Going to Switzerland

The Swiss Red Cross invited traumatised children from devasted areas that suffered most during the war, to come and stay with a typical Swiss middle class family.
We travelled by train with wooden seats and when got to Basel we were showered, de-loused and our clothes were fumigated. Then we were allocated to families. Herr and Frau Messmer were my hosts, she was a Swiss Red Cross nurse and lived in 18 Heiner Street in St Gallen.
The contrast with the austerity in Britain was unbelievable, going from a two bedroom terrace house with no bathroom in Liverpool to a well appointed apartment with a different diet - pasta, sausage, soup and white bread (that I had never seen as bread was grey). They took me to be outfitted and supplied with tweed plus fours, a copy of the English gentleman when travelling to Switzerland. They were wonderful people, they taught me table manners and view of how things might be other than what I was familiar with. After Church on Sunday we had a meal in a restuarant which was the first time I had been in a restuarant.
Returning home was difficult after this privileged experience.

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