Travels with my mother (to see my aunt)

Just back from Switzerland where my mother and I visited relatives in Zurich.

The main purpose of the trip was to see my mother’s sister Dorothy (above) who was 100 last month.

But we also saw my cousin Rolf, his wife Christa, their son (and his wife), and various grandchildren and great grandchildren.

Born in Wembley in 1925, Dorothy left school (St George's School in Harpenden, Hertfordshire) during the war.

Thereafter she studied chemistry at Imperial College of Science and Technology (now Imperial College London), before working for Glaxo, the British pharmaceutical company that became part of GlaxoSmithKline (now called GSK).

In 1947 she moved to Switzerland where she got a job working for Brown, Boveri & Company (BBC) in Baden near Zürich.

(BBC was a Swiss group of electrical engineering companies that later merged with the General Swedish Electrical Limited Company - Swedish abbreviation ASEA - to form Asea Brown Boveri, aka ABB.)

It was in Baden that she met Reini, who was Swiss-German, and they married in 1949 when Dorothy was 23. As was the way, she then gave up her job to have a family.

Initially they lived in a small flat in Zurich but in 1951, with one young son (Rolf) and another (Tom) on the way, they moved to a larger apartment.

According to Dorothy, her father-in-law suggested they rent the property after it was recommended by someone he met in the street, and Reini duly signed a contract even though Dorothy hadn’t seen it.

(Funnily enough, my father did something similar when he and my mother moved to Scotland in 1969. That is, he bought a house my mother hadn’t seen. Fortunately, she liked it.)

Dorothy must have liked the flat in Zurich because she and Reini lived there for over 50 years before he died 20 years ago. (He was a few years older than Dorothy so he must have been in his eighties.)

Anyway, she continued to live there until two years ago when her landlords (the same family who had let the apartment in 1951) gave tenants a year’s notice that the two blocks of flats they owned were to be demolished and replaced with two new residential apartment buildings.

Since then Dorothy has lived in a small flat with a large terrace in a residential care home in another part of the city.

Speaking to her over the weekend however I was keen to know more about the post wars years.

“Why Switzerland?” I asked.

“I wanted to get out!” she said.

And who can blame her? Although there was some rationing of food in neutral Switzerland, there was no comparison with Britain where rationing continued until 1954.

My mother says her sister would send her chocolate, which is ironic because today one of the things on Dorothy’s wish list is Cadbury’s Dairy Milk which is not available in Switzerland.

I’m not sure it’s even considered to be chocolate on the continent (not enough cocoa, apparently) but my cousins love it as well so my mother took several large bars!

According to Dorothy, in those immediate post war years she would fly to Zurich from Heathrow on a Douglas DC-3 Dakota, a twin-engined aircraft with a cruising speed of 207mph, and a range of 1,500 miles.

The Dakota carried up to 32 passengers and was originally designed and launched before the war.

In truth she probably flew from Northolt (also in west London) because at that time Northolt not Heathrow was the UK’s busiest airport.

While Heathrow was under construction Northolt was also the operating base for British European Airways (BEA) whose first service from Heathrow didn’t take place until 1950.

My mother remembers flying to Zurich for the first time in the early Fifties, but it was Dorothy who did most of the travelling.

In 1956, three years before I was born, Rolf and Tom were pageboys at my parents’ wedding.

Reini rarely visited the UK but as a child I saw Dorothy several times when she came over to see my grandparents, sometimes bringing Rolf and Tom with her.

For many years she was a member of the Naval and Military Club where she stayed when she was in London.

Informally known as The In and Out Club, it was founded in 1862 and was based at 94 Piccadilly before moving to its current location, 4 St James’s Square, in 1999.

I remember having dinner with Dorothy at the club in the late Eighties. Earlier that day she had flown into London City Airport, the new London airport that opened in 1987.

As it happens I visited Switzerland for the first time in 1987, but I flew from Heathrow. I was speaking at a conference in Berne so I took the opportunity to spend a couple of days with Dorothy and Reini in Zurich.

Their flat was on the second floor of a building built of thick grey stone. It was a big apartment with a long central corridor, three bedrooms, kitchen, bathroom, and a large dining area that led into a sitting room, and a balcony large enough for the whole family to eat outside.

What I remember most though is the clanging of the local church bells at seven o’clock in the morning. I had never heard anything like it but Dorothy and Reini barely noticed the cacophony.

Dorothy tells me that some people in Switzerland have started to complain about church clocks that toll in the middle of the night, and even the sound of cow bells has been known to antagonise some sensitive souls.

I said that in rural England there are similar stories of newcomers trying to put a stop to the local church bells, and even in urban areas people are moving next to pubs and then complaining that it’s too noisy.

In 2011, a few years after Reini died, I returned to Zurich but this time with my family. We caught the ferry at Portsmouth and drove to Switzerland via France). A few years later I went there on business and met up with Dorothy and my cousins for dinner.

In 2010 Dorothy came to my father’s 80th birthday celebration at Hassop Hall in Derbyshire, and after his death in 2014 there was another visit to Derbyshire to see my mother.

Talking of whom, fair play to my mother. She may be 94 but we must have walked several kilometres over the last few days.

(Our hotel - a former brewery at the top of a hill - was very nice but not, perhaps, in the most convenient location.)

She didn’t need airport assistance and the only small moment of alarm was when she (almost) walked in front of a moving tram!

As for Dorothy, aside from her restricted mobility, she is as sharp as ever and on the evidence of the last few days she could have several more years ahead of her.

That said, I can also see her rolling her eyes at the prospect so perish the thought!

Above: My aunt Dorothy, born April 2025, pictured, aged 100, on May 24, 2025. Below: my mother, 94, at Zurich Airport, May 25, 2025. Mission accomplished!