10. Early summer 1956: Swiss Cheese

Chandolin

Early summer and a work-camp to build a dairy in the Swiss Alps, so peasant farmers could make their cheese near the high summer pasture rather than carry milk-churns to the village on their backs. The aim, to help preserve a dying peasant way of life. ( I got a clearer understanding of that many years later when we moved to a smallholding in Wales. Like most small farmers around, we could not survive on our land alone. We had cars and went out to part time jobs to make ends mee.  A century  earlier many hill farmers had preferred 12 hour shifts in coalmines to 16-hour days in all weathers without the security of a regular wage, however small.)

I dont know how our Swiss dairy turned out, how much cheese it produced or whether the  villagers still ound more profitable pursuits as ski-instructors, mountain guides or merchant bankers. The main thing I remember about our work up that mountain was the job it took two of us to widen a stretch of footpath into a track that would allow a tractor or truck to pass. 

My workmate and mentor was Clemente a Spanish anarchist who had moved to France when Franco won. I didn't know much about that, except that my godfather had hoped he might offer air-cover to the Republicans. On his first training flight, as passenger with a pilot friend, he was killed when their light plane crashed into an English field.

I wonder now why I hardly questioned Clemente about his own experience before and after the civil war. My expensive schooling had included A-levels in Geography and History, but not Curiosity, unless we just too busy with the job in hand.

Our path skirted the mountainside on its winding way down to the village. Chandolin was said to be the highest all-year settlement in Switzerland, a church and  cluster of houses with no more than 100 residents. St Luc was the nearest place with shops and bus. The rock that occupied us for what seemed like weeks projected from the mountainside and left no space for widening the path. Not the sort of rock you could prise out and roll away, but part of the mountain. There were few obvious faults in the rock and it didn't crumble like the tufa we’d hacked out for drainage pits in Algeria. 
 

After knocking off a few flakes, loosened by years of alternating frost and sun, we were up against the core of it. Too much for the SCI's traditional pick-and-shovel, pelle et pioche, so we worked like stone-masons with hammers and chisels. One ray of hope for me was a rumour that we might given some gelignite to blow it apart if all else failed. Roll on failure... but Clemente was more patient and determined than I was, less willing to admit defeat,. He may have had enough of explosives in a previous life. Lump-hammer and cold chisel were his  weapons 0f choice. Each time I gave up, each time a hairline crack petered out, he would light on some faint suggestion of another fault. Soon he would have it open, with just enough rock flaked off to raise his hopes and lower mine.

When Clemente got tired, not to be outdone, I’d take my turn. As a break from breaking rock, we'd stop for a smoke from time to time. More than 30 years later, when I was frightened into giving up smoking, I didnt miss the nicotine as much as the little ritual, practiced handiwork and punctuation to a working day. Plus companionable exchange, exchange of tobacco, or a light with hand to shield it from the wind.

Smoke breaks were also time to look around. With such post-card peaks to marvel at - snow on top, rock and greenery below - what possessed us to keep chipping bits away, when we could have been exploring or catching trout? The more exasperated I got, the more I admired my indefatigable mate. 

Obviously there was more to this rustic work-camp than two men and a rock, but I cannot recall much else from day to day, who else was there, what we did or talked about, what we ate or where we slept. Had the cows already been let out to graze, could we hear their bells? Did we meet the villagers, they visit or invite us in? Perhaps not; perhaps this summer dairy hadn't been their idea, but a well-meant offer they couldn't refuse. Wouldn't I remember if we'd sampled their cheese?
 

Maybe not. It's not just dreams that must be recalled when fresh to save them from oblivion. Our ancestors in caves would have told their families about encounters on the hunt, as well as recording highlights on the walls. Moving from place to place, constantly meeting and parting, I had no call to recall, yesterday's events got lost behind today's. Not that records do justice to the past.. I'm often irritated by the way snapshots substitute themselves for memory, perpetuating one moment at the expense of all the rest. Although I still have a camera, I rarely use it. What to do with all those pictures, might I not save some fleeting image or reflection in my mind?

Near that camp in Switzerland, some of us caught wild trout with their hands. A dream come true, I'd heard about tickling trout under English river banks and the Compleat Angler was embodied for me by (great) Uncle Clive. Like a playful fairy godfather, he handed me his rod by the river bank one day while he disappeared behind a bush. He'd cast his line across a sluggish little river in Somerset. No sooner had he left me to it, than a fish took the fly so perfectly laid out for me. The old man had told me how to strike, to fix the hook and reel it in, but I was too excited to remember that, I whipped the rod back and the fish flew over my head and landed in the meadow behind. The Alpine stream was a world away. The water rattled fresh and clear along a bed of rocks. The art now was to select a likely rock, one that stood out of the water with shelter of slack water behind it, then to wade upstream behind the rock and lower your hands towards it, using the V of rough water as cover for your handst. Then, with one hand on either side, close in, fingers outstretched to form a cage to hold any fish that might lurking there.  Once I felt, or thought I felt, a fish as it escaped. One or two other people were quicker or luckier, and I saw the fish they held aloft, flexing silver in their hands.

Another outing, which could have ended badly, got safely filed in memory, underLucky Escape. It was June by now and we had a crude map of mountain walks for summer visitors. On one free day, we selected a path that formed what looked like a convenient loop, up the side of one valley, over a ridge well below the mountain top and back down the valley next door. From our camp we could see snow on the high peaks giving way to rock, trees and green below. The day was fine, and most of the snow should be gone by now, uncovering the summer paths. We had no mountain gear but our working boots and clothes were sound enough. We followed our sketchy up the nearest valley and along the side of the ridge above. Sooner than we expected, our path ran into snow, patchy at first and unmarked but not too deep to walk across. Beyond the tongues of snow, we could mostly see where the path resumed. As the slope got steeper, snow and vegetation gave way to bare rock and scree. Across the loose stones, there was no obvious track. Either the snow had been late to melt or we had climbed higher than we thought,  but from our map it looked as though we were nearing the half-way point, the col at the top of the valley that would lead us across to the valley leading down.

Two problems arose. First the patches of snow joined up to form one blanket. Blank indeed as a veil of cloud or mist drifted in around us, dimming the sun and making it impossible to distinguish any form or feature in the snow ahead. Or back... We'd already had some un-nerving moments on the rocky bits. One of our little group was an unusually clumsy American. We were as distressed as he was when he missed a foothold or dislodged a rock. If we let him go ahead, he would be sure to fall. If we kept him behind, so we could catch him if he, we put ourselves in the path of the rocks he set rolling down. Without a rope, we took it in turns to stay beside him, lend him a hand and pointing out hand- and footholds.

Between blind snow and hard places we kept going in what we guessed to be thre right direction, slithering on frozen crusts or sinking in thigh-deep. Until we reached a sort of step or lip. A sudden drop, with no way of seeing what lay beyond or below, but our map showed no cliff or crevasse. On approaching the edge, we could see it stretching away to left and right, but no way round or down,  By now we were afraid, but going back seemed as bad as going on. We needed to get home before it got too dark and cold.
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I figured that a high cliff, as distinct from a snowy slope, might reveal something darker at the bottom, below the cloud and snow line. We dropped snowballs over the edge but they just disappeared. With someone holding my feet, I tried lying face down and reaching over the edge. Then I tried the other way round, arms up, legs down to reach a few inches further. Where my toes touched the snow wall, it seemed to get less vertical. 

I got back up and sat on the edge, legs dangling.  Impatience or desperation got the better of me.  'What the hell,' I thought, and pushed off with my hands. Over the edge I fell, a meter or two onto crusty snow. Steep enough to make the landing easy, but irreversible so I slid on down. The surface was quite smooth, not bumpy or uncomfortable. After a minute or two I was almost enjoying myself, but then saw the dark shape of rocks ahead. No way of avoiding them, so I prepared to fend off, cushion the impact with my feet. But as I hurtled onto it, I found the  rock-face was almost flush with the snow. I slid on over it, beginning to feel my luck might hold. And it did. The snow began to soften and level out, allowing me to dig my heels and elbows in.  Then snow gave way to grass, a field. The mist dispersed, the evening sun shone through and I could hear running water.  Such sweet relief, a gentle valley and a stream to lead us home...

Amazing Grace on Alpenhorn. I yelled back up to the others to follow in my tracks. Down they came in ones and twos, laughing and whooping out of the cloud. Whatever work-camp may have achieved for peasant farmers, this was a memorable outing for us international volunteers. 

At the end of my time in Chandolin, I met another mountain face to face. My next project was in Lebanon, a rebuilding effort after an earthquake. I had only a few months left of my two years 'alternative service' and this seemed like a quite important job in a strange new country. I had booked to board a ferry at Genoa on July 1^st and left myself two days to get there by bus and train from Swiss Valais through northern Italy. That would give me a night's sleep and time to look around before the boat sailed that afternoon.
 

What I'd forgotten was that the month of June has 30 days, not 31. By the time I realised, I had less than a day for the journey and the last bus had already gone from St Luc. If I missed the ferry, I didn't know how long I would have to wait for another, or whether my booking would hold.  I threw my things into my rucksack, someone gave me food and after hasty goodbyes I ran off down the path we'd been working on. Past the big bruised rock to Chandolin, then on down the zig zag mountain. It was a long way to run after a day outside at work, but nearly all downhill. Gravity spared me a lot of effort but bore down on my knees. Between the hairpin bends in the road, like the slash on a dollar sign, ran steep short cuts. From one of these straight dirt paths I almost overshot the road below, grabbing at a tree on the other side to steady myself. As I regained my breath, I saw how far I'd have fallen if I hadn't met the tree. Below this edge, there was a real cliff, with a panoramic out and away, accumulated rubble far below.. A few yards up the road from where I stood, a section of the verge had disappeared, as if bitten out. More gravity, and that, I now realised, was where another tree had stood, companion to the one I leant against. Looking down, I saw the trunk of it among some fallen rocks. Silver-grey and bare of bark, smooth apart from a few spikes of root and stubs of broken branches. I felt shocked, not so much with horror as a mixture of gratitude and recognition. Mutual recognition...? Suddenly I felt calmer, light-hearted, perfectly akin to that treetrunk lying peacefully there among the rocks. Whoever would care if we swapped places?

I was no longer panicked at the thought of missing the boat or making a fool of myself. Now I could resume my journey, with no certainty but not too bothered either way. I would do what I could and make the best of it, in time or not.
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As it happened, I got a lift and then a bus to a station at Sierre - I think that's where it was. A night train on to Genoa was due in a couple of hours time.  I got a ticket, found the platform and lay down on a bench. With my rucksack as a pillow, I fell asleep.

In what seemed like no time, I was woken by loud voices, laughter and the grating of a bottle neck against my teeth. Red wine dribbled down my chin. My gift-horses were Italian workers happy to be going home and determined to share it.  I sat up, made room on the bench and drank with them.

There were no seats left on the Genoa train. I stood wedged in a corner of a corridor and sleep caught up with me, my head in the crook of my arm. I awoke with the sun on my face and red through my eyelids. The railway ran south along the side of a long lake, with the sun rising over the mountains on the other side. Light and warmth from lake and sky. At any other time I would have been eager to look out of the window, but for now I was happy to hang on the edge of sleep and let it come to me.
 

'Oh Lord, I need two wings to veil my face..' sang the spiritual. Not with a bright heaven in mind but 'so the devil wont do me no harm.'  In Arabic, where blinding desert light might seem most threatening, the noun for sun – ash-shams – is feminine. Somewhere I read that the New York poet Marianne Moore could only bear a day week out in the city. The other days she stayed indoors, or in bed.
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I realise now that I had taken in too much in months of travelling around. The more I saw, the more people I met, the less I retained and remembered. For much of my life, I've been spoiled for choice. Now I'm sometimes frustrated with the feebleness and sloth of getting old, but every now and then, there's a glint of a silver lining. The other day, walking up a footpath from the sea with Ada (my wife), I got breathless and stopped to rest. She was some way ahead and the place where I stopped was rather overshadowed by low trees and hedge. I began to pity myself. Looking out towards the light, I noticed a leaf about the size of a postage stamp, twiddling in mid-air. A single blackthorn leaf, suspended on a single strand of spider's web, it spun a few seconds clockwise then a few seconds anti-clockwise.

Magically, manically, mechanically.