French student Camille Lafrance gives her view on Wirral

Aug 20 2008 by Lorna Hughes, Birkenhead News

camille

French student Camille Lafrance, who spent a fortnight working at the News, gives a foreigner’s eye view of Wirral

MERSEYSIDE and Wirral were names I had never heard before.

When I told French relatives I was going near to Liverpool to do an internship, they all warned me that I wouldn’t understand a word of people’s strong accent.

They also told me about all the beer I would drink and about Liverpool Football Club. However, I am not fond of sports and I was wondering what my experience would be like.

On the first day I arrived at Wirral News, some of those statements proved to be true. I had to interview a woman on the phone and I mistook her telling me about a “writing club” while she was actually talking about a “horse riding” initiative against anti-social behaviour.

Fortunately, when she started talking about horses, I figured out I had the story all wrong.

Then it got better and now I appear to talk with a mix of French and Scouse accent. It’s quite a glamorous thing, I confess.

What I really discovered here apart from those cultural differences was the story of Northern England.

At Wirral Museum I learnt about how the commuters’ city had been turned into an industrial one.

I also noticed all those one pound shops and terraced houses. Talking to people, I found that Birkenhead had a history of violence and poverty.

You could compare it, to a certain extent, to the history of Northern France where coal mines were shut down, causing unemployment and misfortune to the workers.

Here the coal mines were iron works and shipbuilding but the human consequences the closures had were similar.

I even had a chance to attend cases at Birkenhead’s magistrates’ court and heard about alcohol-related cases, confirming what history had left there - that is, deprivation.

But still, I found people were very welcoming in Wirral. I visited lovely places such as Parkgate, or Port Sunlight with its neat workers’ houses which really correspond to the cliché French people might have about England.

I was also pleased to see some William Turner and John Constable watercolours and drawings at the Lady Lever Art Gallery. I will remember the nice view of Liverpool one can have from the docks and the ferry trip to cross the Mersey, especially on stormy days.

What this experience mainly brought me is an eagerness to discover more about the social history of the United Kingdom.