[CR] Sauvage-Lejeune track frame

(Example: Framebuilding:Restoration)

Date: Fri, 20 Nov 2009 12:25:17 +0000
From: "Norris Lockley" <nlockley73@googlemail.com>
To: <classicrendezvous@bikelist.org>
Subject: [CR] Sauvage-Lejeune track frame


The List has visited this debate before, and even if we discuss it in the future the same ground ie racist, non-racist, cartoons etc will reoccur. In the UK, in my childhood I grew up eating some delightful marmalade jam made by a company called Robertsons. Everybody ate Robertson's marmalade and the fact that the company's logo was a jolly afro-caribbean character with a frizzy hair-cut, a young boy called affectionately a gollywog, offended no one, leats of all the Afro-Caribbeans who lived in the UK at the time.

However the logo has now been banned, thanks to the politically correct brigade, lest it offend anyone. Those most offended by the ban appear to be the very Afro-Caribbeans who perceived the figure to be that of a much-loved, rather than despised , boy who attracted huge amounts of affection..all the kids at the time had golly-wog dolls, golly-wog hot-water bottle covers...even the Afro-Caribbeans. .Now they tend to feel they are no longer liked..but despised.

Where I live in France I am known as a PAYSAN - a peasant...the French word being derived from the word PAYS meaning country/countryside....so PAYSAN is used quite accurately to describe someone who lives in the countryside. However the usage of the word PEASANT in the UK is deemed to be offensive, and tends to depict the recipient as being uncouth and without any finer breeding.

I think that Jerry got to the nub of the problem with his reference to French term the Noble Savage. SAUVAGE in French has a variety of meanings..some of them quite noble. A few hundred yards..or should that be metres ..away from my house in France runs the River Loire. At certain points along its length there are bird sanctuaries where the Loire remains as it always has been..very natural, with willows, islands and natural wilderness...at these points the Loire is referred to as la Loire sauvage.
>From this wider definition of the word it could be deemed that sauvage in the sense of its application of someone who lives in the jungle..is just that..a person who lives close to nature, in the forest..and not to describe them in the sense of being brutal. So...these forest dwellers used spears to kill their prey...is that any worse than civilised city-dwellers using guns? Which one is the savage?

Together with a French,friend, collector, and Ebay seller, I have been trying to look into the origins of the Lejeune company, the Sauvage-Lejeune company...and the SAUVAGE cycle company that started them all. Our understanding is that the original founders were a family called SAUVAGE, who had spent some time in the French colonies in Africa. The brothers Lejeune are still alive, we are told, and were in some way related to the Sauvage family, possibly by marriage.

I think I had better stick to bikes as my philosophy leaves much to be desired..and I would not wish to offend anyone.

Norris Lockley

Settle UK