Hello everyone. This is the continuation of the story of my French family.
The story starts here
Previous episode: Part 9
A House in Binic, Brittany
Annick's father, Léon, had retired from the Navy during the 1920s and was living with his wife Anne, my great grandmother, in Binic, where he was born. Henri and Annick's family spent vacations in the house in Binic. However, as the number of children increased, there were less and less room available in the house.
A piece of land became available next to Léon's house, so in 1929 Henri bought it to build a vacation house.
A recent law, the "loi Loucheur" had been voted in 1928 at the initiative of Louis Loucheur, the French Minister of Labor. The goal was to provide financial intervention by the State to promote popular housing.
Following the conditions specified by the law, future landlords could borrow at a reduce rate to build a house. The conditions included the use of a registered architect to verify the quality of the construction, installation of a bathtub and of the pipes for a central heating system.
Henri follows these conditions to the letter.
The bathtub was the cheapest he could find, in galvanized metal sheet, in a small room near the kitchen that was also used as a pantry. Needless to say, it was very seldom used.
As this house was to be used only during the warm summer months, Henri did not need a central heating system, so only the pipes were installed: no furnace and no radiators. That was still true forty years ago.
The house had six bedrooms, so between Léon's house and this one there were enough room for the whole family and they did spend many vacations there.
Up to the age of nineteen, I also spent many vacations in the Binic house and I have fond memories of these sojourns.
Continue to Part 11
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Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4
Part 5 - Part 6 - Part 7 - Part 8
Part 9
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