Never before, nor since, have I heard two syllables spoken with such contempt as Robert Brousse, our French neighbour in the Auvergne, spat it out: Vol-Vic. Dr. Vasserman, who was our GP as well as his, had sent him to be “dried out” – as my wife put it. A man who for years had been quaffing his first bottle of red plonk before setting out to drive his employer’s cows to pasture, he would have been equally contemptuous of any water, whether still or bubbly.

    Now Volvic is a perfectly pleasant mineral water, bottled not very far from our village in the Auvergne.  My wife and I only bought it rarely for the good reason that there was a mineral water spring only about a mile from our house. The water was not quite as bubbly as Volvic but I suspect that at the Volvic bottling plant they added some bubbles artificially. We could collect sparkling water at no cost beyond a little effort. I would normally take six empty bottles, fill them there, then carry them home to our fridge. It was a good mixer for whisky.

    Now Robert was one of four brothers – all but one of them unmarried. There was a shortage of girls in the area.  They had drifted to the towns where they could find employment and, often, find husbands as well. The boys could not. An older Brousse brother had already died of alcoholism and the others seemed to be heading in the same direction…. all except the one who had succeeded in finding a wife. He had a child, too, a little boy.

    All the Brousse brothers made a fuss of the child. One day the little boy turned to Robert. “Tonton, let me try some of your red drink.”The uncle pushed his mug in the direction of the child but the father intervened rapidly: “No, you and I are the sober Brousses. We dont drink pinard..  We drink water and coffee and sometimes Volvic water. That’s why we live longer and have better lives.”

   Uncle Robert shrugged his shoulders “Vol-Vic!”

    I can still hear that tone of deep disgust.