{"id":3915,"date":"2017-08-17T11:20:56","date_gmt":"2017-08-17T11:20:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/2ndcupoftea.com\/?p=3915"},"modified":"2017-08-17T11:20:56","modified_gmt":"2017-08-17T11:20:56","slug":"kenavo-lionel-hiraezh-am-eus-dit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/2ndcupoftea.com\/?p=3915","title":{"rendered":"Kenavo Lionel, hiraezh am eus dit…"},"content":{"rendered":"

M<\/strong>y good good friend, true Breton and one of the best and certainly most human<\/em> of guides I have ever met, Lionel died last week.<\/p>\n

I will miss him terribly.<\/p>\n

Many of you who kindly subscribe to this site will have met Lionel and probably owe your understanding of the word ‘kenavo<\/em>‘ (goodbye) and so much more of all things Breton, to him.<\/p>\n

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I met Lionel four years ago in his native Quimper in Brittany where he lived and worked. As usual I was clueless, a first time visitor to this, now my favourite, corner of France. I clearly needed help.<\/p>\n

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When you met Lionel, you might not be instantly convinced. Dressed in an old Breton sailing Amor Lux sweater and jeans that look like they had earned their keep in his garden (usually where he had just come from). I often wondered what groups first made of Lionel when he turned up and especially when he took over the microphone, although only in his sixth decade it sounded increasingly like each one was rubbing against his vocal chords. But by the time we got to the Steir, the river 100 yards from out hotel, he, as he did with me, had us adoring him.<\/p>\n

I have worked with good, great even, guides before. Two things made Lionel stand out.<\/p>\n

Firstly, he never tired of his subject. I generally don’t ask guides questions myself as they must be sick of it. With Lionel, I could ask away, all day long. I learned so much about Brittany outside of what he shared with the group. And even when on the microphone to our groups, on every single occasion, he found new stories, new information to share.<\/p>\n

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But, more importantly what made Lionel unique, to me was what groups never saw or heard. The times we would steal away from work; a quick coffee in Locronan, a small beer in Pont Aven with ten minutes before we met the group again, a cigarette (him not me) by the side of a menhir by the side of a road somewhere. During these times we became friends. It’s not entirely unfair to say that often when guides talk, the subject doesn’t stray far from work; agencies, tourists (good and bad), money and bus drivers. I am not sure I ever had one such conversation with Lionel.<\/p>\n

Last November when I toured with him and had just lost someone very close to me, he understood and helped me get through it, when I just wanted to be far away in Spain. This spring, when again someone had left my life, he was there again. My last news from him was a series of joke texts we exchanged – pondering the virtues of monastic life – I wish I could post them here (a little too ‘spicy’ perhaps). We understood each other.<\/p>\n

Brittany is a wonderful place, and the tour I led there with Lionel had become year on year a re-union. The same hotels, restaurants, guides and driver. Bretons are special. Colleagues perhaps mostly, can appreciate the uniqueness in the fact I received this sad news from a hotel manager in Quimper, someone who has also become a friend of both of us. That just doesn’t happen.<\/p>\n

And as such, as these Bretons are always different, lo and behold they have their own death. They say that when you hear screeching outside your house, it is the wheels on the\u00a0karrigell an Ankou<\/em> – the ‘wheelbarrow’ of the Ankou, as they call him here, coming to collect our souls.<\/p>\n

A local paper, reporting on Lionel this week, ran the beautifully succinct headline, ‘Lionel Jacq – He told us so much, then he left us’.\u00a0<\/em>As the paper said, you told us so so much, and then your Breton Ankou came and took you away. I believe wherever he goes to during the day, he must have been getting bored and needed someone to tell him stories in his lonely carriage. I can think of no better story teller than you my friend…<\/p>\n

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Next year work will probably take me back to Brittany and Quimper. The first three days of that tour were the days we spent in the company of Lionel. To me, Brittany will never be the same.<\/p>\n

I found the anthem of your beautiful country online today (you can hear it at the end of this piece), the last verse of which goes:<\/p>\n

If in the past Brittany may have been defeated in battle,<\/em>
\nHer language will always remain well alive,<\/em>
\nHer flaming heart is still beating in her chest\u00a0:<\/em>
\nYou are now awakened, my dear Brittany!<\/em><\/p>\n

Thanks to everything you taught me, Lionel, a little piece of her heart now also beats in my chest and always will.<\/p>\n

So, for the last time, and far too soon, dear, dear Lionel, kenavo<\/em> my friend…<\/p>\n

‘And Death once dead, there’s no more dying then.<\/i>‘
\n\u00a0– William Shakespeare.<\/span><\/p>\n