Tag / clare

by chvarchive

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 →

by chvarchive

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 →

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A week in the Lungau

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 →

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‘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 →

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October 2016 update

By Peter Watson

In the months since the last update we have passed an exciting milestone – more than 500 people have now visited this website, from as far afield as the US, Canada and Brazil, across Europe and of course the UK. A clear pattern is emerging of spikes in readership after articles appearing in alumni magazines. While we have been working to alert college magazines to our project, some colleges will only run articles if they are submitted by former members of that college – so if you are in touch with any friends from colleges we haven’t yet managed to alert, do please let them know in case they are willing to assist. Five hundred is a great number but there may be many hundreds more who haven’t yet heard about the archive, and who may wish to contribute, or just to enjoy reading about it. Spread the word!

Over the summer we received two responses to the Homertonian magazine letter, from Barbara Curry (nee Kay) and Jane Bramhill,  who took part in different camps in the 70s. Their contributions can be read here and here. More recently, Angus Tulloch (Clare) got in touch with memories of camps he attended in Austria and near Leeds, and fundraising.

Gordon Edwards and I have both sent round-robin emails to lists of contacts gathered through this project. If you would like to receive an occasional message to keep up with the project then please email via this link with your details.

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‘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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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 →

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February 2016 update

Our search for memories and photographs of CHV was first publicised in the Clare College    e-newsletter in late January. It brought an immediate response from Clare graduates who had been on various CHV camps in different countries. A list is given below. If you know any of them, if you want to get in touch with them, if you have memories and photographs of the camps they mention or if you want to get involved in this project, please get in touch by email and we will pass on your message as appropriate.

The initial response to our first request has been very promising. There is obviously an interest out there which we must tap into. Hopefully, we will hear soon from the other colleges we have approached.

The names of Clare graduates who responded are:

  • John Grundy, Austrian camps mid 60s
  • Andrew Reekie, Austrian camps 1962
  • Chris Constantine, German camps 1971
  • Joe Pillman, UK camps early 70s
  • Bruce Huett, Austrian camps 1967