Mum and Dad met in a ski resort (Obergurgl, 1962). And if you count back from the day that an overdue and heavy baby was delivered by C-section in 1966, it looks like I was conceived in a ski resort too.
I guess I was destined to end up in the snowsports industry.
My folks first took me out to St Anton when I was 16 months old. They first put me on skis when I was four.
I was lucky to have parents who skied before it was a ‘popular’ holiday choice. And I was lucky that when they separated, my mum spent all her spare pennies taking us on our annual holiday.
We skied every year from 1975 to 1985, when I went to university. We started with St Anton, but Italy was more affordable with Cervinia, Sauze d’Oulx and Madesimo all visited. Aviemore offered a taste of driving Scottish hail. I skied the Vallee Blanche in Chamonix at 11, and the bigger resorts of Les Arcs and Meribel were used to tire us out when older.
Bareges and Baqueira in the Pyrenees were the last few holidays as a family before I moved on to university, where I wrongly assumed I would captain the ski team.