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previous to ours had ‘enjoyed’ a week in Bruges, a Belgian town full of all sorts
of interesting historical stuff, but which Mr Ward told me, perhaps rather too
truthfully, was a bit on the dull side. We were therefore much gratified to learn,
shortly before going home for Christmas, that our life-enhancing experience
in January was to be spent in the ski-resort of Leysin in the canton of Vaud,
Switzerland. Without knowing anything about it, even we knew we were onto
something much better than a city primarily known for making lace, which
would not have been a turn-on for a bunch of randy nineteen-year-old youths.

Another Christmas at home was a bonus indeed for those accustomed to
being at sea. I was very pleased to have the use of the Tank for the duration, for as
usual my family spent the holiday with the O’Learys. Though enjoyable was the
company of Jacqueline (who was by then engaged to be married to a fellow whom
we considered a Loser), the holiday was made much better by a Boxing Day party at
their house when I was introduced to a young lady named Sue, a local ‘friend’. This
young lady, slight but shapely, was very bubbly in a nicely suggestive manner. In
fact, on one evening when we went out to a pub and Jacqueline drove the Tank, four
of us found ourselves in the back seat with her (it was a big and very comfortable
vehicle), I gratefully found that she rather enjoyed intimacy. Then, upon telling her
my name, I found that she was best school-friends with Anne, who had actually
talked to Sue about me! This was all good information that deserved room in my
memory banks, especially the fact that this must be some ‘school’!

Shortly after returning to my studies – if they can be so called – I received a
nice long letter from Carole. Although she seemed to follow drab letters that said
nothing with others that were quite effusive, the latter were quite memorable.
From this missive I learned for the first time that she was now at Finishing School
in Gstaad (I had never known anyone who had been to Finishing School and
thought it only an anachronism beloved of romantic fiction writers), which
town by careful research I found was only twenty-three miles from Leysin. That
interesting fact cannot have occurred by chance; destiny, I thought, was playing
a game with me.

A few days later we arrived in Leysin. We were pleased to see that the
accommodation was a hostel that was comfortable, warm and located within a
short walk from the T-bar, which was all that the resort boasted. But what pleased
us far more was the fact that we were not the only guests; in fact, there was a
whole class of girls from a teachers’ training school in Portsmouth (one presumes
that male teachers went to teachers’ training, but they weren’t here! We were
overjoyed to see that this looked like ten days of unalloyed pleasure and leisure
… oh, and a bit of skiing). Although the rooms for boys and girls were divided,
there was no evidence of any senior advisers on either side of the divide, and
while I believe that Commander Southcott was there, I never recall seeing either
him nor a chaperone for the nubiles.

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