Tag / germany

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Black Forest memories

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 →

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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 →

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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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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 →

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February 2018 update

By Peter Watson

In late November 2017 there was a small reunion at my house of volunteers who worked on the Plattenhof camps near St. Peter, Black Forest, in the mid to late ‘60s. David Beeby, Judith Rice (Judi Venner as was), Marj Thorley (Bannister as was, though now divorced) and myself (Peter Watson) along with our other halves. Philip Seddon, who played a major role in putting the meeting together, should have been with us but, unfortunately, he was taken ill the day before.  Continue reading →