Did my Grandad go to France? Date and location puzzle

[Barley]

The picture does look very 'allo 'allo, doesn't it !
Thanks all for your contributions. It looks like my Grandad DID have a trip to France or Belgium after all. None of us had any idea he ever did anything quite so adventurous.
Barbara

[chinakay]

The -ESNIL in the left is likely a proper name. Perhaps the proprietor?

I entered *esnil into Ancestry's main page and got bazillions of hits. Comesnil, Dupremesnil, Beaumesnil and Mesnil. But the vast majority of them are Dumesnil.

In every variation there is an M before ESNIL.

French names ending in RE are actually uncommon...Andre, Pierre, Alexandre. The partial letter before the RE doesn't look much like a D or an R.

Just saying

Cheers,
China

[Barley]

That's an interesting thought, China. The word ending *RE could just possibly be *FRE or *ERE.
The only two given names I can find ending FRE are Guifre (Catalan) or Sieffre (Welsh). They aren't promising.
There are a few French ones ending ERE. Berengere (female), Severe (male) and Valere (male) (I'm looking on Behind the Name, which has all kinds of unusual names)
Barbara

[shanghaipanda]

I think this will read "biere dumesnil" - can be googled (sorry just going out).

[chinakay]

Aha, i think that's it...there is a Bière Dumesnil.


http://didier93.chez-alice.fr/page9.html

[DB10]

Hi have just seen this thread and noticed the sign in the window - top right - OXYGENEE.

If you search this you will find numerous references to this beverage as an ABSINTHE..... but this was banned in  Belgium in 1906 and France in 1914 and not reintroduced until the 1990s.

So if the sign is still in the window I guess the question is how long might it have remained there?

I suppose that during the 1914/18 period there might have been more important things to concentrate on than clearing out old signs! But might it have remained there for say 12 years or more after the end of hostilities to take the date of the photo into the 30s??

DB

[Barley]

That's interesting, DB. Thanks for that.
Given that my Grandad was definitely born in 1885, and he doesn't look much younger than about 50 on the picture, 1935 seems around the right date.
It must have been an old-fashioned sort of shop!
Barbara