December 1974 St Moritz, Switzerland
Back in the mid 70s, schools didn’t do all the extracurricular trips they do today, and the only option was an Egyptian cruise which my folks couldn’t afford as it was three times dearer than my sister’s skiing trip to Austria. She enjoyed it so much she blagged herself on another trip even though she’d already left school, and somehow, Mum managed to get me included, which meant reuniting with several kids I’d not seen since junior school, four years prior.
At 15, this was my first adventure outside the UK and, although the antithesis of a sporty type, I did well enough to join the intermediate group and have the thrilling experience of skiing down the side of a mountain with a sheer drop on one side. Scary, but exhilarating.
Because she was older, Deb joined the sixth-formers, and when it came to having a quick tipple on New Year’s Eve, I was bundled in, too. I vividly remember a disco, and The Goodies’ Father Christmas Do Not Touch Me playing as I joined the queue for this treat, waving jauntily to my contemporaries, who missed out on the fun, still being in the 4th form. Even before this insufferable smugness, I was left on the outside of their tightly-bound friendship groups, which I didn’t mind as I had little in common with them, being far too studious after passing the 11+ to go to a grammar school. So I hung out in the pool room with a bunch of lads from a Surrey school, and one lad, Nigel, was very keen, pairing with me on the table football against two of his friends. I recall walking into the nearby village, snuggled up in woolly scarves and appreciating the romance of all the Christmas lights. We rode back on the same sleeper train, and I remember doing the Quo dance (thumbs in belts) to Caroline and Down Down.
When we got home I wrote weekly to Nigel, who only returned a couple of letters before I finally got the message about the fragility of holiday romance/long-distance relationships. In a complete shocker, I’d apparently also given my address to a German lad Udo and, although I don’t remember speaking to him much, I ended up with a real pen-pal, who wrote faithfully for many months afterwards. He was extremely erudite, and seemed much keener than my actual boyfriend. He wanted to buy a guitar and I sent him a page from the NME featuring info on second-hand Strats. There’s defo a musical theme running through the men in my life.
February 1995 Munich, Germany
Steph was just short of two when my company first sent me to Munich. GPT (GEC-Plessey Telecoms) had merged with Siemens and I flew over to assess their software build suite with a view to implementing it in the UK.
This was my first solo flight, but it all ran smoothly and I was met in the hotel by a chap from a different department who whisked me straight into the city centre where the celebrations for Fasching (lent) were in full swing, with street performers on every corner, and people in fancy dress.
I got on really well with my German counterpart, a tall, striking woman, and the work was quite similar to our way of doing things – except they had a way of putting out builds with unresolved bugs rather than fixing things first and incurring a late delivery penalty. It made good business sense, but went against our natural honour and integrity. Apart from that, there wasn’t much difference between British and German engineers – except they all prided themselves in being fluent in at least two languages apart from their own. One thing I noticed was the temperature difference – I remember taking the subway into town wearing a denim skirt with no tights – it was considerably warmer than the UK where it would be inconceivable to go tightless in Feb.
JRo Author 