At the far end of the beach here, there is a large and disconcertingly high wall of sand. Its purpose, quite clearly, is to separate we the have-a-bits from the have-a-lots. Whereas on our side of the sandwall there are little dinghies and the odd rowing boat, over the Great Divide there are huge great f**k-off floating palaces, and row upon row of medium to large yachts bobbing up and down before a promenade of wannabe prestigious (but largely pretentious) eateries.
As with most social divisions, the profoundly silly part of this one is that one can of course simply dive into the sea and swim around the bloody thing. But it is the need for it in the first place that fascinates me. I can appreciate as well as the next sensitive functioning human the desire not to be assailed by fatties covered in tattoos chucking their junk food wrappers in all directions with abandon; but I have never understood the unwillingness to rub shoulders with those who have less money, as opposed to no civilisation.
Across the bay from me here is St Tropez (a place I first visited in the late 1970s, and dismissed as a sort of public catwalk consisting largely of educationally subnormal cats) and then further to the west is St Maxime, a resort I drove through for the first time four days ago (and which will be recorded in my cranial diary as a non-stop, pointless traffic-jam). Across the sky all day on that side of the tracks, small helicopters transport the soi-disant élite from one venue to another – an aerial escape from the traffic jams – while huge multi-tiered Moscow motor boats venture in from elsewhere uninspiring, on their way to nowhere especially interesting.
Well, they must have their bubble: and as the Jewish tailors of my Manchester youth used to say, “I wish you well to wear it”. There is no resentment here, only pity. Let me explain what I like about the campsite here…for all the faults in the way it’s run.
We have, at any given time, six nationalities present. Because we’re all in France, everyone says “Bonjour” as they meet, and most people smile. The Italians (average age I’d put at 70) exchange harmless sexual badinage with women of a similar age, most of whom giggle. The Dutch eat their sandwiches and smile, the Germans insist on explaining how things work and smile, the French juggle their kids and smile, the Spaniards siesta until 9 pm, juggle their kids and smile, the English nod with one end of their foreheads the way they do….but just about get to a smile suggesting that, on the whole, they prefer Les Mûres to Eastbourne. But the commonality is a lack of judgementalism.
When it comes to skills and expertise, I am a big fan of judgement. Without judgement, there can be no standards. But judging people by their bank account really does suck. As my fairly upmarket Mum used to say, “The world should be divided into those who know how to behave, and those who don’t”. How right she was.
The Slog 