In my 84 years of life, the small chalet occupies a space that is out of proportion to its real size.
In the years before it was built, I came to this village as a young man to ski ash or hickory skis in winter, climb uphill with seal skins under the boards and slide down again with leather bindings, and in summer with Vivian Green, mine instruct foster father from Oxford to hike through the mountains.
Green, who later became the rector of Lincoln College, served me as a model for the mental life of George Smiley.
So it is no coincidence that Smiley loved his Swiss Alps as much as Vivian Green, that he, like Vivian, found solace in nature or, like me, had a lifelong, contradicting relationship with the German muse.
It was Vivian who endured my youthful ramblings about my unpredictable father Ronnie;
and if my father ever went through one of his major bankruptcies, it was he who raised the necessary money and urged me to definitely finish my studies.