Not many people can claim to have taught British royalty how to ski in the morning, before going home in the afternoon to milk their cows. When you visit St Anton am Arlberg today, you see an ultra-modern resort, but only one generation ago Richard Falch, an instructor with the famous St Anton Ski Schule, tended to both princes and cattle.
Richard Falch was also my parents’ ski instructor when they travelled to St Anton in the early 1960s.
They were part of the first wave of British ski tourists and visited the resort throughout the 1960s, having met on a trip to Obergurgl in 1959.
So last winter I visited St Anton to see it with fresh eyes – to look beyond the world-class resort that it is now and recall what it was like 50 years ago and what drew so many early skiers there.
What hasn’t changed since the 1960s is that British skiers return to St Anton year after year.
St Anton am Arlberg has always been a popular resort with the British. The pioneer of Alpine ski racing, Sir Arthur Lunn, founded the Kandahar Ski Club after meeting influential instructor Hannes Schneider in 1927, and the first Arlberg-Kandahar races were held the following year.
Ski racing slowly became more popular through the last century, but in the 1960s a ski holiday was still the hobby of an eccentric minority of Britons. Although charter flights had existed since the late 1950s, most flights were to Spain, so the only way of getting to the Alps was to drive or take the train.
Companies like Inghams and Erna Low both offered packages by train, which were popular with younger skiers. With one carriage dedicated to a disco and no couchettes, it was not uncommon for revellers to end up sleeping in the luggage racks.
In the 1960s, you would take a train to Dover, board a ferry, then travel through Europe overnight on the ‘Snow Sport Special’ direct to Austria, dropping off at the different resorts the following morning.
I decided to travel by train as well, but my journey was more prosaic. The speed of Eurostar and TGVs means that travelling by rail is still feasible even in the modern world – it took me just 11 hours to get from St Pancras to the St Anton railway station.
The bahnhof in St Anton has changed since my parents’ time, albeit comparatively recently. It was relocated when it was rebuilt for the 2001 FIS World Ski Championships. The new design is sleek and elegant with award-winning architecture and has given the resort a more unified centre, no longer divided by the tracks.
The station is not the only part of St Anton that has changed in the last 50 years. In the 1960s, Nasserein was a nearby village, rather than the suburb it is today, and most businesses were clustered around the old station.
The first couple of years my parents travelled to St Anton, they stayed in the Hotel Tyrol, but after taking lessons from and becoming friends with Richard Falch, on future trips they stayed in his small ‘pension’ – the eponymous Haus Falch.
While it’s not unheard of these days to share a drink with your instructor after skiing, it’s rare that you would end up staying in their house !
“Richard Falch was our ski instructor for several years running and we adored him,” my mother told me. “His English was very good and many evenings were spent in his stubl talking the night away over a few schnapps.”
Falch was a charismatic man with a story to tell. At the end of the Second World War, when the German army was disbanded, he made his way from Russia and across the Alps back to Austria on foot – a journey that took him seven months.
On his return to Haus Falch – a 500-year-old building that had been in his family for generations – he continued the life that all of his family had lived, in farming. It was only when skiing became popular in the 1960s that he became an instructor.
“When we first stayed at Haus Falch the ground floor was occupied by cows that the family still tended,” my mother told me.
Richard Falch died in 2007. I met his daughter, Huberta, who still owns the house and rents it out as a holiday let.
“Sometimes my father would go straight from milking the cows to a lesson,” Huberta told me. He wasn’t the only instructor who might have smelt slightly rural – back then the resort was still in transition from agriculture to tourism.
Before Lech, Verbier and Davos became popular, many royals took their skiing holidays in St Anton. As Falch’s reputation grew, demand for his services spread to the British royal family.
Richard Falch taught the young Prince Andrew, as well as Prince Michael of Kent, during an illustrious career that bridged eras in the Tirolean resort.
St Anton has changed in many ways since the first tourists of 50 years ago, but the reputations of its ski school and of the resort as a great après-ski destination are as high as ever.
While the infamous MooserWirt and Krazy Kanguruh bars were still to open, there were plenty of options for my parents when they wanted to party.
“The après-ski scene was incredible – something I had never experienced before,” my mother told me. “Après-ski drinking was at the Hotel Post, which had live music, and the smaller Rosanna stubl was another great venue for dancing and drinks.”
I found that the Rosanna stubl is now better known as Scotty’s Bar, but it is still full of British holidaymakers and endless rounds of ‘Prost !’
Some things never change …
St Anton : stantonamarlberg.com/en
Train fares from London to St Anton start at £184 return.
For bookings visit : voyages-sncf.com
By Iain Martin