We take a look back at our driving holiday to the south of France in 1965 and compare it to the same trip in 2009. The distance from Calais to Nice is about 1228 KM, or 767 miles according to my 2009 Michelin Map.

Once upon a time, many, many years ago in the summer of 1965, I set off with three other 18 year old lads on what then amounted to the motoring holiday of a lifetime, an adventure which most 18 year olds would laugh at nowadays but which was then something quite intrepid.

In fact, motoring down to the south of France in a tiny little Hillman Imp was looked upon as being pretty much akin to going down the Amazon in a dugout canoe with only paddles for propulsion, but for those who don’t go back that far, the early 1960’s were times before package holidays took off, literally I mean, and people tended to take holidays in seaside resort B&B’s here in the UK.

Of course we could entitle this article "Vive la difference" because it is so much different now, in so many ways. The distance remains the same of course but that’s about all, so allow me to transport you back in time to the summer of 1965 when we four lads had just finished our "A" levels and were intent on having a fun holiday before starting university in the Autumn.

We had somehow managed to "persuade" my mother to lend us her cherished and nearly new Hillman Imp for a few weeks, though in reality we basically sucked up to her shamelessly until she finally caved in and gave us her blessing – after having made certain that her little car was insured up to the hilt, of course.

The Hillman Imp, which was introduced to compete with the Mini isn’t made anymore, but it was a nice little car with an 875 cc rear mounted engine and the luggage space (what there was of it) at the front. It was designed to seat 4 smallish people for short journeys rather than 4 strapping six foot lads with tents and copious amounts of other luggage, some of which was left behind for the return trip.

In those days we were all based in Bakewell, in the heart of Derbyshire and the Peak District National Park, but we will cut to the chase, save to say that our trip to Dover, about 245 miles was thankfully without incident, and we made it to the port in one piece.

The ferry crossing from Dover to Calais had been gruesome by any standards, and looking back, that may have been one very good reason why very few Brits took their cars to France! I remember it was crowded and full of people being ill all over the place, and it was sometime during that journey which made me wish that sea sickness was a terminal illness! We discussed it later and all came to the conclusion that it was far worse than being on the fairground Waltzer after consuming 3 large hot dogs and copious amounts of beer, and as I write I can still feel the motion of that dreadful boat coming back to haunt me.

Calais, when we finally arrived, was but a smallish town 45 years ago, and we were staying in an hotel for the first night courtesy of my dear old dad, bless him. Now it large and sprawling and is the busiest passenger port in Europe.

Bright and early the next morning saw us meandering through Calais amid a host of cyclists going to work, hundreds and hundreds of them, and it struck us then that the poverty caused by WW11 was very apparent in France 20 years after it had ended. All the cars seemed to be tiny little beaten up Citroens or Renaults and the vans were mostly three wheelers with bad paint jobs. In comparison, our well overloaded Hillman Imp was King of the Road.

Just as there were no motorways in England there were no autoroutes if France, and even dual carriageways were as rare as hen’s teeth, but traffic was light which enabled us to set a cracking pace, and we found that most of the lorry traffic was trying to get past us rather than the other way round!

We had all been born just after WW2, and even though we had been told about the horrors, read plenty about as we also had with WW1, nothing prepared us for the sight that met our eyes that first morning.

You see, as you travel south in France you pass quite a few of the WW1 and WW2 battlegrounds, and by the sides of the road are so many thousands of white crosses it is impossible to count.

The modern roads in France mainly bypass towns and cities, but in 1965 there were no bypasses, and you simply drove straight through them. Places like St Omer where the famous lager is made, Bethune, Arras, Cambrai and St Quentin. There were well tended graveyards all the way by the roadside. We stopped for a while to reflect because each one of our families has lost someone in those terrible times.

My opinion, for what it is worth, is that all young people should be made to visit these places, to see the thousands of crosses, each one representing someone’s son who died to make our country safe. That may just demonstrate to them the folly of war.

Most drivers of our generation were unaware of the wonders of motorways in England and autoroutes in France (because they didn’t exist), but we had now and again come into contact with cobbled streets – not often I must say, but we certainly knew of their existence.

What we didn’t realise that virtually ever darn town and village in France had cobbled streets, and we concluded that if we had had fillings in our teeth they would have been jolted out by the time we got to Reims, the centre of the French Champagne trade. We stopped and had a mooch round Reims but it really wasn’t the most interesting place so we moved on briskly.

By this time, being young, male and completely stupid, we decided to do just what young and completely stupid males do, namely, drive through the night, stopping only for fuel and toilet breaks. Does that sound daft to you? It does to me all these years later, and I wouldn’t even give it consideration today, even though virtually the whole route is via excellent and uncluttered autoroutes now.

Ever onwards we drove south to Chaumont and then on to Dijon, the home of the famous mustard. Grenoble beckoned next, just as it was getting light, so we stopped there and had breakfast at a café which catered for early risers going to work.

To cut a long story short, our journey was supposed to end at Cannes but we found it rather busy and extremely expensive, so we pottered off down the coast road in the direction of St Tropez until we came to St Raphael which we took an instant liking to.

Now if you have been to St Raphael in the last few years, or Frejus which is virtually next door, then you will know full well that it is (they are) big and bustling places, busy and full of tourists doing whatever tourists do. Both places are now host to some terribly expensive shops too.

But in 1965? You guessed it! They were both little more than dusty little villages with a few small shops and a couple of camping sites near the beach. Of course that suited us down to the ground, so we arranged to pitch 2 tents for the night and promptly went to sleep until next morning – about 18 hours if memory serves me right. So, there was little to no point in having driven through the previous night anyway!

Needless to say we had a fantastic holiday, the first one any of us had ever had outside the family, and all the better for it.

Sadly, very sadly, all the other three lads who went on the journey which you have just read have passed away; two from accidents and the third from a terminal illness, so John, Roger and Dave, this article is for you.