26/01/2026
Here’s a copy of the post on red lichties Arbroath about Claude from back in 1993 and he still is here in the golden haddock.
1993
CLAUDE BATARD A native of Paris who served in the French army; who subsequently worked as a welding inspector in the Iraqi desert and, later, during the building of French nuclear power stations; who is now married to an Arbroath-born member of the local Italian community and who is proprietor of a chip shop and grocery store in Friockheim, is someone whose story deserves to be told. Such a person is Claude Batard. Claude was born in Paris, in the 17th Arrondissement. His father was a sales representative for a firm which installed high capacity heating systems in blocks of flats and other large buildings. Claude has one brother, Jean Luc, who is still in Paris, employed by a French/American nuclear company, Framatome. Consistent with the cosmopolitan nature of the first paragraph, Claude’s first school was in Goose Bay, Labrador, Canada. The family had emigrated there, and stayed for five years. However, at the age of eight, the family returned to Paris, and Claude continued his education at various schools there. He had decided to make mechanical engineering a career, and, after leaving school, enrolled at a welding institute in Paris. He graduated, but, at the age of 20, before he could embark on a career, he was called up to do military service, which was, and still is, compulsory in France. At that time, the duration of service was 16 months, which he spent in the artillery, largely in the Moselle Valley, learning how to measure radiation in case of a nuclear attack. “It was very boring.” When he came out of the artillery, he returned to the Institute, but now as a welding inspector, work which he did from 1969 until 1978. Much of his work was in countries other than France, and included an oil refinery in The Gabon, and a semi-submersible being built in Finland. Fle was sent to Iraq in 1975, to inspect work on two large storage installations for crude oil, both of which have now been destroyed as a result of hostilities. He worked in Basra, close to Kuwait. Even then it was clear that Iraq was building up to a military effort. It came as a surprise to Claude, however, when hostilities were first directed towards Iran, when all the signs were that Kuwait would be the target. The desire to take over Kuwait was fuelled by two things, says Claude; the fact that Kuwait’s oil comes from reserves which are actually under Iraq, and the relatively tiny coastline which Iraq possesses on the Persian Gulf. At that time, the man who is President today, Saddam Hussain, was Prime Minister. The degree of danger that Claude and his fellow-workers was in was not imaginary. Half of the project was in a military zone, and special passes had to be obtained to enter that zone. He has no desire to return to Iraq; his contract was for three months, but the workers, who came from countries as far apart as Scotland, Czechoslovakia, Russia and Japan, had to surrender their passports on arrival, and they did not have them returned until the job was completed, even if their three months was up. Life in the desert was not enjoyable. Claude describes the sand as absolutely flat for as far in every direction as one could imagine, with no dunes to relieve the monotony. There was no recreation, and work took place seven days a week. At the end of that contract, he was sent to Norway to work on the repair of a semi-submersible; and then to Montrose for a year-and-a-half, working with Sea Oil Services on Rossie Island, under the ultimate direction of Total Oil Marine. It was at work there that he met his wife-to-be, Paula Orsi, daughter of Frank and Dorothy Orsi, proprietors of the licensed grocery store and chip shop in Cairnie Street; and niece of Peppo Orsi, proprietor of Peppo’s Harbour Chip Bar, Ladybridge Street. Paula also worked at the Sea Oil Base, although for a different company. The couple were married in 1977 at St Mary’s Episcopal Church by Father Michael Hunt, and have eleven-year-old twins; Diego and Francisca, who are pupils of Timmergreens Primary School. After Claude and Paula were married, he continued for a spell to work in the oil industry, but he quickly discovered that although the life was suited to a single man, it was impossible for someone who was married. He left that job, and he and Paula went to Paris in 1978, where he obtained work with Framatome, the company for which his brother, Jean Luc works. He was sent to the Loire Valley to act as inspector for all the piping in four 90-megawatt nuclear power stations. He was then sent south to inspect four more reactors, at Montelimar. Claude explains that ninety per cent of the pipework in a nuclear reactor is concerned with safety, and that the reactor itself is a relatively simple thing. Although he had a lot of responsibility, he began to find the work boring, with his Jjob becoming more and more like that of a civil servant, with an overdose of paperwork to get through. He and Paula returned to Scotland, and began to learn the fish and chip trade at Frank Orsi’s shop in Cairnie Street. Until then, Claude had not cooked in a commercial way, but he did have the inborn French love of food and its correct preparation. Claude and Paula worked in the Cairnie Street shop from December, 1982, until the beginning of 1990, when they opened The French Fry chip shop in Friockheim, with an adjoining grocery store and, later, a tea-room which is open during chip shop hours. Why did they choose Friockheim? After deciding to branch out on their own, they looked at various properties, but it was the former “Dynegate” shop in Gardyne Street which really took their fancy. They didn’t fully appreciate the amount of work that would have to be done to implement their radical plans to convert the former shop and store into their new venture. “You have to be crazy!” says Claude, cheerfully. The business keeps him busy, with the shop open from 9.00 a.m., and plenty of running about to do, from delivering filled rolls to the nearby Douglas Fraser & Sons Perfectos protective clothing factory, to topping up stock at the cash and carry in Dundee. Claude takes a great interest in cars, and often enters into lengthy debates with the ‘“Herald” motoring correspondent about road test cars. Claude and Paula both drive left-handdrive Citreons. This is a deliberate policy, because Claude feels rather caged in right-hand-drive cars. He is a reformed smoker, and in his smoking days his right hand, the one with the cigarette, automatically went to an ashtray on the right, a thing that can cause bruised knuckles on a right-hand-drive vehicie. In fact, the no-smoking decision was made 13 years ago, during a long journey on the Continent, full of delays and obstructions. To pass the time waiting for transport, he reckons he smoked so many ci******es that he suffered a ni****ne overdose. So scunnered was he that over the next three days he smoked only 20 ci******es, and then said “stop”. He is happy to accept the subsequent weight increase of 10 kilos as the penalty for clear lungs. His sporting interests used to include running, when he was a youngster in Paris; and when he was working in Finland he tried water-skiing. Like most Frenchmen, he loves boule, a game not unlike bowls, but in which metal boules are thrown in the air to the target, thus reducing the need for an absolutely flat playing surface. His hobbies include D.LY. of any sort, such as woodwork or welding, and he did a substantial amount of the Friockheim shop conversion himself. One thing that Claude did not build is the delightful spiral staircase in his Arbroath home - that was bought in Cambridge, and transported north in the back of one of his former cars - a Peugeot 204 estate, which was relatively small, and which also carried holiday luggage at the time. Nevertheless, one has a mental picture of Claude and Paula cheerfully carrying out the impossible. Claude has never had any real formal English lessons, apart from a couple of hours a week for three months of his college course. He has picked up words and grammer here and there, and now has an excellent vocabulary of English words, wide enough to allow him to pause in conversation to select the correct word to render his precise meaning. He adds that in the oil business, English is universal, with all documents in that language. The whole family has linguistic talents. Paula speaks fluent Italian and French, and some German. Diego and Francisca know some Italian and some French. Claude says that the children can easily pick up French because “with my accent, they know the music of the language”. Perhaps surprisingly, he has never watched “Maigret” on television, although he is a big fan of “Taggart”. Claude does not have as much time for books as he would like, but he reads easily in either French or English. He is very interested in the subject of language, and also in cooking, “even at home!” He enjoys wine with a meal, and regrets the way people seem to avoid red wine, which he says has a very definite place in life. The French treat food with respect, he adds, echoing a previous “Portrait” subject, Mrs Margaret Horn. Claude comments on differences between present-day life for children, and his childhood, saying that nowadays people get bored more quickly. He also observes that people seem to have a greater need for money before they can enjoy themselves. Clearly, Claude enjoys the pace of life in Angus. He says Paris is a “speed city”. People wake up, run to their work, run home afterwards, eat and sleep, waking up again only to repeat the whole process. When he returns to France on holiday, it takes him 48 hours to become acclimatised to his native tongue once again. And then it is back to Angus where he has learned so much idiomatic and vernacular language, and where one of the delights of buying fish and chips from him is to be offered, in his gloriously musical French accent, “New tatteez”
