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Less than a Whymper

12th April 2007 by Helena 6 Comments  

IntrepidThe most distinguished Englishman to visit Zermatt was Edward Whymper, famous for being the first person to climb the Matterhorn. He made eight attempts to climb it, only succeeding when he realised he was about to be beaten by an Italian. He now lies buried in Chamonix, a monument to the great British adventuring spirit.

Even once he got to the top of the Matterhorn I doubt he made as much noise as a group of people from Yorkshire we had the misfortune of running across this evening. We went out from dinner having left the children in the hotel with the lovely Ed. Suddenly as if from nowhere they appeared along with trays of lager, clouds of smoke and extremely loud voices. It began with a lot of random yelling. Then it turned into games like the famously intellectual ‘give me…clap clap…names of…clap clap’ which I last saw being played at the annual Hatfield College rugby club dinner; famous for its high-brow evenings and charming traditions like chanting ‘moose’ en masse when an unattractive girl enters the room.

Offensive as the Yorkshire contingent were (I did at one stage wonder whether I should renounce my English citizenship) it was an interesting study in anthropology. There were children there and you could see how they would grow up to be just as loud and uncouth as the adults around them. I watched in wonder as one girl aged about eight took to yelling ‘anyone who doesn’t want to play – go away’ and wolf-whistling to get the attention of the others. Actually it was rather like watching monkeys in a cage at the zoo, only more depressing.

There was one upside though. Our children have been fairly menacing over the past few days. But spending time in the presence of these louts made us look forward to seeing them again. We quickly paid the bill and headed back to the hotel where the girls were fast asleep and Leo was waiting to give me a kiss.

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2007


Filed Under: Britain, Children, Travel, blog --> Tagged With: whymper

6 thoughts on Less than a Whymper

  • spymum says:
    12th April 2007 at 7:36 am

    That eight year old girl sounds scary! Yikes! Don’t go back to Zermatt HFP, go to La Rosiere or Val D’Isere! The night life is a tad quiet, but it is full of terribly nice, pukka men in Nantucket Reds, and pretty, trim yummy mummies! No lager louts at all! 😉

    What about Verbiere?

  • Debio says:
    12th April 2007 at 1:24 pm

    Yes – the lunatics have taken over the asylum.

    The saddest thing about the UK is its inhabitants. There are currently 10 million ex-pats and I wonder how a country can afford to lose such a resource, because, I am sure, many of these emigrants are skilled and valuable.

    The politicians would serve the country well if they considered why so many people were leaving or plan so to do

    I, too, re-value my daughter when I witness the British abroad – and we are subjected to many of them here in Dubai, mostly unfortunately.

  • Amber Lee says:
    12th April 2007 at 2:43 pm

    And of course there was more of that nasty smoking 🙁

  • Drunk Mummy says:
    12th April 2007 at 5:57 pm

    Helena, I can’t believe for a minute that the Hatfield boys would have chanted “moose” at you. But did you get a few choruses of “There’s a Rah In the Bar” instead? I only ever went in Hatfield bar once – on a bar crawl. It was once too often.

  • Jonathan Miller says:
    13th April 2007 at 11:42 am

    I strongly resemble your attack on Yoprkshire folk. You are absolutely right that we are loud and borish at the best of times not to mention often smelley since we know that where there’s muck there’s brass hence you don’t want to question us too closely on where we laid hands on the money.

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Helena Frith Powell was born in Sweden to a Swedish mother and Italian father, but grew up mainly in England. She is the author of eleven books, translated into several languages including Chinese and Russian. She wrote the French Mistress column The Sunday Times about life in France for several years. She is a regular contributor to the Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday, The Times, Daily Telegraph, Tatler Magazine and Harper’s Bazaar.

Helena has been the editor of four magazines, including M Magazine, a supplement for the Abu Dhabi-based National Newspaper and FIVE, a high-end fashion glossy, also published in Abu Dhabi. Helena was also editor-in-chief of 360 Life, a quarterly glossy magazine published with the Sports 360 Newspaper in Dubai, part of the Chalhoub Group.

Helena contributes regularly to UK-based newspapers and magazines and holds a Masters in Creative Writing from the University of Cambridge. She is working on a thriller set in Sweden as well as a novel about the relationship between Virginia Woolf and Katherine Mansfield called Sense of an Echo.

In 2022 her short story The Japanese Gardener came second in the Fish Publishing Short Story Prize. One of her stories was also shortlisted for the Bridport Short Story Prize. When she’s not writing, she works as a headhunter for the media and entertainment industry for the Sucherman Group. 

Helena, who was educated at Durham University, lives in the Languedoc region of France with her husband Rupert and their three children.

Bibliography

More France Please, we’re British; Gibson Square 2004

Two Lipsticks and a Lover 2005; Gibson Square (hardback)

All You Need to be Impossibly French; (US version of above) Penguin 2006

Two Lipsticks and a Lover; Arrow Books (paperback) 2007

Ciao Bella Gibson Square; (hardback) 2006

Ciao Bella Gibson Square; (paperback) 2007

So Chic! (French version of Two Lipsticks) Leduc Editions 2008 (also translated into Chinese, Russian and Thai)

More, More France; Gibson Square 2009

To Hell in High Heels; Arrow Books 2009 (also translated into Polish)

The Viva Mayr Diet; Harper Collins 2009

Love in a Warm Climate; Gibson Square 2011

The Ex-Factor; Gibson Square 2013

Smart Women Don’t Get Wrinkles; Gibson Square 2016

The Arnolfini Marriage; Amazon Kindle December 2016

Smart Women Don’t Get Wrinkles (paperback); Gibson Square spring 2018

The Longest Night; Gibson Square spring 2019

 

 

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