Not so Hot – Central Europe

December 1974 St Moritz, Switzerland

Back in the mid 70s, schools didn’t do all the extracurricular trips they do today, and the only option was an Egyptian cruise which my folks couldn’t afford as it was three times dearer than my sister’s skiing trip to Austria. She enjoyed it so much she blagged herself on another trip even though she’d already left school, and somehow, Mum managed to get me included, which meant reuniting with several kids I’d not seen since junior school, four years prior.
At 15, this was my first adventure outside the UK and, although the antithesis of a sporty type, I did well enough to join the intermediate group and have the thrilling experience of skiing down the side of a mountain with a sheer drop on one side. Scary, but exhilarating.

Because she was older, Deb joined the sixth-formers, and when it came to having a quick tipple on New Year’s Eve, I was bundled in, too. I vividly remember a disco, and The Goodies’ Father Christmas Do Not Touch Me playing as I joined the queue for this treat, waving jauntily to my contemporaries, who missed out on the fun, still being in the 4th form. Even before this insufferable smugness, I was left on the outside of their tightly-bound friendship groups, which I didn’t mind as I had little in common with them, being far too studious after passing the 11+ to go to a grammar school. So I hung out in the pool room with a bunch of lads from a Surrey school, and one lad, Nigel, was very keen, pairing with me on the table football against two of his friends. I recall walking into the nearby village, snuggled up in woolly scarves and appreciating the romance of all the Christmas lights. We rode back on the same sleeper train, and I remember doing the Quo dance (thumbs in belts) to Caroline and Down Down.

When we got home I wrote weekly to Nigel, who only returned a couple of letters before I finally got the message about the fragility of holiday romance/long-distance relationships. In a complete shocker, I’d apparently also given my address to a German lad Udo and, although I don’t remember speaking to him much, I ended up with a real pen-pal, who wrote faithfully for many months afterwards. He was extremely erudite, and seemed much keener than my actual boyfriend. He wanted to buy a guitar and I sent him a page from the NME featuring info on second-hand Strats. There’s defo a musical theme running through the men in my life.