I travelled to Paris with my family just after my tenth birthday

This was the first time that I had travelled abroad

The year was 1964

I feel in love with Paris straight away

Although I was warned by a man in a bar

That she was a whore

Who would spit you out

When she had finished with you

As I was unsure what a whore actually was

I did not get the full meaning of what I was being told

Two things happened to me whilst I was in Paris

Which are easy to recall even after all these years

The first happened outside of a bookshop

When a woman who was born in 1891

Spoke to me in broken English

A language that she had partially learnt

From the American soldiers

After the liberation of the city

She told me that I looked like a young Rimbaud

I obviously was not aware of the boy poet

But she showed me a faded photograph

And I have to agree that there was more than a passing resemblance

As I left the elderly woman gifted me a book of Rimbaud’s poems

Which I still have and read occasionally when I am in France

The second thing that happened to me occurred in Butte Chaumont

When I discovered a small film unit shooting a movie

They asked me if I would walk down a path

As they filmed in the park and offered to pay me

I agreed and was subsequently filmed and forgotten

But I did meet the lead actress whose name was Nadja

She was nice and told me the stream was man made

And that the nearby rocks were made of concrete

I have visited Paris on many occasions since 1964

But have never experienced the innocence of my first visit