School Journey to Champéry, 1955/1956
Well I finally managed to find these somewhat old and slightly blurred photos.
They were taken when we were on a school holiday to a place called Champéry, near Lake Geneva in Switzerland in, I think, May 1955 or 1956. Perhaps someone else who went on the same trip will remember the year.
We [I] had a fabulous time. The village was at the end of the road, end of the railway, end of everywhere. Next stop the high mountains! On arrival at the station we had to carry our luggage up the hill/road to our hotel but a group of English grammar schoolgirls had theirs taken up by wagon! Great walks from the village. Every day about four-ish the mist rolled down from the mountains and along the valley then disappeared and we had some fine evenings.
The nightlife was quite different to that back home, the people were very cosmopolitan and from all over the world. In the evenings we went to a hotel that had a sort of coffee bar in the basement where all groups were expected to put on an act of some type. I believe we sang a song called “Sixteen Tons” by Tennessee Ernie Ford. Headmaster Davies and Assistant Head Bill [The Welsh] Williams insisted we were back at our hotel by 10 p.m. So we trudged down the hill to our hotel, pretended to retire for the night, then sneaked out about half an hour later. Never got caught!
The photo of the two guys in a car park was taken when we were out on a day trip somewhere. The one in the dark jacket was, I believe, Brian Gooch [known as ‘Goochie’ by kids in the lower forms] and the other is George Rocknean [I think].
The other photo “In the Snow” was, according to the notes on the back of the photo, “Playing snowballs in May at top of the highest cable railway in Europe – Klein Matterhorn Aerial Tramway (3883 m), Zermatt. Cloud formation stopped taking other snaps”. If I remember correctly the cloud did lift and then we all realised how close to the edge of nothing we had been.....
Tony Lawrence
1951 to 1957
They were taken when we were on a school holiday to a place called Champéry, near Lake Geneva in Switzerland in, I think, May 1955 or 1956. Perhaps someone else who went on the same trip will remember the year.
We [I] had a fabulous time. The village was at the end of the road, end of the railway, end of everywhere. Next stop the high mountains! On arrival at the station we had to carry our luggage up the hill/road to our hotel but a group of English grammar schoolgirls had theirs taken up by wagon! Great walks from the village. Every day about four-ish the mist rolled down from the mountains and along the valley then disappeared and we had some fine evenings.
The nightlife was quite different to that back home, the people were very cosmopolitan and from all over the world. In the evenings we went to a hotel that had a sort of coffee bar in the basement where all groups were expected to put on an act of some type. I believe we sang a song called “Sixteen Tons” by Tennessee Ernie Ford. Headmaster Davies and Assistant Head Bill [The Welsh] Williams insisted we were back at our hotel by 10 p.m. So we trudged down the hill to our hotel, pretended to retire for the night, then sneaked out about half an hour later. Never got caught!
The photo of the two guys in a car park was taken when we were out on a day trip somewhere. The one in the dark jacket was, I believe, Brian Gooch [known as ‘Goochie’ by kids in the lower forms] and the other is George Rocknean [I think].
The other photo “In the Snow” was, according to the notes on the back of the photo, “Playing snowballs in May at top of the highest cable railway in Europe – Klein Matterhorn Aerial Tramway (3883 m), Zermatt. Cloud formation stopped taking other snaps”. If I remember correctly the cloud did lift and then we all realised how close to the edge of nothing we had been.....
Tony Lawrence
1951 to 1957