A Short History of Highgate Society’s French Circle
By Penny Sewell
For the occasion of the sixtieth anniversary of the HIGHGATE SOCIETY it is my pleasure to offer the following history of the French Circle. I consulted one of its founder-members, Ruth Hazeldine, and Elizabeth Woodman who led the “Cercle” from 1999 to 2014. To both ladies I owe very many thanks.
Ruth said that she used to attend the Institut français in South Kensington in order to improve her French. And having left, she had very little opportunity to continue to hear the French language spoken and to speak it. When she was at the Highgate Society one Saturday morning, she met a lady called Pamela Lowes, and she too had become quite fluent in French, and found it rather frustrating that she had very little opportunity to hear it spoken or to speak it. So they decided to get together, have tea, and speak to each other in French and share their knowledge and appreciation of the language and culture. This was in the late seventies, over forty-five years ago!
They then thought that there may be other local people who might also be interested in stimulating their interest in things French and approached the Chairman of the Highgate Society, who agreed to them booking 10a South Grove for a meeting. A notice was inserted in Buzz. For their first meeting four or five people attended for refreshments and chat in French, each paying three or four pounds to cover rent and cost of refreshments. This became a regular event, always emphasising that one did not have to be fluent in French to attend as everyone was in the same boat, searching at times for a word or a difficult sentence construction. Language problems were discussed sympathetically by the whole group.
They decided to embark on some play-reading. Edmond Rostand’s “Cyrano de Bergerac” was much enjoyed by all. However, there followed an interruption in the activities of the group due to Ruth’s young family needing her in the evenings and Pamela’s illness. A while passed, the new Chairman of the Highgate Society, Mat Schwitzer, was multilingual himself and actively encouraged the French Circle to restart, which it did, in 1988, with a dynamic French teacher from Highgate School, David Weight, in the driving seat.
Any such group depends entirely on who is around who is willing and able to organise it. In this regard we must pay huge tribute to Elizabeth Woodman. She is a retired French teacher who became the life and soul of the group, officially active from 1999 to 2014. She spent a great deal of time preparing activities for the little group of Francophiles, from quizzes to party games, talks and discussions. Her input was invaluable and soon numbers attending began to increase. The group was honoured that Mat Schwitzer would often attend meetings, a most erudite and sociable man. His wife, Joan, was also a pillar of the Highgate Society and became a strong friend of Ruth’s.
Ruth had another wonderful skill: she could cook. In December she would appear with a delicious “bûche de Noël” – a chocolate cake in the shape of a log which is traditional fare in France at Christmas-time. And to celebrate Epiphany – “la Fête des rois” she brought a home-made “gâteau de Pithivier” (two layers of flaky puff pastry filled with “frangipane”, a delicious almond and cream mixture). Into it would go a token, traditionally a hard bean, a “fève”, and the person who got the “fève” in his/her portion of cake was crowned King or Queen of the evening.
Ruth remembers that the most popular meetings were those that involved food! It could be a talk and discussion about a particular dish, it could be a fine cheese-tasting session, or a presentation, with samples, of the many different types of chocolate produced in France.
Elizabeth reminds us of Jonathan Whittley who never missed a Christmas appearance dressed as Saint Nicolas. Elizabeth designed his costume complete with snowy white beard and gleaming crozier. One particular Christmas, a gang of five young French lads sat high up on the cupboards at the back and heckled him. Jonathan’s wit and excellent French repartee soon sorted them out and a splendid evening ensued.
For the 25th anniversary (of the 1988 re-start) in 2013 Jonathan, dressed as Napoleon, marched in, to a rendition of “La Marseillaise” by our wonderful pianist, Margaret Lion.
Another anecdote that Elizabeth recounts was when Mat was talking to the French Circle about Slovakia and there was a technical hitch with the projector. When Mat resumed, there were mutterings and consternation in the audience. Only then was it realised that Mat had inadvertently switched languages to German!! He, the ultimate polyglot, duly switched back into French and all was well…
Publicity was, of course, key. Ruth started the tradition of putting up posters advertising our events, Elizabeth continued it, hand-drawing all posters which featured “Cédric” who wore a big black béret and a stripey jersey. Nowadays, on our posters we use printed pictures to advertise our meetings . We also announce these in online Buzz. And we have a big list of email addresses of people who have expressed interest in the French Circle, who receive information about events by email. It is perhaps an anomaly, but a welcome one, that anyone who attends the French Circle is not required to be a member of the Highgate Society.
These days, numbers attending have fallen somewhat, probably because there is so much else going on – we compete for people’s attention with many other attractive clubs and societies. To break even we need to have about ten people attending, below that, we are on dicey ground! Fortunately, a hard core of attendees is ever faithful!
Our main activities these days are discussions, illustrated talks, quizzes, singing carols and traditional French songs accompanied by the lovely Margaret, a professional pianist, the reading of love-texts for St Valentine’s day and even the occasional meeting about food with samples available to all! There have been many valiant volunteers over the years but at the moment the French Circle depends on Christine Knight, who is a London Blue Badge Guide, and was educated at the French lycée, speaks marvellous French and is a joy to listen to talking about music, art, cabaret… And me, who was for 35 years a member of the French Department at Birkbeck, University of London, and happy to keep the show on the road with the admin, programming, occasional contribution and trying to always furnish our noticeboard with interesting things to view and read. We are backed up by several marvellous supporters (salaams Peter and Chris), to whom great gratitude is owed.