ONE of my favourite Disney films as a kid was Song of the South. It is not that well known despite the fact it was one of the first films to include real action with caricatures..

I adored Uncle Remus and his stories of Brer Rabbit in that film but to the world at large the best-known feature was the song Zippedy-do-dah.

I was very pleased when, in days before dvds, I was able to take the kids to see Song of the South. I well remember leaving the Gaumont cinema,Watford High Street, with a crocodile of girls in tow, staring at the Co-op building and the real world of mortgages, traffic etc, and wishing myself back on that ol’ plantation listening to Uncle Remus.

Subsequently I was even further pleased to note my daughters had not got round to Song of the South when they bought our grandchildren videos and dvds, so I was only too happy to fill in the gap in their cinematic education, pulling up a log and duly watching and listening to Uncle Remus right there along with ‘em.

There was Brer Rabbit and the Tar-baby and Brer Rabbit and the Briar Patch and even Uncle Walt back in the 1950’s had a special room adjacent to his office at Disney Studios because he knew “just about everybo’ gotta have a laffin’ place”.

Brer Rabbit’s sworn enemies were an unlikely couple: a big, thick, slow-thinking bear and a somewhat cannier fox whose plans were fiendishly innovative but inevitably short of one essential element.

There are a couple of local council workers out here in France who remind me of those two. The smaller one always nods bonjour as does everyone you encounter. But the big one, who seems to do more watching that working, tends to blank me if I toss him a bonjour in passing.

I found myself on the same team, working as a volunteer with the council workers for a week preparing for the local festival. It is the fourth year I have been involved and every day, as is the custom, everyone shakes each other’s hand when they meet up to commence work. Somehow the big moody bear of a man manages to exclude me.

I accepted this. When in France, you go with the flow. Yet everyone says bonjour, even people you have never met before and pass in the street, so after a while I set to thinking. I shake hands with everyone I meet, I wish them bonjour etc. I play the game by their rules. So why should I take this insult?

The two have been working in my neck of the woods lately. I have said hello a few times and the Fox has answered but not the Bear. The other day, the sun was a-shining as I was heading up to The Folly with the dogs. It was a zippedy-do-dah day in every way, lacking only “a bluebird on my shoulder”.

I saw the duo as they came down towards me on a tractor. The Fox was driving and the Bear was sitting on the trailer.

I greeted them both as they neared and the Fox nodded and mouthed a bonjour. Not so the Bear who turned his head away just before the trailer reached me.

I leant forward and bellowed “Bonjour”, with as loud a voice as I could muster without shouting, which my wife tells me is pretty loud and can be mistaken for a shout.

The Bear was so startled, he said Bonjour before he knew what hit him and The Fox turned and endorsed it with a second greeting.

When I got up to The Folly, I chuckled to myself.

Well, everbo’ gotta have a laffin’ place.