Page 28 - Joseph Wright of Derby: Virgils's Tomb & The Grand Tour.

If my father seemed distant he was not without pride in his son.When ten or eleven we engaged on an eight hour
hike up and down the Ligurian foothills surrounding Alassio from sea level to 2100 feet observing nature, giant
lizards, locusts, and beetles. He taught me to search for eel and crayfish in the mountain streams and to recognise
wild cob nuts and hazels and never ever to travel without a pen knife so that you could split the green nuts and
‘live off the land’. Scrumping fruit was also part of the education only to be chased by an enraged contadino waiving
a stick and setting his dog on us. ‘Molto gentile’ (so kind) was the best my father could manage in his somewhat
limited Italian whereupon the region of that hillside was baptised ‘molto gentile’! When I was twelve my father,
who remembered the area from his young days, walked me the forty-eight kilometres from Domodossola to
Locarno staying in an inn overnight. It was a long hike for a young lad.

My father sometimes found the August Ligurian heat somewhat oppressive so in the mid-fifties we went to the
mountains, on one occasion to Peira Cava in Provence and on another, more excitingly, to Tarrasp in the eastern
Engadine.There we went to the Swiss national park at dawn to spot bear, mountain deer, moufflon, marmots and
other wildlife. We also participated in extensive rambles. One such, later to be nicknamed ‘La Petite Promenade’,
was a total misnomer because in flat shoes and inappropriate apparel after several hours we found ourselves on a
path, well at least in name, inches wide, fronting a cliff with a precipice below, passing climbers kitted with ice
axes, plus fours, mountain boots and rope coming in the other direction when there was barely room for one,
necessitating delicate and somewhat intimate passing manoeuvres! I believe it was probably this experience at
around ten years of age that awakened in me at public school a desire to rock climb.This culminated in a double
traverse and ascent of the Matterhorn at 17, all in 14 hours which was rewarded with compliments from my guide
and a complimentary medal. I do not think I have ever been so tired…..I continued to climb and camp in the
Maritime Alps and Normandy cliffs, trained by a French gymnastics professor from Rouen who became a good
friend, aptly named Monsieur Jean-Claude Rocher. This I continued to do until I was twenty before taking up
sailing where at least you may equally risk your life as I did on more than one occasion – but sitting down.

In 1960 I went on camp manoeuvres on the Lunenburg Heath attached to BAOR with the Queen’s Own Irish
Hussars, a cavalry (tank) regiment as I aspired to be a gunner and commanded an OCF 25 pounder. After several
adventures which included a 3am full scale real life alert moving up to the DDR border against Russian ‘invading
forces’ I met my papa in Hanover which he took pride in showing me. Subsequently he took me to Celle with its
enchanting town and theatre. My father particularly loved Paris and this was always a stopover on my regular trips
to Liguria. A visit to the Louvre on each occasion was mandatory and my favoured artist then was Cima da
Conegliano – it is appropriate that the year I am writing this there is a monographic show scheduled in Paris!
Indeed, I still now remember the food parcels he brought over in the late ‘40s when we had the long years of
rationing in England and particularly the Crème de Chantilly, the cheeses, the Foie Gras, and yes, the longed for
slabs of French butter! My father had a favourite bistro called Chez Mercier, long gone, and on another occasion
took us to an historic establishment near Les Halles with a French revolutionary title and décor.There one had to
submit to 32 courses of hors d’oeuvres for which the establishment was renowned. If you mastered this assault
course you, or your lady, was awarded a garter or jarretière, which, to intense amusement, was affixed on the lady’s

28