Between the time Ned was three and six, he lived with his family in Dinard, a fashionable resort on the coast of Brittany, facing St-Malo across the Rance estuary. Dinard had a thriving English community and the language was well understood locally. Their home was the Chalet du Vallon in Rue Barbine.
For the first time, one gets a sense of the Lawrences becoming a part of the small community in which they lived. Here, the two elder boys received some of their earliest lessons from an English governess, and attended French classes at the nearby Ecole Sainte-Marie. Twice a week, Ned took the ferry across to St-Malo to attend gymnastics lessons.
Friendships made with some of the French families, especially their landlords, the Chaignons, were kept up in later years; and as a young man, Ned visited Dinard during his cycling tours of 1906, 1907 and 1908, sometimes staying with the Chaignons.