4 Paris

During my spell at SHAPE in Paris, the only regular news letter to be published on site was American, smartly printed but confined largely to social events.  Something else, something more Parisian, seemed needed and, with a fellow British journalist. who was also in the RAF, I started planning Rond-Point - named after the carrefour halfway down the Champs-Elysees - which was to become, albeit briefly, a guide to what was happening in town.

Dick Burmingham (from Stroud in Gloucestershire) and I were to be co-editors, typing out reviews and previews within a sixteen-page format for production once a month. Squadron Leader Goldie, in charge of the SHAPE RAF unit, gave us his blessing with the proviso that we stood on nobody’s toes and did not shirk our normal duties. 

Major Dauphin, my American boss, agreed to let himself be called editor-in-chief so long as his appointment was merely nominal. He already had a Boy Scout publication to deal with, and he did not want to involve himself editorially with something as irrelevant to SHAPE as Rond-Point, which would probably turn out to be a piece of British artifartiness. His deputy, the rotund cigar-chewing Warrant Officer Parznik, agreed to lend a hand if wanted, 

But we were left essentially on our own, which was what we really wanted, and got down to writing the first issue, gaining permission to use SHAPE paper and equipment, and using roneo for an estimated circulation of five hundred. The publication, we were assured by the Americans, would be regarded as a SHAPE asset and we were encouraged to go ahead.

So, side by side smoking Gauloises in an empty office, Dick and I spent several nights assembling it, talking friends into becoming unpaid contributors. Though it was all, I suppose, a bit rough and ready, with no pictures to relieve the columns of typescript, it looked lively and a pre-publication copy, with contributions from film critics, drama critics, art critics, ballet critics and music critics (some of them simply noms de plume for me and Dick) won immediate admiration. 

The five hundred copies were duly run off, and we awaited response. It did not take long to come. The Americans liked it, the French (all of them English-speakers) smiled and said nothing, but officers of the British Army exploded.  That was our mistake. We had not consulted them, let alone sought their permission to publish, which was now instantly refused. A British major said he had himself been planning just such a publication for years, and ours would get in its way. 

Squadron Leader Goldie, ordered to stop us in our tracks. commiserated with us but had no choice. Dick and I duly destroyed the first edition, then went into town and had a good meal.  Whether we wrote about it or not, Paris was still there. As for Major Dauphin, he continued with his Boy Scout activities, relieved, no doubt, never to have become involved. Years later I received a letter from him in America, merrily describing himself as a silly old coot who was now learning to fly. It was nice of him to remember me. 

24 June 2014