大象传媒

In 1940 when France fell to the Germans, many members of the French forces heeded the call of General Charles de Gaulle to make their way to Britain to continue the struggle as part of the Free French Forces.

French submarines were instructed to make their way to British harbours, in particular to the submarine pens at Dundee in Scotland.

At this time my father-to-be Joseph Creton was serving on board the French submarine Le Rubis.

The submarine, badly damaged in an attack, fought its way from Toulon, entered the English Channel, and fought its way to the North Sea. Such was the damage that the submarine was unable to dive during what turned out to be a life-or-death struggle.

Le Rubis and its company made their way more-or-less intact the submarine pens at Dundee Harbour.

My father, Joseph Creton, a young man barely twenty, and speaking not a word of English used his first shore leave to visit the Palais de Danse, otherwise known as the Tay Palais, in Dundee, where he met my mother, a 16-year-old Scottish girl, by the name of Catherine Cameron, who spoke not a word of English.

They were married two weeks later.

When I questioned my mother how on earth this was possible, her reply was a gentle shrug of the shoulders and "It was the war."

Marriage was not that simple. My grandfather, James/Jock Cameron, from Lochee, Dundee, had served in the trenches of the First World War where he had been mustard-gasased and had several fingers blown off in a booby trap. These mishaps he laid entirely at the doors of the French for whom he had an abiding contempt.

How would my mother ever get his permission to marry a young, penniless Frenchman.

Ah, but there was a saving grace!

My garndfather was a cheerful alcoholic, and when my mother introduced my father, he arrived with a small crate of brandy, courtesy of the Rubis.

They were married the following Sunday, and legend has it my grandfather had no memory of giving his daughter away at all.

In 1943 my elder brother Joseph duly arrived, followed by myself, Paul, in 1945.

One wishes the story could end with 'happy ever after', but tragically my father contracted spinal meningitis and died in the same hospital, Dundee Royal Infirmary, an hour or so before I was born.

And what happened to Le Rubis?

In the early 50's, the submarine was decommissioned and deliberately sunk off the coast of Nice in the Mediterranean so serve as a wreck for the training of French divers.

Jacques Cousteau used Le Rubis to make the first film of torpedoes being fired underwater.

My father came from Grande Forte Phillipe, a fishing village/town around 10 miles north of Calais. many of his family served in both World Wars and many lost their lives.

My mother became a jute worker in Cox's Camperdown factory in Lochee, Dundee. Like so many young Dundee women who lost their men in the Second World War, she raised her children on jute, jam and journalism - I eventually became a reporter for D.C. Thomson's of Dundee.

Paul J. Creton
(Jean-Paul)

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