Pictures of Cannes

THE BEGINNING

Mary-Elizabeth: 17th September 1946

A loud wailing and moaning outside caused me to leap out of my bed. A air-raid siren. No wait, the all-clear. Surely I hadn't slept so deeply I had missed a bombing raid. After a few moments I decided that the smart idea would be to get downstairs to our street air raid shelter, which hadn't been dismantled. 

I thundered down the rickety old staircase and out on to the street. Other confused faces looked back at mine. I looked up to the sky, no planes, well what was going on. 

As suddenly as it started the siren spluttered and died. By this time the police had arrived on the street informing us that this was a false alarm and nothing to worry about. 

It was as I clambered back upstairs to my small flat, I realised, this could become my latest story 'M. E. Hicks - should we worry about these 'false alarms?'. This, being the only interesting thing to happen to me this week seemed like my only option.

The ticking of the clock broke me out of this daydream. It was 7:30am and time to get to work. 

The offices of my newspaper company were tucked down a side road near the BBC Headquarters in London. We were lucky in the war, because we never received a direct hit. My boss however, never quite got the message. He was a grumpy old fellow called Mr George and would expect the highest from you, otherwise you were out.

I sat momentarily at my desk, before I heard a shout of "HICKS, GET IN HERE NOW". Wearily I walked towards his office and I stepped inside. Mr George asked me what I was writing this week and when I mentioned my false alarm story, his face went bright red. "ABSOLUTELY NO WAY" he yelled. "I want you on the first train out to Cannes, we have a story up our sleeve about Sylvester Duffy-Phillips and our French correspondent is too well known to go undercover".

"Undercover" I exclaimed. "Why?" Mr George replied "We have an informant who says that the man never fought in the war. We need you to meet this informant and find the truth".