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Writer's pictureJanette Davies Writer

PEGASUS BRIDGE, 'MADAME' and ME


Pegasus Bridge Café Gondrée as it looks today

A long time ago I went on a weekend visit to the Normandy Beaches.

We went by coach, crossed the channel at night, without getting any sleep, and then, early morning, began the tour.

It was a whistle stop trip to all the beaches and graves and if I am totally truthful, because we packed so much into such a short timescale, I don't remember a great many of the details, but I remember vividly Pegasus Bridge and the Café Gondrée.

Information from Wikipedia re: Pegasus Bridge:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pegasus_Bridge



Pegasus Bridge 1944

We had breakfast in Café Gondrée, owned by "Madame" Gondrée, which was situated near the end of the Bridge.


We all trouped in and sat down and were quickly served coffee and croissants by 'Madame' herself.

I can't quite remember how, but after we had finished eating all the men and most of the women wandered off outside to take photos of the Bridge, but, myself and another couple of women ended up in Madame's kitchen watching her making croissants (chocolate!). We sat at the kitchen table enraptured while she told us all about 'The Day'.

After she had popped the tray of croissants in the oven, she reached up to the long black shelf over the oven and took down framed photographs of Churchill, who was her hero, herself outside Buckingham Palace and her daughter, whom she said she was so pleased had married an Englishman. She literally had hundreds of photos propped all along the shelf, most of them connected in some way to 'the liberation' or The Queen and England.

A very special lady.


The Cafe as approached from the Bridge

More information about the Café Gondrée from Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caf%C3%A9_Gondr%C3%A9e


All photographs from Wikipedia

 

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