How about a little entente cordiale?

IT SEEMS we Brits are not as appreciated in France as we might be nowadays. Motoring south down the Rhone valley last week towards the Spanish border, my son Shane witnessed three British motorists refused fuel at a petrol station ahead of him for the crime of being British. Their number plates gave them away and they were simply waved on.

He was motoring back from visiting his Polish parents-inlaw and was in a Polishregistered hired car. With his Polish plates he got his tank filled before it was recognised that he was British.

Apart from French aggression to us in the Channel fishing fleet, there were reports of Dutch stevedores confiscating the ham sandwiches of British lorry drivers – all part of the Brexit reaction.

Ironic because Holland marks Manna Day, which commemorates the days of 1945 when our RAF fighter pilots put their lives on the line (the Luftwaffe was still in the air) to drop food parcels to the starving Dutch.

■ ONE RECALLS a news item recently to the effect the Tower of London’s senior raven had gone missing. Tradition has it that if the Tower’s ravens ever vanish, the kingdom will fall. The Tower’s public enquiry phone line has fallen silent – another Covid victim. So has any Londoner seen a very large black bird looking lonely? If so ring the Daily Express. We’re still answering.

■ A MOVING story from a reader. Her husband was enthusiastic about this column and read it every Friday. Then he sustained a heart attack – on a Thursday. Without recovering consciousness he died a week later. Before the coffin was sealed she popped in the missing Friday edition of the Daily Express – and his reading glasses. A little something for the journey.