This week one of many oldest ski golf equipment on the earth, the Downhill Solely Membership, is celebrating its centenary. Right here Brian Bollen, the present DHO Hon Editor, takes a take a look at how the membership advanced.
The Downhill Solely Membership (DHO) in Wengen, in Switzerland’s Bernese Oberland, was based on 7 February 1925, and is scheduled to have a good time 100 years since its creation with a Roaring Twenties (Twenties)-themed dinner on the Resort Regina in Wengen on Thursday.
The commemorations started again on 8 November with a curtain-raising dinner in London and can proceed with an a hundredth Anniversary Ski again to Wengen on 7 February adopted by birthday drinks within the night.
The background to the creation of the DHO is detailed in an article written by Ken (Ok D) Foster that was first printed within the 1938 version of the British Ski 12 months E book, and reprinted within the 1946 DHO Journal (the primary after World Battle II). Ken relates how the Kandahar ski membership in Mürren issued a problem to Wengen, and C J White managed to lift a staff by taking what amounted to a press-gang around the bars of Wengen, selecting a time when many individuals are apt to be a bit light-hearted concerning the plans they make for the morrow. And so the primary British staff to symbolize Wengen was made: C J White, Barry Caulfeild, Donald Dalrymple, D S Stoneham and Ok D Foster, with S F Fisken as reserve.
Got here the daybreak, the Kandahar staff, led by Duncan Harvey, arrived lined with “Ok” emblems and accompanied by what seemed to be a extremely organised service division. These outward indicators of environment friendly organisation did nothing to lift the spirits of the Wengen staff, lots of whom had been already doubting the knowledge of their in a single day resolution and the strict accuracy of C. J. White’s description of the occasion as a casual little outing wherein time could be had by all.
PHOTOS: Ken Foster and CJ White, photographs provided by Freddie Whitelaw
The Kandahar opened with a brisk suggestion that the occasion ought to encompass a slalom and a straight race. To this the Wengen staff agreed, concealing the truth that most of them had not the slightest thought of what a slalom may be.
They learnt all about it in the midst of the morning, on the expense of a defeat of 20 factors to five. Throughout the lunch interval Ken Foster thought that one thing must be performed to take away the inferiority advanced induced by the morning’s defeat and by the glittering show of Ok badges. He sketched a provide of paper badges which confirmed a determine snowboarding in a relatively constipated place on the highest of the initials “DHO” – an abbreviation for “Downhill Solely”, a phrase coined by S F Fisken to point his choice for railway-mountaineering.
These badges had been properly obtained by the Wengen staff, who did a bit higher within the afternoon straight race as they had been solely defeated by 10.5 to 13.5 factors, and managed to get the second and third locations, in addition to tying for the fourth.
The ultimate consequence – a defeat by 33.5 factors to fifteen.5 factors – sufficed to point out that Kandahar had been very a lot better skiers and had the benefit of coaching and organisation for racing.
These reflections had their lead to a dinner held on the Palace Resort on the evening of Saturday, 7 February 1925, when it was determined to perpetuate the “DHO” as a membership whose major object must be to avenge the defeat suffered yesterday.
The unique paper badge was adopted because the Membership Badge (besides that the constipated gent was moved from the highest to the center of the circle) and continued in use as much as 1937, when a piece of the Membership – led by the unique designer of the badge – obtained approval of the current design of initials.
Illustrious names on the membership’s membership record down the century have included David Cornwell, higher identified to the world as groundbreaking novelist John le Carré, and Christopher Brasher, one other groundbreaker. The phrase groundbreaker has explicit significance within the context of a member who, as a younger athlete, helped tempo Roger Bannister to the primary recorded sub-four minute mile on 6 Could 1954. Brasher co-founded the London Marathon in 1981.
Different names on the membership’s membership roster embody Ryan Regez, the Ski Cross Olympic and World Champion in 2022, and Chemmy Alcott, probably the most profitable British skier on the worldwide scene within the fashionable period.
The DHO has a significance that stretches past the confines of the fashionable clubroom, its committee conferences, organised ski main and racing, the DHO Journal and the membership web site, as specialist Swiss historian Michael Frei observes. In the event you take a look at the historic growth of tourism, he writes, you may describe the Downhill Solely Ski Membership as a sort of good common clientele: Friends who come to Wengen many times, organise themselves collectively and never solely go to “their” vacation spot, but additionally assist to form it by means of their membership and their actions.
The truth that that is attainable is just not solely as a result of initiative of the membership members and the native inhabitants, but additionally to a complete collection of developments and stipulations that needed to be fulfilled.
DHO Milestones
7 February 1925 The Downhill Solely Membership is based at Wengen’s Palace Resort to lift the usual of snowboarding in Wengen.
10 February 1925 The DHO launches its first Membership Run on Lauberhorn.
1936 The primary version of the DHO Journal is revealed. Aside from through the years of World Battle II it has been revealed yearly ever since.
7 February 1950 The DHO marks its Silver Jubilee. Visitor of Honour on the gala dinner on the Palace Resort is Marshal of the Royal Air Drive Lord Tedder, accompanied by Girl Tedder.
1965 DHO members reap the benefits of the Piper Cub constitution service from the highest of the Männlichen, as a really downhill solely approach of visiting the glaciers.
1969 DHO members characteristic as extras within the movie Downhill Racer, which begins Robert Redford, Gene Hackman and Wengen.
1975 Highlights of the DHO’s Golden Jubilee yr embody the accession of the membership’s first feminine president, The Honourable Mrs Sheila Hensman (née Wakefield, daughter of 1st Baron Wakefield).
February 2000 DHO holds its seventy fifth anniversary Gala dinner within the Regina, which attracts over 200 visitors.
21 November 2024 The DHO launches its personal potted historical past: A Downhill Solely Membership A Historical past.
6 February 2025 A gala dinner will probably be held on the Resort Regina in Wengen, which is about to have 151 individuals in attendance, together with the British Ambassador to Switzerland as visitor of honour.
7 February 2025 The DHO will have a good time its a hundredth anniversary with a refreshed imaginative and prescient and urge for food for the long run.
Classes: Membership & Slope Information, Information, Resort Information & Studies, Switzerland
