A twenty-year guilt.

It was twenty years ago, but it still gives me conscience pangs. Or, you might say, it cuts me to the quick, which is an even more appropriate description. As will become clear later.

It was some twenty years ago. We were living in Strasbourg, jewel of a city in Eastern France. You can understand why Germany and France contested control of it so often down the centuries. Water everywhere, with a mediaeval centre on an island, if a slightly artificial one, between the river Ill – a tributary of the mighty Rhine just minutes outside the city – and a man-made moat, once part of the defences.

Outside the city was a prestigious life sciences institute which attracted scientists from many countries, not all of whom spoke French (the local language, France having been on the winning side on the latest, and I hope last, occasion it fought against Germany with possession of the city one of the issues at stake). Others among the researchers spoke no English, the language of international science just as, three centuries ago, it was Latin.

Danielle speaks both (Latin not so much) and is a qualified teacher of English. So she gave language lessons at the IGBMC, the research institute in question. This was a time when I was working hard in yet another small business – on this occasion one I part owned – and falling out with my colleagues, something that seems to have marked every step of my long but patchy career. Danielle, on the other hand, was making friends at the IGBMC, setting me an example from which I should certainly have learned, but failed to.

One of her students remains a good friend to this day, though we don’t see her anything like as much as either of us would like. She used to describe herself as a professional ‘ball breaker’, or ‘spacca-palle’, in her native Italian. This was because she’d developed a technique, of some ingenuity I’m assured, for extracting DNA from the crushed testicles of mice. 

The mice weren’t alive when the crushing took place, which I suppose makes the process somewhat less horrible to contemplate.

One of the things Danielle made a speciality of doing during her years of teaching was organising great trips for her students. Several times while we were in Strasbourg we went out with groups of students cross-country skiing or canoeing down the local rivers. A lot of good memories.

The Sudltal with the mountains in the background

One of our trips was into Switzerland, into the Bernese Oberland, the Alpine region south of the federal capital Bern. We went up the Suldtal, above the glorious town of Thun on its lake. We stayed right at the end of the road – down to the status of dirt track in its final stretch – beyond which there was only a bowl of meadowland flowing towards the wall of the mountains. Our accommodation, in a farmhouse was, well, basic. We’d brought sleeping bags with us and we slept in straw in the barn (on the right of the picture). 

Alp Mittelberg Latreje Suldtal, where we stayed

The toilet was a wooden hut at the end of a balcony on the side of the barn. The toilet seat gave on to a three or four metre drop into a trench which, even that far away, didn’t smell savoury. Open to the breeze, it could lead to lots of strange sensations on sensitive parts of the anatomy.

Two of the more elegant members of the group who were with us seemed distinctly uncomfortable with the whole arrangement. At this distance in time, I can’t remember if they gave up and went home. I know they certainly wanted to.

In the morning, we had breakfast just a few metres away from a huge machine into which members of the family would pour freshly-collected milk, and from which they would later extract newly-made cheese. The breakfast consisted mostly of such cheese, along with home-baked bread and home-made jam. 

All very idyllic, if you could put the toilet facilities out of your mind and get the last straw out of your hair, while being reconciled to the absence of showers.

On the second day, before returning to Strasbourg, a group of us decided to go for a picnic. We bought the supplies from the farm, including loaves of bread. But then we realised that we didn’t have a bread knife.

The woman who owned the farm came to our rescue. 

“You can borrow this one,” she told us, “but mind you bring it back. I need it.”

I don’t remember how the picnic went. But I’m regularly reminded of the trip itself. Pretty much any time I cut myself a slice of bread. Because we completely forgot to give back the knife, which we still have, and use most days.

At least we still use it regularly, two decades later. Which I suppose ought to be some consolation. But it isn’t really.

I still feel guilty about it. Not guilty enough to be kept up at night, you understand. But guilty enough to sense that I ought to feel more guilty than I do.

Still in use in our kitchen today:
the knife that cuts me to the quick