Louise Cameron-Hall 19 December 2023 • 5:00pm
Since its birth as a winter sport in the early 20th century, skiing has captured the hearts and imaginations of millions. Born of early mountaineering, romantic notions of the Alps and the technology developed during the Industrial Revolution, there developed a peculiarly British love affair with going downhill fast on two planks.
No country has been more inextricably linked to pioneering early Alpine skiing – now a 30-billion-euro annual industry – than Britain. And no other organisation has been as closely connected with the sport’s development than the Ski Club of Great Britain.
Founded in 1903, it has seen golden ages and turbulent times, all recorded in club magazines and documents. "The early history of the Ski Club is almost the history of Alpine skiing itself,” wrote Arnie Wilson, former Ski+Board editor in his centenary book on the club.
After the problems wrought by the 2008 financial crash, Brexit and a global pandemic, the Ski Club has experienced some torrid recent years. But it is "bouncing back”, says chief operating officer James Gambrill. On June 30, 2023, it celebrated its 120th anniversary, with a glittering black-tie gala dinner at Café Royal in London – where its story began. Here we look through its noble history.
1903: The founding fathers
It all started on May 6, 1903 at London’s fashionable Café Royal – a hang-out for Oscar Wilde, George Bernard Shaw and Winston Churchill, right up to Brigitte Bardot and Princess Diana – when 14 "eccentric Englishmen” formed the first British ski club.
Their objective was "to supply its members with any information they should require as to how, when and where to ski” and to allow all to join, including women – countering the wealthy ski elite of the time. Two of those founders – EC Richardson and Sir Arnold Lunn – are today widely recognised as the founding fathers of Alpine skiing.
1903-19: The early years
In 1905, the club published the British Ski Year Book (edited by Lunn until his death in 1974, aged 86) informing members of news. These historic records brim with tales of derring-do, images of skiers arriving in horse-drawn sleighs and ladies’ racing in woollen skirts. Skis were measured to "the fingers of one’s hands stretched above one’s head”. The most suitable dress for a lady, it decreed, was a flannel shirt, knickerbockers and "a very short skirt”.
The Club grew to 121 members, organised dinners and lectures, created a library and established "ski-ability” tests to grade members’ technique.
The 1910/11 winter marked the Ski Club becoming skiing’s governing body, the opening of the first clubhouse at Caxton House, Westminster. "Dissensions” brewed over the club’s controversial ski tests and the fact that women were forbidden from becoming committee members. Rival clubs sprang up in rebellion.
1920s and 1930s: Skiing’s boom
Before the First World War, the Ski Club’s focus was on Nordic (cross-country) skiing. Post-war, Sir Arnold Lunn pioneered Alpine racing, the first downhill British National Ski Championships (Wengen, 1921) and the modern slalom race (Murren, 1922). But this didn’t prevent members from rebelling again and other clubs emerged, including Lunn’s Kandahar Ski Club, which hosted the first Inferno Race – the world’s oldest and longest downhill ski race (a mainstay still today) – in 1928.
Beyond racing, the Ski Club continued to influence advancements in Europe’s mountains, encouraging the Swiss to open winter railways as early ski-lifts. Gerald Seligman, the club’s president between 1927 and 1929, led avalanche research and the club’s first annual Pery Medal was awarded to Sir Arnold Lunn.
The next decade’s Great Depression brought global misery to millions, yet skiing unexpectedly blossomed. This was helped by technological developments such as rope tows (patented in Zurich, 1932), the first chairlifts (1936) and more snow trains opening across Europe. By 1936, the Ski Club had 6,000 members and 42 affiliated global clubs. Resort skiing and apres-ski became fashionable, made glamorous by film and magazines. A "lady skier” featured on Vogue’s cover in 1939.
1940s: Wartime suspension
On the outbreak of the Second World War, skiing was pretty much cancelled overnight. The Ski Club suspended activities but the headquarters, now in Hobart Place (1935-52), stayed open – despite being bombed. The Arnold Lunn library survived, but what happened to the office door? "Blown right off,” said housekeeper Miss Quick. But "faithful members” still used the club. "It’s enormously strange how deeply this sport sinks into them,” added Miss Quick. "It must be mountain magic. They seem determined to keep the club alive.”
The many military members in the club’s ranks were among the war’s casualties – the 1948 AGM recorded 36 dead. One club member and war survivor named R. Kiln appealed for other "one-legged wanderers” (skiers) to join the Ski Club.
1950s and 1960s: Bouncing back
After the war, skiing became popular again. There was much Ski Club excitement when Sir Arnold Lunn was knighted in 1952 and Everest "conquered” on the day that Queen Elizabeth II was crowned in 1953. Headquarters moved to 118 Eaton Square (its home for the next 50 years), where members frequented the bar and dining room. The Ski Club turned 50 in 1953, a time when package holidays and purpose-built Alpine French resorts burgeoned.
In 1963, it began focusing on member benefits, introducing the 10-day volunteer rep’s course in Sauze d’Oulx, Italy, rep-led holidays and insurance. Two years later, the Ski Club hosted the world ski-jumping championships at Wembley, but club sexism prevailed. "Men’s races are open to all. Women’s races are restricted to the upper classes. I’m glad I’m a man!” wailed one member.
1970s and 1980s: The Golden Age
With the birth of cheaper airfares, Britain’s hoi polloi flocked to the French Alps. The club’s mood was ecstatic. Lift systems were continuously developed across Europe.
Club services expanded further introducing popular "Peak Experience” (holidays for the over-50s) and "Skiing Parties with a Purpose” – they sat alongside the already established Ski Club family and under-18’s ski trips. As a result, membership hit 20,000.
In 1978, Ski Sunday was first broadcast, going on to become one of BBC’s longest-running sports shows. It brought skiing into the nation’s homes and contributed to the flourishing popularity of the club.
The 1980s brought the explosion of the chalet holiday. As skiing boomed, the Ski Club created an "Information Department” at its headquarters, with paper folders and maps of resorts (there were now 600 of them across the Alps), advising on travel, restaurants, kit hire and costs. It revolutionised further with the introduction of snow reports, sent from resort reps and syndicated to newspapers.
1990s: Reinvention
Caroline Stuart-Taylor became the Ski Club’s second female chief executive in 1996, bringing Freshtracks holidays to the fore. "Our off-piste programme expanded enormously,” she says. "We chased younger members and, with the arrival of fat skis in the 1990s, more wanted to learn to ski off-piste. Having two reps in bigger resorts allowed us to cater for skiing with more members and people of different standards and ages.” A successful strategy? "It worked. The club grew.”
Club operations became slicker, finances were streamlined and the magazine was redesigned from Ski Survey to Ski and Board, later Ski+Board. With the rise of the internet, the Ski Club paved the way when it launched Britain’s first winter-sports website in 1995.
In 1997, the club’s leasehold at 118 Eaton Square was expiring; headquarters moved to Wimbledon Village. But members were unhappy and missed the social events in Belgravia.
2000s and 2010s: Boom and bust
In 2000, the millennium issue of the Ski Club’s magazine was published and the website transformed from a "brochure” to an interactive tool. Former Financial Times ski correspondent Arnie Wilson became Ski+Board editor. "Skiing was becoming less exclusive. It was opening up,” he recalls. His aim? To lead UK snow sports digitally. His mega-star interviews (Hermann "Herminator” Maier, Franz Klammer and Tommy Moe) gained member traction.
"We were ahead of our times,” says Caroline Stuart-Taylor.