Albert Tatlock - the morose, mustachioed old gent in Coronation Street, often to be seen squiring Ena Sharples in the Rover's Return in the good old days - is a name not normally associated with swishing down the ski slopes. He of the flat cap and tartan slippers and taste for brown ale is not the first image one conjures up when thinking of whizzing down the piste, or indulging in a little bit of après ski.
But at the resort of Les Deux Alpes in the French Alps last Easter, first-time skier Albert Tatlock could be spotted scorching down the slopes. No style, no finesse, but a certain dogged, grim resolution. And the flat cap.
My oh my, how the bronzed Italians and French looked on enviously. They all sported super-trendy tiggly-toggly hats, long woolly excrescences that looked like sexy aerodrome wind-socks.
'Oo is zat in the silly cap?' they cried, suppressing their deep-down envy for ultra cool Albert T.
Oh, all right, it was me.
Being bald as a thin-on-top coot, I had brought my Albert Tatlock cap from England, but had half a mind to buy some new, more trendy gear. It was all horribly expensive and naffly fashionable, so I stuck with Albert Tatlock. Next season, they'll all be wearing them, with, I'll wager, the women donning Ena Sharples hairnets. Après toi, Albert.
The trick to being a first-time skier is you have to want to not look cool. Don't look cool as you crash into yourself, as one pigeon-toed ski trips up another. Don't look cool as you slide slowly into the next first-timer, and crash into them. Don't look cool as you zoom over a crest and end up like a spread-eagled hedgehog which has run amok in a flour mill. Don't look cool, and it is wonderfully funny. And being in the mountains is just life-enhancing. The diamond-pure air, the sense of space, the gentle camaraderie of the first-timers as we fall into each other's arms, again and again. First on the slopes, and then in the bars.
A single dad, I went with my two kids, Sam and Molly, and was worried whether they would have a good time and would be safe. Being children, they were perfect learners, supple and agile. The first move to learn is the snow-plough, a kind of pigeon-toes with attitude, and I was amazed to see seven-year-old Molly snow-plough down a mountain that I was far too scared to look at.
Sam, too, whizzed past, yelling 'Come on, Dad' as he swished this way and that. Coming down a long run, he fell over once, and me four times. There is a word for this, and it is: irritating.
Every age group has its class and teachers. For the first-time adults, we had Carlo, a super-fit Italian, irritatingly handsome but, sadly, he had no idea who Albert Tatlock was. I had him there. Carlo's main trick was to follow you down the mountain, shouting 'open your knees' and 'wider, wider, wider'.
But, as with everything else, it's just a question of practice, and sticking at it. By the end of the week, I was zooming down slopes that had given me the heebie-jeebies at the start.
Les Deux Alpes is not a very smart place, looking more like a Polish new town than a gorgeous resort. But it is high up, just below a glacier, so that skiing just before a late Easter was no problem. Lower down on the slopes, the snow was patchy. But up near the glacier there is snow all year, so much so that the snowboarders use it the year round. (Snowboarding looks enormous fun, but I think is much harder than skiing. One of the sadder sights of the slopes was the number of snowboarders looking miserably at nothing, having fallen over for the thousandth time.)
Après ski, it would be hard to fault the fun at the Crystal Holidays hotel, Le Brunerie. Meals and lashings of plonk were thrown in, and because it was the last week of the season, the staff were in a merry mood. Many of them are British students, having a year off, who are happy to play at being waiters or changing beds, so that they can spend five months on the slopes on their days off. All the kids had already made friends with each other on the slopes, so they were lost in themselves in the pool and Jacuzzi, discussing Harry Potter, PlayStation and, yes, snow-ploughs.
The adults, on the other hand, discussed bruises, arthritis and alcohol abuse. The usual conversations. I wrote a play, performed by the kids, featuring James Bond, Dr Evil and Carlo, a sadistic ski instructor who shouted 'Open your knees, Mr Bond' to boos.
The play was banned from the bar, for some odd reason, making me feel like Vaclav Havel. It went down incredibly well, even the Albert Tatlock jokes.
Top holiday. If you haven't dared to go skiing, have a go. But don't forget the flat cap.
Getting there
John Sweeney travelled with Crystal Holidays ( 0870 848 7000).
A seven night ski holiday at the Crystal Club Hotel La Brunerie in the French resort of Les Deux Alpes costs from £435 per person, including breakfast, afternoon tea, three-course evening meals, return flights from Gatwick to Lyons and transfers, based on departures on 16 December, rising to £645 for departures on February 17, 2001.
Crystal offer a limited number of free child places, after which the first child can travel from £49 and a second child, sharing the parents room, from £79. Ski equipment hire, lift passes and tuition can be arranged with Crystal in advance. Six days hire of skis/sticks is available from £60 (children £37), a low season lift pass costs £94, rising to £102 in high season (children £68 - £76) and three hours tuition per day, five or six days, from £81 (children and adults).
Contact: Brochure hotline (01235 824324) or see the web site: www.crystalholidays.co.uk.
...and don't forget your hat
The big daddy of the ski shows, the Daily Mail Ski & Snowboard Show, trundles into town, London's Olympia to be exact, this Friday for 10 days until Sunday 5 November. It has come a long way over the years - and this time there will be 150 tons of 'real' snow on its 50m long indoor ski slope.
Martin Bell, Britain's best Olympic downhill racer, is presenting Ski School 2000. 'We'll demonstrate techniques that can revolutionise your skiing,' he says.
Freeride instructor, Warren Smith, will demonstrate daily his revolutionary New School teaching methods. Visitors can learn to tame the powder and try a few jumps.
Dave Francis, the slope designer advises visitors to 'bring hats and gloves because we'll be using frozen air above and beneath the slope'.
With on-mountain weddings becoming ever more popular, two keen skiers, Rebecca Overton and Robert Williams, from Reading, will take their vows on the slope.
Some of the world's best freeriders, on skis and snowboards, will be competing in the $60,000 Big Air competition. Ordinary mortals will have a chance to win a ski-chalet in Austria, courtesy of Crystal Holidays, as well as a Subaru Forester.Ski-movie buffs will be able to to see Warren Smith's Snow Odyssey 2 , and St Anton's famous Krazy Kankaruh bar has been shipped in. There'll be plenty stands at the show, and it's a great place to compare prices.
• National Hall, Olympia, Friday 27 October - Sunday 5 November. First day, 12noon - 7pm, adults £15, children 5-15, £7. Weekends 10am - 7pm, £10, children £5. Weekdays noon - 10pm, £8, children £4. Family tickets and early booking discounts available. Ticket hotline 0990 90 00 90.
