By David Bowen
How it all started
In October 1976 I joined CRI after attending its stall at the Societies’ Fair in the Corn Exchange. This was my final year as an undergraduate.
CRI was based at Overstream House; a well-worn villa on Victoria Avenue, near the bridge and the boathouses. Continue reading →
Many CHV volunteers went on to great things but one group from the first camps put their energy and imagination to a project in Nepal which deserves to be brought into daylight again. Continue reading →
Peter Gilbert (Pembroke 1963-66) (by email 20 April 2020)
I volunteered for these camps led by Paul Hawksworth (Pembroke 1963-66). I remember the farmer, Stefan’s dream to get to the Oktoberfest in Munich and his pig-tailed mother who was definitely the person in charge. The humans lived on the ground floor and the animals above them. Paul went on to become a German and French teacher at Ampleforth College.
Celie Parker (by email, 28 April 2020)
I was a volunteer twice running, in the 1960s, and I remember my time in Germany with fondness and the fundraising period before, involving an early morning drive in an old van, with a line of hard boiled eggs along the dashboard – to Portobello Road where we hoped to set up a stall to sell our clothes and other bits and bobs … as I remember it, we were turned away – I think we were deemed too young! Continue reading →
In March, Christina Szápáry, the niece of the Countess Gabrielle Szápáry, who played an important role in helping to organise and secure funding for the camps, got in contact. She had seen Philip Seddon’s account of a visit he made on behalf of CHV to Vienna in 1969, during which he met the Countess. His notes observed the extraordinary commitment she showed to the work of CHV, which seems to have come about through her links with Caritas in Austria or some personal connections.
Below is the correspondence that followed. Continue reading →
This note was sent ahead of the reunion at Jesus College on 17th October, from Carole Nolan, who was unable to attend. Continue reading →
A record of an official CHV fact-finding trip to Vienna, by Philip Seddon
It has been a fascinating experience transcribing notes I have kept in my files from fifty years ago. Three pieces of correspondence provide the background to this visit: Continue reading →
By Tony Watts, (St Catharine’s, 1960)
Long vacations are precious spaces, providing opportunities for students to engage, alone or together, in exciting projects. In the early 1960s, the massive refugee crisis that had followed the dislocations of the Second World War was still leaving its scars. A group of us at St Catharine’s, led inspirationally by Roger Catchpole (1959, NatSci) and John Foskett (1959, Theology; deceased), decided that was where we wanted to make our contribution.
After the War many refugees were settled temporarily in Austria and Germany in Displaced Person camps, often previous concentration camps, in conditions of abject poverty. Among them were Volksdeutsche – ethnic Germans from Eastern Europe and the Balkans. There were also more recent arrivals, including from the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. World Refugee Year (1959/60) aimed to complete the clearance of people from these camps, but this process continued into the early 1960s. It included provision to help families build their own homes. Our initiative was designed to support this by taking their male children away for a holiday. Continue reading →
By Mervyn Bramley (Jesus 1964-67)
Challenged to write my memories of CHV, I looked at the photos I’d taken and, while the memories didn’t come flooding back with great clarity, these four thought bubbles formed.
The camp looked distinctly military when I first arrived at Plattenhof and saw the large khaki ex-army tents at the forest’s edge and the CHV flag flying above them. But the atmosphere there wasn’t – it was friendly albeit necessarily firm at times with the boys. Continue reading →
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. Continue reading →
Children's Holiday Venture Archive 