Vichy has been somewhat demonised in many people's minds because of its role as headquarters of the collaborationist government during the war, but that was hardly the town's fault.

It's a pleasant place that nestles cosily in the valley cut through the hills of Auvergne by the river Allier. Standing there watching the trotters go through their paces on the Hippodrome track with at your back the beautiful spa that still attracts the well-heeled, waves of bourgeois comfort are almost palpable.

On the other side of the river stands Bellerive, named thus as though the opposite bank were not belle enough. Vichy Sporting Club, one of France's oldest golf courses stands there. I played it a couple of years ago but this week I visited Vichy's other course a few miles away in the forest of Montpensier.

The forest is a lovely place for a walk especially at this time of year when the trees present so many beautiful shades of green and gold and where mushrooms rise up ready to be harvested for the pot - provided you know your mushroom from your toadstool. The gorgeous weather that has prevailed this week would have been the cherry on the walker's cake.

But someone had the silly idea of cutting a few narrow paths through the forest and tempting us into thinking that we could hit little white balls straight down them. Believe me, my little white balls very seldom ventured onto the paths and couldn't see the forest for the trees they kept colliding with.
Now I'm in Dunkirk, someplace else whose fame owes much to the last war. A not so little boat will arrive tomorrow to take me over the channel in greater comfort than that experienced by the retreating armies - in pretty bourgeois comfort in fact.