‘I was on the cusp of something’

Comedian, actor and author Helen Lederer on a coming-of-age canoeing trip through the Dordogne, France

It was the summer of 1973 and I’d just messed up my A-levels. I’d been planning to study English at uni, but a bad day on my exam meant I would have to change my plans. Back then, it was expected that you would do things in a linear order, everything at the right time. I was at a bit of a crossroads, still figuring out what to do instead, and working in an adventure playground. It was there that I met a boyfriend called Nicky, who I thought was incredibly sophisticated because he was a few years older and had been to the London School of Economics.

When he bought a second-hand canoe and suggested a month-long holiday paddling through the Dordogne, I said yes, despite the fact that neither of us had a penny to our name and I’d never been in a canoe in my life. It was a battered old canvas contraption with a wooden frame that dismantled and folded up into a rucksack. But we lugged it, along with a tent, on a ferry to France, taking it on the Metro in Paris, and somehow making it to the town of Argentat.

I was very pleased – and surprised – when it managed to stay afloat. Nicky paddled, while I sat in the front, steering the boat and listening out for when the water began to sound different as we approached rapids. I had no idea what I was doing but, somehow, we avoided capsizing.

In the evenings, we’d camp on the banks, stealing corn from the fields and cooking it with brown rice and carrots on our stove (I sound a bit like Theresa May running through her fields of wheat – I hadn’t realised how much we have in common). We didn’t need much else, apart from the odd baguette we bought in passing villages. As I had never been away from home for so long, I spent what little money I had on postcards to my family.

Nicky taught me that it is possible to have amazing experiences without spending masses of money. I’d grown up going on middle-class family holidays, skiing in the Alps, or summers in Austria, and not having cash even for a Pepsi changed the way I saw things.

I’ll never forget the feeling of being on the water and seeing the changing of the landscape all around us. We passed dark rocks and caves, then rolling fields and meadows, farmhouses and the odd chateau or tiny village. It was incredibly peaceful, without the sound of traffic and the humdrum I’d grown up with in the suburbs of London.

We got sunburnt, and washed in the river with cheap soap that never seemed to lather properly. At one point, we came across a dam, but we just heaved the canoe out of the water, walked around it and plopped it back in. In those days, people didn’t tell you what to do as much – we were just two enthusiasts on a river, and we were allowed to just get on with it.

Towards the end of the trip, the canoe was full of holes, but we would go to garages, get scraps of tyres and glue them in patches. Miraculously, it seemed to work.

Coming back to London, with all the noise and the chaos, was a real adjustment. The trip was, and still is, the longest holiday I’ve been on. I think if I’d just gone for a week or two, it wouldn’t have affected me as much, but four full weeks on the river really changed me. Something about being away from my family for a month was transformative, leaving the childish years behind me and looking towards the future.

That trip was the most natural coming of age, although I couldn’t know that at the time, of course. In retrospect, I was at a real threshold age, on the cusp of something. That age – 19 or 20 – is an exciting time, because you are becoming an adult but you don’t have a lot of experience to inform you about things or leave you cynical, meaning you can embrace everything with full force.

It was also one of my first relationships, and I was very much learning how to be a girlfriend. Somehow, we managed not to have any screaming rows, despite spending so much time together – although we ended up going our separate ways when I went to study sociology at Hatfield Polytechnic. It wasn’t the degree for me, but I did join the drama society.

No matter how many holidays I’ve been on, to exotic places or nice hotels, I always come back to that summer in my mind. There was something so perfect about the act of actually going somewhere, rather than just arriving for a week’s holiday. Every day, we had a purpose. Now, during lockdown, I think about that landscape and calm of the river, and I am transported.

Has Helen’s account of a trip to the Dordogne whetted the appetite for all things French? For more ideas, see telegraph. co.uk/tt-france

As told to Rosie Hopegood

Entry for Helen Lederer’s Comedy Women in Print awards open on April 12, with prize categories for both published and unpublished writers – comedywomeninprint.co.uk.

Overseas holidays are currently subject to restrictions. See Page 3.