Werner of the Alps by Josephine M Bettany

Both photographs of Bern taken by me

Title: Werner of the Alps

Author: Josephine M Bettany 

Publisher: not known 

Source book: The Chalet School and Barbara (Chalet School #30)

I always thought we didn’t know anything much about Werner of the Alps, but rereading The Chalet School and Barbara recently, I came across Josette Russell saying that she had wanted to visit Bern ever since she read Werner of the Alps. Apparently it was her Auntie Jo’s most recent book, so she can’t have wanted to visit Bern for all that long.

Unfortunately that’s it. Mary Woodley, a grumpy Chalet School girl nobody really likes (don’t worry, she and her family soon move to South Africa), says she hasn’t read Werner yet, but that’s not very helpful. Josette very kindly offers to lend Mary her copy. I hope she’s written her name in it. Maybe it’s already signed by her Auntie Jo.

If you didn’t already know, the Chalet School is an English school which began at Briesau on the shores of the Tiernsee in the Austrian Tyrol. The school had to evacuate when the Nazis swept into Austria. It restarted in Guernsey before evacuating (Nazis again), this time to the border of England and Wales, and then to an island off the Welsh coast. Deep breath… before finally relocating to Canton Bern in Switzerland. And here we have girls at the school reading a book by Josephine M Bettany, who apart from being a well known author of books for girls, was also the school’s very first pupil.

When Josette and her friends visit Bern they go to see the clock in my photograph, and would definitely walk across the bridge where I took my second photo on their way to see the bears. The old town is quite small and easily walkable. Not that that helps us with the plot of Werner of the Alps. Oh, and Bern is not in the mountains, so Werner must have visited it for some reason.