A personal recollection of Children’s Relief International, 1976-77

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 →

Under canvas on Plattenhof 1965, Camp 1

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 →

Austria camp II, 1967

A report written in 1967 by Glyn Jones and John Grundy

The team consisted of eight Cambridge students – five men and three girls; our camp was based on the ‘Almhütte’ we used last year.

Familiar surroundings were an obvious asset and the simple lay-out of the hut made for convenience.  The cowstall was furnished with rude tables and benches, quickly cleared away to provide space for indoor activities; the kitchen had a large wood-fired cooking stove, which also supplied constant hot water, and a huge copper urn for boiling dirty clothes.  There was a cool larder with running water piped from a mountain stream.  Upstairs there was ample room for stores and extra accommodation in case of wet weather.  A straw-filled cot served as a sick-bay.  Other buildings included a hay barn and a firewood shed.  Behind the hut, a hayfield rose steeply to the mountains; in front the land sloped gently down to the main stream of the valley.  Beyond this stream, crossed by an apparently decaying but immensely solid wooden bridge, lay the field which was the scene of most of our games and around which we pitched the tents.  The site is a perfect natural playground. Continue reading →

Austria camp II, 1966

A report written in 1966 by John Grundy

A 14 year-old Ukrainian boy born in a D.P. camp at Trieste and now living alone with his elderly father in Salzburg, able to speak six languages but prevented from meeting anyone his own age; four brothers from a family of six, the father in a mental asylum and mother desperately trying to support them; two Hungarian brothers whose mother is a prostitute and whose gypsy blood makes it difficult for them to settle in a city, still less a city where a foreign language is spoken and where they have no roots.  These were some of the children who were selected for this year’s second Austrian camp.  Continue reading →

St Peter camp I, 1967

The following is a report from 1967, written by Peter Watson about a camp at St Peter in summer of that year. 

For the first time for several years the reservoir by the Plattenhof, high up in the Black Forest 20 miles from Freiberg, was warm. The two weeks of hot sunshine, marred only by some violent but short-lived thunderstorms meant that swimming costumes were the dress of the day, With continuous sunshine, activities were easy to plan, and fo fourteen days a team of 12 students gave 37 children (13 girls and 24 boys) a holiday which students and children alike will long remember.  Continue reading →

1964 Plattenhof

Two camps were held that year at Plattenhof near Sankt Peter in the Black Forest, Germany. The land was owned by Stefan Saum who seemed to combine farming with the operation of a gasthaus. The property contained a lake formed by the damming of a stream, and german families would drive up and sunbathe, swim and drink beer etc. However,  the amalgamation of farming practices with the provision of food had a downside in the existence of a dung heap outside the kitchen window, a juxtaposition that didn’t go down well with the local government authorities and led to the revocation of the food license. Continue reading →