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Series 22: 6. Fred Sirieix

TV personality Fred Sirieix is the nation’s favourite Frenchman, but he’s spent more of his life living in Britain than in France. Now, he’s heading back to France to explore his roots.\n\nFred knows that his father’s family came from Limoges and lived there for generations, but his mother’s side is a mystery. The family story is that his maternal grandparents met during World War Two, when Fred’s grandfather Rene was taken as a prisoner of war in Burgundy and Genevieve, his grandmother, was a young woman living in the area. The tale goes that Rene escaped and fled from Nazi-occupied France to Free France, where Genevieve later joined him. Intrigued by this love story, Fred returns to France to see what he can find out.\n\nAt his parents’ house, Fred sees a photograph of his grandparents’ wedding day, which includes his grandfather’s father, Leonard Bordas. Fred’s parents know that Leonard fought in the First World War but never spoke about it. They also have a photograph of Fred’s grandma, Genevieve, as a small child. Genevieve’s parents died when she was quite young, and Fred’s mum doesn’t know anything about the family further back. Intrigued by these silences, Fred wants to find out more, starting with his grandparents’ wartime romance.\n\nFred travels to Burgundy to meet military historian Dr Sarah Frank, who tells him that Rene was taken prisoner by the Nazis at the start of the war. He was then put to work on local farms, and Fred believes this is when Rene met Fred’s grandmother Genevieve. Fred and Sarah go to Coulanges, where Genevieve came from. He sees a German document which lists his grandfather as an escapee, confirming the family story. Sarah tells him that he would've needed local help to escape, and this is where perhaps his grandmother came in. She also explains how incredibly brave they were: had they been caught, they would've been shot. Less than five per cent of the prisoners of war escaped. For Fred, this is proof of a true love story. \n\nNext, Fred wants to find out about Rene’s father, Leonard Bordas, and his experiences in the First World War. Fred heads to the Marne region to meet historian Lucy Betteridge-Dyson. Lucy tells him that Leonard was involved in some of the earliest battles of the war, fighting hand-to-hand combat, and went on to see the evolution of trench warfare. Lucy takes Fred to a replica trench, where he’s astonished to learn that his great-grandfather was at most of the worst battles of the First World War, having survived Verdun and the Somme. Fred is deeply moved learning about his great-grandfather’s experiences and begins to understand why he’s remembered as a hard taciturn man.\n\nHaving explored his grandfather’s side of the family, Fred now turns to his grandmother Genevieve’s side. In the Auxerre archives, he meets Muriele Ochoa-Gadaut, who has been doing some digging into Genevieve’s father’s family. Fred is thrilled when he sees that his three-times great-grandfather is recorded on a census as being a winemaker. Fred sets off for a vineyard in the area the family came from. Winemaker Benjamin Borgnat explains that they would've had a small plot and sold their wine to merchants. Fred knows that the family stopped being winemakers after the 1860s, and Benjamin speculates that, like many other winemaking families, they may have lost their livelihood when the phylloxera blight arrived in France in the 1860s, destroying over six million acres of vineyards. \n\nWith winemakers on one side of his grandmother’s family, Fred is now intrigued by the other side. Once again, Muriele Ochoa-Gadaut can help; they meet in a town hall where a register shows that his three-times great-grandparents, Gustave Eon and Victorine Daubignard, were married there. An intriguing clue shows that both Gustave and Victorine came from Paris, and lists them as ‘eleve des Hospices de Paris’. \n\nFred goes to Paris, where he meets historian Isabelle Grenut. She explains that the Hospices de Paris was a foundling hospital - an institution where children whose mothers had died, or whose mothers couldn’t look after them, were left. Fred’s three-times great-grandparents were both left there as babies. There isn’t a lot of information about their mothers, but Fred learns that one of his four-times great-grandmothers died a month after giving birth. Isabelle explains that Fred’s three-times great-grandparents were clearly survivors. Many of the children left at the hospital died, but Fred’s relatives were placed with wet nurses and taken out of Paris to the countryside, where they grew up in the same area and later married. The building of the Hospices de Paris still survives; Fred goes to see it and reflects on how amazing it is that he is here at all. \n\nHis family story is one of survival against all odds, from the battlefields of war to a foundling hospital. Fred reflects on how it makes him appreciate the love and security he grew up with and that he hopes he’s passed onto his own children.

Source: BBC 1