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by chvarchive

‘A lesson in overcoming adversity and having some fun on the way’

Andrew Clennett, Clare 1971-74 (by email in February 2018)

I was involved in three CRI camps whilst at Clare College between 1971 and 1974. This was a transition period with some having been to Austria in previous years but nearly all were in the UK afterwards, more women at the University and social services becoming more involved.

The first was in North Yorkshire but I can’t remember where, other than we camped in an old school house. My lasting memory was of a trip to Robin Hood Bay, stopping off on the way back for some souvenirs. When the bus resembled a pirate ship it became obvious that most of them had been liberated by the kids, necessitating a return trip, literally.  Continue reading →

by chvarchive

‘England hat gewonnen!’

Marjorie (Marj) Bannister, Homerton, CHV 1966, commenting on October 2016 update

First of all, apologies for taking so long to reply to the article I read in the Homertonian magazine last summer. It was good to see those photos but I think you’ll find that one has been labelled incorrectly – I am the one in the middle of the three in the photo with the caption ‘Judi Venner walks in the woods with two children’!!

Despite pretty miserable weather for the duration of our time in the Black Forest in August 1966, we had an interesting time. The things that stick out most in my mind are: Continue reading →

by chvarchive

‘Definitely a character-forming experience’

Angus Tulloch (via email on 19 October)

I certainly enjoyed, and learnt much from, the two and a half camps attended in Austria and the one visited near Leeds in the late 1960s/early 1970s. Clare colleagues also involved included Tom Franklin, Graham Fitt (I think), Jim Kendra, Nigel Whittaker, Charles Stern and Malcolm Sharrock – the latter three forming a fund-raising band mischievously called and advertised in Mariapfarr and Bruckdorf as ‘John Thomas and his Swingers’. I do not think any of the locals clicked though. My job was to chivvy the locals to pay up. Continue reading →

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‘We loved it all and probably grew up a bit too’

Barbara Curry, nee Kay (Homerton 1968-71, Newnham 1971-72) (from emails received 1 and 18 September 2016)

I was on the student staff for at least 3 of the camps and co-leader for one. Memories are flooding back! I enjoyed the camps very much indeed, and found my native German a useful asset with the children and in episodes like the one below:

Continue reading →

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It ‘showed what a difference people can make’

Jane A. Bramhill (from emails sent on 8 and 9 August 2016)

I was at Homerton from ’73-76, am now Head of Science / Dean of Students at the International School of Indiana, USA, and have just received July’s ‘Homertonian’ and read the article about CRI.

Although studying Biology and Chemistry, I spoke fluent German and volunteered to help with a camp in Germany in the summer of 1974. Continue reading →

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Memories of a 1964/65 camp

By Gordon Edwards

Fuelled by a State Scholarship, for which I am ever grateful, I entered Jesus College in 1961 to read the Natural Sciences Tripos. Cambridge University then was a strange place by today’s standards. Predominantly male and public school, many of the colleges, including Jesus, were surrounded by iron fencing with revolving spikes – whether to exclude outsiders, mainly female probably, or to imprison the students was never quite clear. If one did venture out of college after dark without sporting an undergraduate gown, there was the hazard of encountering a proctor, who was entitled to fine you half a mark (6/8d or 33p in modern currency) for your state of undress.  Added to this was the imposition of a fine if one was living in college and returned after a certain time – 10:30 pm as I recall.

Continue reading →

by chvarchive

Memories of Children’s Holiday Venture (CHV) – a personal memoir

By John Grundy

When an older undergraduate walked into my freshman room at Clare early in 1966 and said, “You are studying German, John. Would you like to work in Austria next summer?”, I didn’t immediately realise that he was changing the direction of my life. An instinctive “Yes” (I’d worked in Austria before and loved it) led to a major social commitment in my undergraduate years and beyond, and to six summers with long weeks spent in Austria’s Tauern mountains surrounded by young Hungarians and other eastern Europeans.

Writing in 2016 it is difficult to disentangle the word “refugee” from big political issues around migration, terrorism, international upheaval, threats to western Europe’s way of life. Continue reading →

by chvarchive

Children’s Holiday Venture in Germany, Austria and the UK

By Peter Watson

‘The end of World War II brought in its wake the largest population movements in European history. Millions fled or were expelled from Eastern Europe. Hundreds of thousands of Jews, survivors of the genocide perpetrated by the Nazis, sought secure homes beyond their native lands. And other refugees from every country in Europe rushed to escape from the newly installed communist regimes.’

An extract from ‘European refugee movements after World War II’ by Bernard Wasserstein

Published on the BBC history website

 

Children’s Holiday Venture (CHV), with which many Jesuans from the 1960s and 70s were involved, ran summer camps in Austria and Germany for children from families who had been forced to move at the end of World War II because of political change in Eastern Europe. Continue reading →