Crossing France in May 1940

In May 1940 at the age of eight I returned to England with my mother after two years in Colombo, where my father had been serving in the Royal Navy.
We disembarked from the troop ship at Marseille to return to England across France and thus avoid the U-boat menace in the Bay of Biscay. We spent the first night in Paris and went on to Calais the next day where the train could not enter the station there as it had just been bombed. I remember much shouting while we were waiting at Calais before we reversed for Paris and my mother commenting calmly, on being asked what was going on, that the French aways behaved like that in a crisis!
We returned to Paris for a second night. On one of these nights we retired to the hotel cellars for a period and heard a few bombs exploding, but they were not close to the hotel.
As my mother considered French tap water unsafe to drink, whenever we were in a train I was given red wine to drink, presumably diluted but not enough to allow bugs to survive. I must have been very little trouble as I spent a lot of time asleep!
The next day we travelled to Le Havre by train and caught the overnight ferry to Southampton. I remember entering Southampton Water and seeing the green fields.
My mother always said we were in the last ferry out of Le Havre. Needless to say the trooper arrived in Great Britain completely unscathed!

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