Club ties
Taki
St Moritz This is the worst news I’ve had since Paulus’s Sixth Army surrendered in Stalingrad. I was speaking to a very old friend in St Moritz when she suddenly asked me why I live in the Third World. ‘But I live in Gstaad,’ I stammered. ‘Yes, exactly, if Gstaad is not the Third World, I don’t know what is. Faster than a bullet, I began buttonholing old St Moritz hands, asking them if they thought Gstaad was the Third World. As great regrets go, their answers did not rank alongside Pushkin’s failure to shoot d’Anthes, but damn near. It seems I’ve been a terrible schmuck these past 47 years. To St Moritz regulars, Gstaad is the Gulag.
Sporting the dyspeptic demeanour of a New York trophy wife who has mistakenly found herself in a Parisian brothel, I decided to investigate further. At the Corviglia Ski Club, which was celebrating its 75th anniversary last weekend, high above St Moritz. As everyone knows, in Dante’s eighth ring of Hell, flatterers were dumped in excrement, to remain there for ever. In view of the opinions I heard, no Corviglia members will be dumped in the shit any time soon. Take, for example, the impeccable secretary of the club, Brigadier David Webb Carter. He welcomed me with a smile, stuck a large G on my jacket, and told me that, although the G stood for Gulag, I could pretend it was for Gstaad. Now that’s what I call telling it like it is. (The Irish Guards are known for it.) Or the president of the club, Prince Augusto Ruffo di Calabria. ‘You poor, poor man,’ he said. ‘How long have you been there? You look remarkably healthy after years in that dreadful camp.’ His wife, Princess Tana, born Windisch-Graetz, immediately slipped me some food and blankets.
But enough of this silliness. About 50 years or so ago, the American humourist Art Buchwald wrote a brilliant column in the Herald Tribune about the ‘most exclusive ski club in the world’. Buchwald pretended that he was unwelcome in the club because he was short on tankers and low on cash. So he got inside the door by saying that his dog wished to become a member. It was all in fun, and a picture of Buchwald lunching with Marella Agnelli on the terrace was published in the club’s wonderful 75th anniversary book. In my case, it was not necessary to use my dog. The mother of my children was good enough. She was the Corviglia glamour girl in 1965, and for this year’s celebrations, 30 ex-glamour girls showed up. I went along for the ride. And what a hoot it was. Let’s face it. The mystery and success of a club, any club, lies in its membership. If the membership consists of ladies and gentlemen, no matter how rich or poor, the club works. Bring in one rotten apple, and you know the rest. Savoir-faire and a relaxed atmosphere is what it’s all about.
Which brings me to the Eagle Club in Gstaad. It was started in 1957, 27 years after the Corviglia, which it was modelled on. I joined in 1958, when the Eagle closely resembled the Corviglia. In other words, it was exclusive, with about 150 members. Then some bloody fool read some American drivel about all men being created equal, and decided that the Eagle was the place to test this particularly vicious American theory. Needless to say, the experiment worked. That is, it produced the lowest common denominator. Soon we were 900, including people who had served time (I was only third in line, but now we have many more), others who had indulged in sexual acts with animals, money launderers, Belgian EU bureaucrats, Syrian and Iraqi bankers, men who had sold faulty arms to Tutsis and Christian Sudanese. Mind you, the committee was always good, David Niven, Roger Moore, Prince Romanov, Jack Hemingway, Basil Goulandris, Jocelyn Stevens, Urs Hodler, Foulke Warwick ... but much too kind-hearted. For a while we used to put up nets at night and drop them on various drunks whom we press-ganged into becoming members in the morning. Now, despite valiant efforts by some of us, it is too late. The Corviglia will not ski against us any longer because some of our members slaughtered some sheep on their terrace after the race, and denounced Princess Milana von Furstenberg to the police for driving a car.
But back to one of the best weekends I have had since the fall of Paris in 1940. George and Lita Livanos, Heinrich von Furstenberg, Jean de Iturbe, Michel de Carvalho, Rolf Sachs, Debonnair (also a past glamour girl) and Bolla Bismarck, Bluey Mavroleon, Tim Hoare — all made me feel so welcome that I might, just might, return. Three great parties, one after another, have taken their toll, however. Plus I discovered that the Corviglia cheats. I was awarded first prize for the most elegant male skiing costume of the 1930s for the rope race, and my name was inscribed on the grand Asprey’s Cup. (Asprey’s, incidentally, handed out silver cups and neckties commemorating the 75 years, which I drunkenly left behind, surely to be picked up by some Eagle member.) I later found out that Lita Livanos and Jean de Iturbe were the judges. If that wasn’t insider trading, I don’t know what is.
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