had been used to on our UK holidays, which usually consisted of a muddy field with practically no amenities except for a water tap and very basic toilet facilities.  

M. Rodin on the Right Bank

   
There was even a little cafe , where next morning we bought a delicious breakfast of warm croissants , a pot of rather sloppy jam and a huge cup of coffee each for next to nothing with some of the French money which we had already bought in England.  It was so nothing like we had ever experienced in England, where our usual breakfast since birth had been stodgy tasteless porridge for six days of the week and a boiled egg on Sundays.  We were even able to buy a huge bag of French fries – the kind of chips we had never seen before let alone taste, to take on the next stage of the journey.  Delicious !.

                                                           Filming in Montmartre
After a fantastic continental tour with lots of exciting and unforgettable experiences behind us , almost four weeks later we landed back in the UK with a few pennies over three shillings left in my pocket – about 30p in today’s money and just enough then to buy a gallon of petrol to get us back home.

                                                                  Les Abbesses.

Whatever the real purpose for our voyage  – and we did in fact manage to see nine different countries and one or two museums as well - it actually turned into a real eye opening journey of discovery, changing just about everything I had so far been led to believe about foreigners and their way of life – with immediate effect - and for the rest of my life too. 

Music on the Metro

We did find St Tropez of course and spent several days hiding at the back of the beach staring at the half naked girls,  then wandering around St Tropez itself doing roughly the same thing.  That was also an eye opener of another kind.  At some stage during our trip I said to my brother “ one day I will live in this wonderful country” – and one day I really did.    But not only did I fall in love with Paris, but ultimately with the whole of France , which over the passing years I have spent a good deal of my life visiting, writing about and photographing.  

                                                              Outside Moon City. Clichy

Seven years passed quickly by before my next visit to Paris and by then I was in my early twenties, with a wife and child.  By my mid twenties we had another child and I was running my own business with the freedom and money to do virtually what I wanted and I spent much of the early part of my married life experiencing all the things which were then only available to a limited section of society.  My business (a niche sector of the world of art and antiques) took me and my young, beautiful and glamorous wife all over the world, where together we discovered many and diverse pleasures of life, with Paris regularly on the menu.  

                                                        Fetish Club - Bvd Clichy

 

Later in that same decade I discovered much more about the South of France including an adult version of my previous schoolboy antics in St Tropez. Regular annual holidays with our children to a variety of places along the Riviera always included a stopover in Paris as well as some of the other main cities of the south.     My personal and business interests in the arts continued right throughout the 1970’ and 80’s requiring regular visits to Paris and European travel soon became an essential part of life. 

After my divorce, life with my new partner continued in much the same mode except that by then we had discovered a new and virtually unknown part of the South of France called the Languedoc, an amazing part of the world every bit as abundantly rewarding – if not more so - as anywhere else I had ever been.

I have lost count of my many visits to this wonderful country over the past fifty years – the last twentyfive in my second career as a photojournalist , but whatever the time of year or the length of my stay – a fleeting visit, long weekend or extended holiday this amazingly variable country, it’s capital and it’s people  never ever ceases to surprise .

Paris – je t’aime – the photo-book.

is intended to be a cross between a personal diary, a series of art and travel features , and just a little snippet of modern history.  Short, sweet and to the point and most importantly - with over 150 photographic illustrations from my personal archives - visually interesting as well as affordable to prospective readers I am trying to produce a new  genre of books  – a cross between modern technology and conventional publishing.   We shall just have to wait and see. 
Readers can see more pictures in this series on http://pinterest.com/markgolding/

m.g.   2013.