There is a mordant Spanish proverb which says that living well is the best revenge, although there are certain conditions, especially at wintertime: It is essential to the status of the world’s snobs that they be found skiing, and be seen après skiing, in either Gstaad or St Moritz in Switzerland.

Let me amend that. It used to be essential, but no longer. In fact, it is the opposite: The Alps during wintertime are now the place where the unacceptable nouveaux riche, the incredibly vulgar and the criminally connected now meet and party. Russian oligarchs, Gulf potentates who have yet to understand the workings of a water closet, and European hustlers hoping to meet their marks have now replaced the aristocracy and glamour of the post-war years when I first arrived in a snowy little village high up in the Bernese Alps, a place that looked like a movie set, including a cast of locals in lederhosen and pipes, and an Oompa band.

Gunter Sachs and Bridget Bardot: the jet set&#8217;s de facto King and Queen of St Moritz


But this is about yesterday, before catastrophic wild fires, collapsing ice shelves, recycling, oil spills, Tropical Island flooding, immigrant invasions, and racism, the ubiquitous word that now rules our lives. It was a Noel Coward world, Rattigan plays about the upper crust, and films without explosions, car chases and the F-word as adjective, adverb and noun. It was all about pleasure and the pursuit of happiness in a gentle manner. It was wintertime in the Alps.

"I was told that a gentleman always obliges a lady of her stature..."

Skiing caught on between the wars, and St Moritz was the Swiss resort where the rich and aristocratic congregated. The Duc de Sangro, Count Theo Rossi, of the Campari brand, the Agnelli Fiat family, the Bismarcks, and believe it or not, Sam Goldwyn, the Hollywood tycoon who referred to his painting by Toulouse Lautrec as “My Toujours Lautrec.” On my first visit there I was seated next to the Duchess of Alba, who took a liking to a twenty year old and made it obvious. Alas she did not resemble her ancestor, The Naked Maja, painted by Goya. I was later told that a gentleman always obliges a lady of her stature. The Corviglia club was founded by a select group of friends in 1932, and it has remained exclusive to this day. (Unlike its counterpart in Gstaad)

By the time I hit the slopes in 1957, the Earl of Warwick had had a dispute with some nouveau riche Greek in St Moritz and had left for Gstaad, a far more beautiful resort, much smaller and less glamorous. Warwick was the first president of the Eagle club, an imitation of the Corviglia. Warwick asked me to join because I was the first Greek “who I can understand a word he says in English.”

Such was the rarity of ski resorts back then, that people believed nobody was truly unhappy on the Alps. The main resorts were Cortina in Italy, Megeve, Chamonix and Valdisere in France, Kitzbuhel and St Anton in Austria, and the Swiss ones mentioned above. The centre of social life was the Palace Hotel in Gstaad, where guests had their tables reserved both in the lobbies and in the dining rooms. We all knew each other and whole winters felt like one long weekend party. The most beautiful women were a Gstaad specialty. Fiona Thyssen, wife of Baron Thyssen, was the first lady I came across, followed by another beauty, Dolores Guinness, wife of Patrick Guinness and mistress of the Aga Khan. (yes, ladies back then were kept by married or unmarried men, and some were even kept by gangsters). Nina Dyer, the most exotic female ever, was another regular, not to mention Sylvia Casablancas, the Aga’s girlfriend and the cause of my split with him more than sixty years ago.

Post war royals such as the exiled King of Spain and the desperate to be accepted as royal Shah of Iran preferred St Moritz, Gstaad was then more of an artist colony than a jet-set station. (The saying started in 1957, along with the first Boeings).Yehudi Menuhin, Vladimir Nabokov, William Buckley, Kenneth Galbraith, Alistair Horne, David Niven, Roger Moore, Richard Burton and Liz Taylor, Balthus, Audrey Hepburn, Julie Andrews, were some of the regulars. Art or no art, women in long gowns and men in white tie and tails swayed to band music each night. The Italian heir to the throne and myself got into some terrible trouble one night for singing a fascist song with a very happy band accompanying us, and the English writer Alistair Horne threw a glass at us. It was the start of a very long and beautiful friendship. Yes, we did live our lives out of a Noel Coward song, but it was always elegant and never vulgar. We skied all day dressed in tailor-made ski pants and jackets – no lycra, no plastic, no body hugging stretch materials – and as we all lived at the Palace – huge private chalets with swimming pools and cinemas and gymnasiums were sixty years away – we drank and dined together every night before playing musical beds. Although sex and love were then considered secondary to family background, I thought one could have both, and still do.

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