He didn't really talk about it': The (re)construction and transmission of a Free French past Hilaire Georges Marteau was fifteen years old when, on 21 June 1940, German soldiers arrived on the streets of his home town of Tours in the Indre-et-Loir. On 28 June, German soldiers executed Marteau's father, Julien, in front of his family. Inspired by his father's final words to him, the adolescent Hilaire chose the path of defiance. Initially, teenage rebelliousness informed his disobedience as he and his friends played practical jokes on German soldiers. These pranks led him into organised resistance. Arrested and deported to Stuttgart in January 1943, Marteau escaped from Germany the following month, clinging to the undercarriage of a train bound for his homeland. However, denounced to the authorities by a relative soon after his return to Tours, Marteau began a journey out of France that led him through the Vichy 'Free Zone', the Pyrenees, Spain, Portugal, and North Africa, where he joined the Force aérienne des français libres (FAFL). He subsequently took a boat to Liverpool (where he met his future wife) and spent the remainder of the conflict in England.The experience of the war marked Marteau for the rest of his life; he wore an enamel badge of the Free French every day until his death. This, at least, is the story as Marteau told it, both in the form of written notes and in stories communicated to his family. His intention was to write a memoir entitled Avec de Gaulle, a rather grand title but one that reflected the filial nature that characterised the relationship between the General and his followers. The work was not begun in earnest before Marteau's passing. In March 2014, his daughter H. contacted us following a chance encounter with the author's sister-in-law at a hairdressing salon in Liverpool. Marteau had entrusted his daughter with the mission to tell his story to an audience beyond that of his immediate family and H. was looking for someone to help her do so. At our first meeting
