Hello and welcome to today's independent travel podcast with me Simon Calder for Thursday the 25th of July and I'm getting into Olympic mood but are not quite what you think. I'm here in Leicester de Montfort University and I'm in a remarkable room with a remarkable person because I'm looking at

the 1924 Chamonie Winter Olympics. I'm in the company of Nick Oatridge who is the chair of the

Heritage Committee of the Ski Club of Great Britain, that marvellous organisation that does so much for winter sports.

Welcome, Nick. Just describe where we are and what we're looking at.

Thank you, Simon. We're in the heart of Leicester in De Montford University, deep in the bowels of the library, where we have the greatest

collection, I think, of ski literature anywhere in the world, which is the archives of the

Ski Club of Great Britain, which go back to 1903, include all the minutes of the various

committees of the Ski Club, plus also the yearbooks and various other paraphernalia, including what was at the time, the largest collection of skis outside of the ski club plus also the yearbooks and various other paraphernalia including what was at the time

the largest collection of skis outside of scandinavia well and some of them are over there one

in particular one pair looks about maybe 12 feet long quite quite unnecessary these days but look

i need to find out from you all about the history of skiing

because if I'm not mistaken the whole concept of sticking bits of wood to your feet and

getting through snow has been around for really quite some millennia thousands of years

there's been reports of people's skiing but initially skiing was largely to get from place to place, to go hunting, and specifically in war.

In fact, a lot of the early rules for skiing as a sport were from the military.

And the ski club was dominated by the military in its early days.

Many famous generals from the Second World War were

actually members of the ski club, including sort of Alexander of Al-Alameameame fame. So the military

connection was really where the sort of the sport began in Norway in the 1850s. And the first

recorded rules for skiing came out of Norway.

Skiing then sort of moved across the Alps.

Actually the British were quite heavily involved in that.

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