By Graham Fitz (Clare college)

Unfortunately, I was only on one summer camp in Austria (plus an Easter camp to do some repairs to the Dicklerhütte) before taking part in the camps in Langenburg, Germany, in the two following years. I had a job teaching in south Germany, and so was able to keep in touch with the kids between the camps.

I say unfortunately, because I fell in love with the Lungau, the area around Weißpriach where the Austrian camps were held. I determined to go back and explore the region more fully, but, as with many youthful ambitions, the determination became buried in the routine of adult life, and simply was not fulfilled.

In the summer of 2017 I spent ten days in Estonia with Jaan Rajamets, getting to know the country for the first time, and meeting his family there. Jaan and his family were the only people with whom I had kept in touch after my time at CHV and CRI, such is the thoughtless arrogance of youth. While sipping whisky on a hotel balcony late in the bright Estonian evening, the conversation inevitably turned to our times together with CHV, and the Austrian camps. Jaan told me that he had often been back to visit the Landschützers, who ran the pub in Bruckdorf which served as the CHV watering hole, and after a few more drams we had hatched a plan to have a CHV reunion in 2018.

Jaan, who still had contact to many more people than I, took over the organization, had a good number of enthusiastic replies, and reserved rooms for twelve people at the end of July. As so often happens, a number were forced to cancel, some at short notice, so it was a small but happy band that met up at Haus Aloisia in Bruckdorf. The watering hole of fond memory is now a private house, but Hans Landschützer had built the hotel and named it after his wife, who had tragically died. His son Johann and wife Daniela now run the hotel, while Hans lives in the house next door. And most, especially the male members of CHV, will remember the indomitable Erika who served our beer. After a good part of her life spent in South America, Erika is back in Bruckdorf and has a homeopathic practice which she still runs from her home 50 yards from the hotel.

The weather as I drove down from north Germany was sweltering, but the forecast for the Lungau was for heavy rain and temperatures in the low teens all week. I packed plenty of sweaters and left the sunscreen at home. As ever, the forecast was totally wrong. We had a whole week of glorious sunshine and temperatures in the thirties, necessitating copious quantities of the local brew, which tastes even better when accompanied by the excellent pear schnapps from the Landschützer distillery. We were of course looking forward to a reunion with the famous Gösser pilsner which we all remembered, but Johann has switched to the more local Murnau brewery. After a few pints our sorrows were well and truly drowned.

Our week there was split into two parts. For the first four days we were joined by Marianna Du Plat Taylor and Sylvia Steindl-Oberhauer. Some will remember Marianna under her birth name of Ricsovary, and Sylvia Steindl was one of the children from Vienna who took part in the camps. Jaan had been suffering from COPD for some years and was only mobile with use of a zimmer frame, so our trips were limited to places which could be reached by car. First priority was, of course, the Dicklerhütte in Hinterweißpriach, where we had the camps. It is still much as we remembered it, and is now a “Jauchzenhütte”, a refuge for thirsty walkers making their way up or down the valley. A wing has been added, but the barn is almost unaltered. Of course, now there are electricity and flushing loos – how fond are the memories of digging a pit and shovelling out our waste from the “plumpsklo”, all for the princely reward of a crate of Gösser!

Of course there were visits to Mariapfarr and Tamsweg. Jaan had lost weight since buying a Lederhose in Tamsweg many years previously, so we went back to the shop to see if they could alter it. There we were told that it had been made in Mariapfarr and we would have to go back there to get any alterations made. The shop in Mariapfarr is still in existence, and when we went there, the kind lady opened a seam to make sure that the necessary was possible, only to find that she had made the Lederhose herself as a young assistant. Three days and fifty euros later, Jaan had a Lederhose that fitted perfectly again.

We also revisited the Prebersee, north-east of Tamsweg, which lies at 1500 metres below the impressive Preber peak (2740 metres). A beautiful hotel has been built there and is a magnet for tourists and walkers in the area. After a mainly liquid lunch, Marianna, Sylvia and I walked round the lake and found an interesting shooting range. To hit the target on one side of the lake, you are required to stand on the other side and take aim at the reflection in the water. The bullet ricochets from the reflection into the target – theoretically. Discretion being the better part of valour, we decided to leave the Austrian tourist industry intact and rejoined Jaan for further refreshments.

On Wednesday we had to say goodbye to Sylvia and Marianna, but were soon joined by John Grundy and Angus Tulloch, who had flown in to Salzburg and hired a car there. Again, Dicklerhütte was a priority on the agenda, and we went up to the Prebersee again, although a thunderstorm threatened to water down the wheat beer. Angus, John and I went further up the Weißpriach valley on Thursday, and John located the first hut (belonging to Herr Gahr) that housed CHV camps from 1966 until 1968. The hut is still in the family, has been spruced up, and is now rented out as a holiday home. The plan was to walk to the Oberhüttensee, but my leg was still a bit weak after a bike accident the previous year, so when we ran out of track and had to climb steeply through grass and rock, I decided to seek refuge in the nearest Jauchzenhütte. Angus and John, afraid that I would exhaust the beer supplies before they got back, were perfect gentlemen and kept me company.

On Friday morning John and I took a cable car from Mauterndorf and then walked up to the Großeck, from which there is a fabulous view from 2,000 metres over St Michael, Mauterndorf, Mariapfarr and Tamsweg.

A final long evening was followed by departure on Saturday, coinciding with the start of school holidays in south Germany. As a result, traffic was a nightmare and the motorways largely gridlocked. I headed for Marburg, north-east of Frankfurt, where I had arranged to meet my younger son, Jaan set off for Heidelberg to visit some friends there. The weather was still very hot, and Jaan only managed to get as far as Augsburg, some 50 kilometres west of Munich. The next day he made it to Heidelberg, but the heat had sapped too much of his strength, and, sadly, he passed away in his hotel that evening. At the beginning of September we brought Jaan’s ashes back to Cambridge, and his funeral was held in Milton Keynes on the third of that month. The affection in which he was held by all involved with CRI and CHV was evidenced by the huge turnout from, literally, all over the world: Tom Franklin from New York, Franz Eder and his sister Gitti from Vienna (many will remember them from the camps), Marianna Du Plat Taylor from Italy, and CHV members from all over Britain came to pay their respects, giving many of us an opportunity to meet up with people we hadn’t seen for almost fifty years, and his sister Tiina and the family put on a splendid do at his local pub after the ceremony.

If what started out as an account of a week’s CHV reunion in Austria reads more like a tribute to Jaan Rajamets, then rightly so. There cannot be a member of CHV who does not remember Jaan who, like his father, was incredibly gifted with wood, making beautiful sculptures and marvellous inlaid boxes, and who passed on his gift of pyrography to young people throughout his life. He was never more at home than in his beloved Bruckdorf, where he married his wife Jane, and during the days we shared with him there, his eyes shone in his wicked way with fun and love as we reminisced about the camps and all the marvellous, foolish things we did there. His great gifts of empathy and communication taught me more about working with young people than I have ever learnt from a book, and that learning has stood me in good stead in later life as a teacher. There is no doubt but that he knew that this trip was his swansong, but he betrayed nothing of that during the week. A truly remarkable man whose friendship was a great privilege.