Word: armenti
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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TIME errs in stating that "Mademoiselle" from Armentières was an invention . . . The little French girl who slapped a general's face and thus inspired the famous war song was as virtuous as she was pretty. She was employed at a café early in World War I when Armentières was a resting place for troops . . . Entertainment was organized by a London music-hall actor, "Red" Rowland, and the Canadian songwriter Lieut. Gitz-Rice...
...place names of Flemish towns ring like bugles. They tell of bloody and costly battles in wars over the centuries: Courtrai, Passendale, Ypres ("Wipers" to the Tommy of World War I), and Armentiéres (whose "Mademoiselle" was invented to wipe out the memory of grimmer realities). In World War II, the tragedy and heroism of Dunkirk were played out on a Flemish beach...
...next decade the Donald Merretts, or the Ronald Chesneys as they liked to call themselves, lived high, wide & handsome, spending most of their time touring the Mediterranean in a luxury yacht, the Armentières. They were often joined in their cruising by Mrs. Chesney's mother, who called herself "Lady" Mary Menzies. When Donald's fondness for gay company and Isobel's fondness for gin at last drove them apart in 1937, Lady Mary and her daughter went back to London, bought a large house in Ealing, and opened a boardinghouse for genteel elderly ladies...
...each other in schoolboy fashion. Some, already embarked, dashed down for a second round of goodbyes with wives & children. Above the din of shouts and whistles, a group of French Canadians rousingly sang their regimental song, bag pipes skirled Tipperary, and a brass band blared Mad'moiselle from Armenti...