I was reading a new book which made mention of the regular announcements over the village P.A. system in French villages. The ubiquitous loudspeakers spread thoughout every village never seem to be used nowadays - except perhaps to play a little music on fete days.
Does anyone know the history of this mode of communication or live in a village where it is still used?
regards
geoff
We are too small for anything!!
:-) And that sums up the principal reason for being here :-)
I can't wait until 1900 hrs! The fact that our village (strongly communist, but one of the few remaining) keeps its time by the (hated) Church clock is a nice little piece of French history. Everybody's movements are strictly regulated by a sort of slow motion piece of theatre which takes place outside out town square windows every day. People walk their dogs at the same time, get their paper at the same time, have lunch at the same time, visit the boulangerie at the same time. At Midi moins 5 the square is often empty. At Midi 5 the place is rammed with white vans, tractors and lorries.
Similar in Montpon-Menesterol (or Montpon sur l'Isle, Montpont or just Montpon) - the PA system works only on Market Day and is totally inaudible. Something that *has* changed is that I am unaware of the A-bomb warming system which used to be tested every month. Haven't heard that for two or three years now!
Me too, David. Never wear a watch - but *our* church clock is always about 10 minutes late - and the "peel" is so erratic I always have pictures of someone even older than me having to climb the stairs to get to the bell whilst suffering greatly from chronic arthritis and consumption! But I find it quite comforting, really and my day too is regulated by it - 7am-ish get out in the garden, 12 noon-ish - time for lunch, 1400 -ish - get back to work - 1900 - get the gin out!!!
I think these things are the aspects of French village life which are amongst its greatest attractions. We too have church bells which ring on the hour and half hour. But at 8.00, 12.00 and 19.00 hrs we have a veritable cannonade. These, I presume, are the traditional Angelus bells (though the number of churchgoers in our own and neighbouring villages is tiny), which I guess in olden times were linked to telling the peasants out in the fields times for starting/stopping work.
I haven't worn a watch for about 8 years now as the village church bells ring with extra vigour at 7am, 12 (lunch and sharp with it) and 7pm. I do hear the others at hours and half hours but I usually "feel" the right time! If I'm gardening the shadow cast by the trellis obelisk in my parterre gives me the correct time as the whole garden is planned on the correct north south axis! Just how pretentious can one be?! Don't have a pool or a jacuzzi though!
We have such a system in Peyriac Minervois, and many of the neighbouring villages too. The mairie staff make announcements x2 a day, and yes they are prefaced with music of varying genres, and an announcement of Alo, Alo, followed by the meat of the announcement. The announcements are often unintelligible, because they reverberate off buildings, and the repeater speakers seem to be slightly out of sync, and they are all over the older part of the village. So I hear from the mairie itself and 2 different repeater speakers.
We also have a mairie bell which strikes on the hour (with the o'clock number of strikes) and one strike at the half hour, all through the night too.
I have always thought that this harks back to when people couldn't afford clocks/watches and when people might not have had the literacy skills they have now. But I might be wrong.
Nevertheless, I think its quite charming.
We have one of these systems in our village. It’s all very 'Allo, 'Allo: indeed, announcements are often prefaced in this way. However, whether they are intelligible or not tends to vary depending upon the announcer, the weather, the travaux going on in the background and the number of mopeds scooting through the streets. Derby Midland has nothing on it. We were promised a Laser Display Board (as per Haven’t a Clue??) before the new council discovered the commune’s reserves had been drained by the previous regime.
There's one such system in Ste Foy la Grande which chiefly broadcasts "music" on market day interspersed with announcements of activities/events which might be of interest to the tourist and the local populace. Fortunately the system is such that the "music" is almost impossible to hear and the announcers must have trained at Derby Midland Station in the 1960's as they are totally unintelligible. We have however got spanking new dot matrix publicity signs both in Ste Foy and Pineuilh which give us all sorts of useful information. I believe the maire has the required snare drum on which to beat out a summons to us peasants but whether or not anyone can play it remains a mystery.
We haven't got or ever had one- they use the bar tabac instead!