Touring in 1970 by car in France, or “going to the Continent” as the English said, was venturesome, no question, especially in a car with right-hand steering. Yet that was what I intended to do for three weeks during May with a fellow Jesuit. We headed off through south London towards Kent and Dover to the ferry on our first tour of France.

Our plan was to drive through Normandy towards the Loire Valley, then east along the Loire River into Burgundy, up through Alsace, westward into the Champagne country, to Paris and back to London. By any standard at the time, it was adventurous.

The car was old and well-worn but had never given me trouble. We had no concerns. My London friends did. To them, the “Continent” was a foreign place where hazards lurked. They warned about the lack of break-down assistance in France. A mild case of xenophobia, I thought. Whatever could go wrong?  Plenty, as it turned out.

Things went well for the first two days. On the third morning, as we entered a small village, no one was in sight, indeed no one ever seemed to be around these villages. Perhaps they were all indoors, behind the permanently shuttered windows.

Then the car unexpectedly quit. Hopelessly unmechanical, I felt helpless while my Jesuit colleague felt about the same. Fortunately he was fluently French-speaking. That turned out to be an immense help.

As I attempted to start the motor, a crowd gathered. So the village was not empty after all. Indeed, a throng of villagers were staring at the little English car with its odd right-hand steering. The village was an out-of-the way place, and in 1970, not many, if any English ever drove that way.

People were speaking in whispers while inspecting the car. Suddenly they went silent. A man had arrived, straight-backed and more than a bit self-assured. He was the mayor!

He examined the car carefully, made some unusual clicking noises with his tongue, and looked wise while my Jesuit colleague explained what had happened. Then he confidently announced to the silent crowd that the problem was the “dynamo”. Why? Because his daughter had had an English car and was forever having problems with the “dynamo”. I had no idea what he meant. Whatever was under the hood remained a mystery.

He ordered a small boy to fetch the local mechanic. In short order a beat-up Citroën deux chevaux puttered up, swung around, and out jumped a man holding a metre-length rod which he hooked to the two cars.

Off we trundled, a rather shaky procession of old cars to his garage. There he peered at the engine, pushed and pulled cables, made similar clicking noises as had the mayor, and indeed declared the problem was the “dynamo”.

My Jesuit colleague translated for me, but had difficulty. He didn’t know the technical words in either French or English. Somehow we got it all sorted out.

Now what? We had another three weeks of touring. Not to worry, the garage-man insisted. Just park on a slope. A Slope? If the car won’t start, he explained, it’ll roll until it does! He didn’t explain what to do if it stopped suddenly on a flat stretch, but we hadn’t asked.

A few days later in Gien in front of our little hotel by the Loire, the car went dead. The hotel manager assured us he would do, as he said, “All that is necessary”. We weren’t so sure. Yet, next morning as we ate breakfast, suddenly a very small man appeared by our table, grinning broadly. He would fix the car. He did, or at least got it started. The problem may not be the “dynamo”, he hinted, but in case, parking on a slope was a good idea!

Thus on we rolled, constantly searching for a “slope” whenever we stopped. Of course the car broke down several times, yet we always got it started, slope or not, and reached Paris and eventually London. Our albums are filled with photos of the car nose-downward on slopes!

Did it matter that the problem wasn’t the “dynamo”, but something else which I’ve long since forgotten? Not really. It didn’t spoil our holiday. Despite one London friend’s suspicious comment while looking at the photos, “The car always points downwards”, I never did tell my London friends about the mayor, dynamo or slopes.