General Articles about Ski Instructing

Something a little different for this month’s blog. Julian Griffiths, ES owner and director, reflects on memories of some of his ski clients in the early part of his career. All of these stories are from the 90’s. In his next blog, Julian will look at the future of ski instructing.

Willy Wonka Courchevel – France

The waiters ran out onto the piste as I skied up to the restaurant.

“M. Julian, M. Julian.”

“Yes,” I replied.

“Come quickly, come quickly,” and then, with some fanfare, turning to my client added, “He is here, he is here.”

They ushered me dramatically across the terrace in 1650 to the table – Willy Wonka’s table. Waiter number one put a large, thick, perfectly white, heavy napkin around my neck, while the other tucked the chair under my knees as I sat down.

“Sit down Julian, eat the steak tartare, then we’ll start the lesson.”

“Very kind.”

A very nice glass of red was placed before me.

“Look Julian, the tartare here is so good you have to have it. I won’t ski with you unless you do.”

This is how an unusual afternoon lesson began with the owner of a very famous chocolate factory.

This man, a bundle of fun, had walked into our ski school shop in Courchevel a few days earlier, leaned over the counter and, speaking quietly, said, “Look, I’d like to ski with your best instructor, from tomorrow – a Tuesday – till the following Tuesday.” Then, lowering his voice further, added, “And put it this way, I’m not the sort of chap who has to shoot on the weekend.”

“Understood. You’ll be skiing with me then.”

Mrs Glam – Méribel – France

Mrs Glamour, late thirties, and I skied for days and days, just the two of us. She was too slow and nervous to ski with her husband, but she liked it like that, and we talked and talked. This lady was beautiful – blonde, high cheekbones, a prominent aristocratic forehead, and hair that was done.

She confided in her ski instructor that her husband had bought a boat which he kept somewhere on the Thames, and that in an argument about the boat he had shouted at her, “I’m going to get that boat and I’m going to take loads of birds on it.” He did not sound like a very pleasant man. 

Then the next day she confided in me about another thing, then the day after another; her husband hit her from time to time and how she wanted to leave him. Often ski instructors can become a sort of confessional. These moments need handling with care.

Not sure what to say, the young Julian just nodded and said, “What will you do?”

“I will build up the courage to leave him. If I don’t come back next year, you’ll know I left him.”

She never came back.

The Orange King – California USA

The Mexican stood below the conveyor. Up above his head, hundreds of boxes of newly packed oranges in thirty-pound boxes hurtled past, and every 30 seconds the boxes stopped as one had got jammed on a corner. He reached up and prodded the offending box with a broom handle. The flow of orange boxes resumed.

Then my ski client the American – the Orange King -and boss of the world’s biggest orange-packing plant in California’s Central Valley, announced, “Hey, this is a pain man. We have a machine coming from Germany which will sort all this out” , and then – embarrassingly loud – ” then I can get rid of a few of these Mexicans.”

Behind us, millions of oranges hurtled by on a series of mini conveyors, spinning, rushing and passing through a giant bank of digital industrial cameras, were automatically sorted by little robot hammers into boxes of identical oranges, then onto pallets  to waiting lorries, whose drivers sulked about near the back of their waiting lorries. The off-coloured or misshaped were sent for juicing. The tour took over two hours and was fascinating.

Thankful for a seasons instruction, the same client said, “Look, by way of a tip, how’d you like to come with me and my friends for a day trip to Mammoth?”

So early doors we met him at Bakersfield Airport and took off in a Beechcraft King Air, had a spectacular day’s powder skiing in Mammoth, and flew back the same night. Despite having a pilot my client insisted on doing most of the flying, As we landed, he hid below the cockpit window so the control tower could not see him in the cockpit. The official pilot landed beautifully. Fun adventures for a young ski instrutor.

Wee Jimmy – Aviemore – Scotland

“Sir, sir, we’d like to get your dinner.”

“No no there is no need”

“We insist sir”

“Oh, that’s very kind, thank you,” and “you don’t have to call me sir.”

I wasn’t expecting this with a group of twelve 13-year-olds from Kilmarnock on a two-day school bus ski trip to Aviemore.

We left the desolate patch of snow we’d been skiing on and  the freezing gale, and went inside the meagre and rather forlorn mid-mountain self-service.

“You sit down sir, we’ll get your dinner.”

I sat with my back to the wall and watched the kids line up in the self-service. The one at the front took a pie and put it behind his back, out of sight of the cashier, and passed it to his friend. On and on it went, hand to hand behind their backs, till it reached the last child and came out of the queue. This boy then put it on a tray and proudly delivered it to me with a very Scottish:

“Eee sir, that’s your lunch.”

I made them take it back and they made me pay for it.

The Ozzie Pomm – Victoria  Australia

His wife didn’t like it apparently because it upset her horses. This whale of the Australian fund manager world departed for a typical ski day in a BIG helicopter directly from his Cotswold-stone replica of a Wiltshire hotel he’d once stayed in.

This anglophile’s property was surrounded, and probably still is, by 500 oak trees he’d planted. It completed the perfect English country estate on Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula, and he had found in me, for him and his kids, his perfect English ski instructor.

So for a few years, or summers – Australian winter seasons – I occasionally, weather permitting, would take the first lift up the mountain, then skate across the flat top of the mountain, adjust my eyes and look south towards the horizon and wait by the bit of snow designated the resort’s helipad for their arrival.

Soon a small dot would appear on the horizon. After a noisy landing they’d dismount and the ski day would begin.

On the last occasion he invited me to come work for him in his funds management business, with a promise of eventually having my own “fund”.

“You’ll figure it out, then I’ll give you your own starter fund to manage.”

I would, he promised, become a good “fund manager” in Melbourne. He had, after many of our chats, decided I could do this, and successfully. It was one of those moments that dry up as you get older, and I sometimes reflect on it. I was 21. I explained I still had “skiing goals” and a girlfriend in New Zealand, and politely declined.

Sometimes  but really very rarely I regret this.

But life is better without any regrets.

Contact us here if you would like to hear more interesting stories while skiing.

Julian Griffiths