This week we are delighted to welcome guest author Alwyn Prior, who has an amazing story to tell…

My name is Alwyn Prior and I was born in Bramley, Leeds on 28/09/1938 after interviews and medicals I was chosen along with three other boys and four girls all from Leeds to attend the Pestalozzi International Children’s Village in Trogen Switzerland for a period of three years at least, we were all from one parent families. We would be coming home each year for the summer holidays this was in the year 1950. On the 3^rd of September of the same year, we were assembled in London along with four children from Hull two boys and two girls, and eighteen mainly from the Hayes area both boys and girls. On 5^th September we were flown from Northolt airport in London and by Swiss Air to Zurich. From there we were taken by coach to the village in Trogen where we were greeted by our future colleagues. There were twelve other houses in the village occupied by children of other nationalities each nation had its own house we were split into two groups Thames House and Stepping Stones. The nations represented when we arrived were French, Italian, German, Greek, Austrian, Finnish, and British. I was in Stepping Stones there were fifteen of us seven boys and eight girls plus a House Mother and Father and their two children and a helper. In Thames House there were 15 children 9 boys and 6 girls plus two houseparent’s and their son and a helper  We were the very first British children to enter the village. 

Although the war had only finished five years previously, the first thing I noticed was that all the foreign children apart from their language were no different from us. As a child you do not realize this and though we did not know at the time this was the basis of the experiment. If children of different nationalities could learn to live together then perhaps they would grow up and become less likely to have conflicts with other nations and spread the message.   

Within two days the boys in our house were playing football with and against all the other boys in the village. I am not sure what my mam thought about that when I wrote home. There was a chores roster for the house that rotated so that everybody had a go at them all. The worst job was washing up it seemed to take for hours. 

We all had German lessons for an hour five days a week and then we had English lessons and in the afternoon, there was a large selection of crafts that you could try to perfect. I will never forget the November morning when I threw back the curtains opened the triple glazing lifted the shutter and could not see out of the window, yes it had snowed and our ground floor bedroom was snowed in, at least three feet had fallen.  The boys were all handed Swiss-type shovels and told to dig us out no lessons today though. 

Every week a house had to be the duty house which meant that they had to perform a song in the morning get-together but also you would get to spend the evening meal in one of the other houses. I feel that I could go on and on with this story but there is so much to tell so I will finish by saying I spent three years of my life in the Swiss village and I count myself as being very fortunate to have had this experience. 

Alwyn has also kindly provided us with some wonderful photographs to illustrate his story. Click on the images in the gallery below to view them.

Alwyn tells us:

The girl in photo 1, 2nd from the left at the back and in photo 2 on the right of the train window was called Elizabeth (Betty) Dean from Belle Isle. I am telling you this because I think she was employed at your library in the late fifties.