Arnold Lunn
Encyclopedia
Skiing
Skiing is a recreational activity using skis as equipment for traveling over snow. Skis are used in conjunction with boots that connect to the ski with use of a binding....
, mountaineer
Mountaineering
Mountaineering or mountain climbing is the sport, hobby or profession of hiking, skiing, and climbing mountains. While mountaineering began as attempts to reach the highest point of unclimbed mountains it has branched into specialisations that address different aspects of the mountain and consists...
and writer. He was knighted for "services to British Skiing and Anglo-Swiss relations" in 1952.
He was born in Madras, India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
and died in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
.
Early life
His father, Sir Henry Simpson LunnHenry Simpson Lunn
Sir Henry Simpson Lunn was an English humanitarian and religious figure, and also founder of Lunn Poly, one of the UK's largest travel companies....
(1859–1939), was firstly a Methodist
Methodism
Methodism is a movement of Protestant Christianity represented by a number of denominations and organizations, claiming a total of approximately seventy million adherents worldwide. The movement traces its roots to John Wesley's evangelistic revival movement within Anglicanism. His younger brother...
minister and later founder of Lunn's Travel agency (that would become Lunn Poly
Lunn Poly
Lunn Poly was the largest chain of travel agents in the United Kingdom. The company originated from two successful travel agencies which had been established in 1890s; The Polytechnic Touring Association and Sir Henry Lunn Travel. Both firms were acquired in the 1950s by the British Eagle airline...
), which encouraged tourism in the Swiss Alps
Swiss Alps
The Swiss Alps are the portion of the Alps mountain range that lies within Switzerland. Because of their central position within the entire Alpine range, they are also known as the Central Alps....
in the tradition of Thomas Cook
Thomas Cook
Thomas Cook of Melbourne, Derbyshire, England founded the travel agency that is now Thomas Cook Group.- Early days :...
's famous travel agency in the early 20th century. Arnold attended Orley Farm School
Orley Farm School
Orley Farm School is a fee paying school in the London borough of Harrow, at the foot of Harrow Hill on South Hill Avenue. It was founded as the preparatory school for Harrow School, although now only a few leavers go on there. It currently has a little under 500 pupils, and ages range from 4 to...
, in Harrow, followed by Harrow School
Harrow School
Harrow School, commonly known simply as "Harrow", is an English independent school for boys situated in the town of Harrow, in north-west London.. The school is of worldwide renown. There is some evidence that there has been a school on the site since 1243 but the Harrow School we know today was...
. He studied at Balliol College, Oxford
Balliol College, Oxford
Balliol College , founded in 1263, is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England but founded by a family with strong Scottish connections....
, and while he was there, founded and was sometime President of the Oxford University Mountaineering Club
Oxford University Mountaineering Club
The Oxford University Mountaineering Club was founded in 1909 by Arnold Lunn, then a Balliol undergraduate.The club has taken a significant part in the development of mountaineering in the United Kingdom, and many famous British climbers have been members of the club...
.
Skiing
Introduced to skiing by his father, he became a renowned skier and invented the slalom skiingSlalom skiing
Slalom is an alpine skiing discipline, involving skiing between poles spaced much closer together than in Giant Slalom, Super-G or Downhill, thereby causing quicker and shorter turns.- Origins :...
race in 1922. Mathias Zdarsky
Mathias Zdarsky
Mathias Zdarsky was an early ski pioneer and is considered one of the founders of modern Alpine skiing technique. He was probably Austria's first ski instructor. He was also a teacher, painter and sculptor....
had been running competitions through poles in the early years of the 20th century, but they were essentially style competitions, though they had to be completed within a specified time. In 1921 Lunn organized the first British national ski championship to include a national slalom race as well as jumping
Ski jumping
Ski jumping is a sport in which skiers go down a take-off ramp, jump and attempt to land as far as possible down the hill below. In addition to the length of the jump, judges give points for style. The skis used for ski jumping are wide and long...
and cross-country
Cross-country skiing
Cross-country skiing is a winter sport in which participants propel themselves across snow-covered terrain using skis and poles...
. The 1921 slalom was decided on style, as Zdarsky's pole race had been. By 1922, however, Lunn, convinced that there was a real need for a race designed to test a skier's ability to turn securely and rapidly on steep Alpine ground, was insisting on speed being the only arbiter. "The object of a turn is to get round a given obstacle losing as little speed as possible," he wrote. "Therefore, a fast ugly turn is better than a slow pretty turn." On January 1, 1922, the Alpine Ski Challenge Cup, first held in 1920, was transformed into a challenge cup for slalom racing. On the practice slopes at Mürren, Lunn set pairs of flags through which the competitors had to turn, and the flags were so set as to test the main varieties of Alpine ski turns. Lunn's innovation was that the winner was simply the competitor who could make his way down in the shortest time. This first slalom was won by J. A. Joannides.
Lunn was the founder of the Alpine Ski Club
Alpine Ski Club
- The Alpine Ski Club :The Alpine Ski Club is an active club of ski mountaineers based in the UK and the first ski mountaineering club in Great Britain.The objectives of the club are to:# Promote mountaineering on skis...
(1908) and the Kandahar Ski Club (1924), and was the organiser of some of the most prestigious ski races in the world. He initiated in collaboration with the Austrian skiing pioneer Hannes Schneider
Hannes Schneider
Johann "Hannes" Schneider was an Austrian Ski instructor of the first half of the twentieth century.He was born in the town of Stuben am Arlberg in Austria as a son of a cheese maker. In 1907 he became a ski guide at the Hotel Post in St. Anton, Austria where he began work on what became known as...
the famous Arlberg
Arlberg
Arlberg is a mountain range or massif between Vorarlberg and Tyrol in Austria.The highest peak is the "Valluga" at . The name Arlberg derives from the tradition of the "Arlenburg," who are said to have once established themselves on the Tyrolean side of the Arlberg passes . Another story derives...
Kandahar Challenge Cup in honour of Lord Roberts
Frederick Roberts, 1st Earl Roberts
Field Marshal Frederick Sleigh Roberts, 1st Earl Roberts, Bt, VC, KG, KP, GCB, OM, GCSI, GCIE, KStJ, PC was a distinguished Indian born British soldier who regarded himself as Anglo-Irish and one of the most successful British commanders of the 19th century.-Early life:Born at Cawnpore, India, on...
of Kandahar
Kandahar
Kandahar is the second largest city in Afghanistan, with a population of about 512,200 as of 2011. It is the capital of Kandahar Province, located in the south of the country at about 1,005 m above sea level...
. Perhaps his greatest accomplishment in the skiing field was the acceptance and introduction of the Downhill
Downhill
Downhill is an alpine skiing discipline. The rules for the Downhill were originally developed by Sir Arnold Lunn for the 1921 British National Ski Championships....
and Slalom races into the Olympic Games
Olympic Games
The Olympic Games is a major international event featuring summer and winter sports, in which thousands of athletes participate in a variety of competitions. The Olympic Games have come to be regarded as the world’s foremost sports competition where more than 200 nations participate...
in 1936, although he opposed the Winter Olympic Games
Winter Olympic Games
The Winter Olympic Games is a sporting event, which occurs every four years. The first celebration of the Winter Olympics was held in Chamonix, France, in 1924. The original sports were alpine and cross-country skiing, figure skating, ice hockey, Nordic combined, ski jumping and speed skating...
of that year being held in Garmisch-Partenkirchen
Garmisch-Partenkirchen
Garmisch-Partenkirchen is a mountain resort town in Bavaria, southern Germany. It is the administrative centre of the district of Garmisch-Partenkirchen, in the Oberbayern region, and the district is on the border with Austria...
. He later wrote, "In 1936 the Olympic Committee paid Hitler the greatest compliment in their power by entrusting the Nazis with the organisation of the summer and winter Olympic Games." Lunn refereed the slalom in the 1936 Winter Olympics
1936 Winter Olympics
The 1936 Winter Olympics, officially known as the IV Olympic Winter Games, were a winter multi-sport event which was celebrated in 1936 in the market town of Garmisch-Partenkirchen in Bavaria, Germany. Germany also hosted the Summer Olympics the same year in Berlin...
, and his son, Peter
Peter Lunn
Peter Northcote Lunn is a British alpine skier who competed in the 1936 Winter Olympics. As a spymaster in the early Cold War, he is noted for his resourceful use of telephone tapping in espionage.-Biography:...
, was the captain of the British ski team, but neither marched in the opening procession or attended the lavish banquet organised by the Nazis.
The double-black diamond trail named for Sir Arnold Lunn at Taos Ski Valley, New Mexico
Taos Ski Valley, New Mexico
Taos Ski Valley is a village and alpine ski resort in Taos County, New Mexico, United States. Located 2200 feet above the town of Taos, the alpine environment of Taos Ski Valley offers a cool escape from the desert heat in the summer and perfect conditions for powder skiing in the winter. The...
serves as a fitting memorial. He was a long-standing member of the Committee of the International Ski Federation
International Ski Federation
The International Ski Federation, known by its name in French, Fédération Internationale de Ski is the main international organisation for ski sports...
.
Agnostic years
Lunn was the son of a Methodist lay preacher, but in his book Now I See (1933) he writes that the religious instruction he received at school was so "woolly" that "I was never a Methodist, nor, for that matter, an AnglicanAnglicanism
Anglicanism is a tradition within Christianity comprising churches with historical connections to the Church of England or similar beliefs, worship and church structures. The word Anglican originates in ecclesia anglicana, a medieval Latin phrase dating to at least 1246 that means the English...
, in any proper sense of the term." As a result, when he read Leslie Stephen
Leslie Stephen
Sir Leslie Stephen, KCB was an English author, critic and mountaineer, and the father of Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell.-Life:...
's An Agnostic's Apology, "I found myself defenceless — thanks to the miserable deficiency of Anglican education — against his onslaughts." Lunn became an agnostic.
In 1924 he published Roman Converts, which consisted of highly critical studies of five eminent converts to Roman Catholicism: Newman, Manning, Tyrell, Chesterton and Knox
Ronald Knox
Ronald Arbuthnott Knox was an English priest, theologian and writer.-Life:Ronald Knox was born in Kibworth, Leicestershire, England into an Anglican family and was educated at Eton College, where he took the first scholarship in 1900 and Balliol College, Oxford, where again...
. Rather to Lunn's surprise, the book drew good-humoured responses from Knox and Chesterton, the only two of his "Roman converts" still living. This, plus a number of questions left unanswered by his three years of research for Roman Converts, left him with a sense of unfinished business in relation to the Roman Catholic Church.
Critique of scientific materialism
At the same time, Lunn, who was, in Evelyn WaughEvelyn Waugh
Arthur Evelyn St. John Waugh , known as Evelyn Waugh, was an English writer of novels, travel books and biographies. He was also a prolific journalist and reviewer...
's words, "restlessly reasonable", was becoming increasingly disconcerted by the intense subjectivism of his age, and in particular by what he saw as the abandonment of reason in the realm of popular science (though not of science itself). He saw this as deriving from the philosophy of scientific materialism — the (extra-scientific) assumption that science points inevitably to materialism and that everything can be explained solely in terms of material processes. (Today the philosophical stance he critiqued would be called metaphysical naturalism
Metaphysical naturalism
Metaphysical naturalism, also called ontological naturalism and philosophical naturalism, or just naturalism, is a philosophical worldview and belief system that holds that there is nothing but natural elements, principles, and relations of the kind studied by the natural sciences, i.e., those...
.) In 1930 Lunn published The Flight from Reason, in which he argued that scientific materialism is finally a philosophy of nihilism
Nihilism
Nihilism is the philosophical doctrine suggesting the negation of one or more putatively meaningful aspects of life. Most commonly, nihilism is presented in the form of existential nihilism which argues that life is without objective meaning, purpose, or intrinsic value...
: it ends by questioning the very basis of its own existence. If materialism be true, Lunn argued, our thoughts are the mere product of material processes uninfluenced by reason. They are, therefore, determined by irrational processes, and the thoughts which lead to the conclusion that materialism is true have no basis in reason.
Conversion to Roman Catholicism
In the same year as The Flight from Reason appeared (1930), Lunn proposed to Knox an exchange of letters for subsequent publication in which he would advance all the objections he could conceive of to Roman Catholicism and Knox would reply. Knox accepted, and for more than a year the letters went to and fro. In 1932 they appeared as a book under the title Difficulties. This exchange did much to clarify Lunn's mind, but even so, nearly two years were to elapse before he was received into the Catholic Church. In 1932 Lunn accepted a challenge from the noted philosopher C. E. M. JoadC. E. M. Joad
Cyril Edwin Mitchinson Joad was an English philosopher and broadcasting personality. He is most famous for his appearance on The Brains Trust, an extremely popular BBC Radio wartime discussion programme...
to discuss Christianity
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
in a series of letters; they were published the following year as Is Christianity True? Joad, an agnostic, attacked Christianity on a wide variety of fronts, and Lunn, by now a believing Christian, if uncommitted to any particular denomination, responded. Lunn later wrote: "I can imagine no better training for the Church than to spend, as I did, a year arguing the case against Catholicism with a Catholic, and a second year in defending the Catholic position against an agnostic."
On 13 July 1933, Mgr Knox received Lunn into the Catholic Church. Lunn's story of his conversion is related in Now I See, which was published in November of the same year. Lunn became, in Evelyn Waugh
Evelyn Waugh
Arthur Evelyn St. John Waugh , known as Evelyn Waugh, was an English writer of novels, travel books and biographies. He was also a prolific journalist and reviewer...
's words, "the most tireless Catholic apologist of his generation," and won the applause of fellow Catholic authors like Hilaire Belloc
Hilaire Belloc
Joseph Hilaire Pierre René Belloc was an Anglo-French writer and historian who became a naturalised British subject in 1902. He was one of the most prolific writers in England during the early twentieth century. He was known as a writer, orator, poet, satirist, man of letters and political activist...
.
Mabel
Towards the end of 1913 Lunn married Mabel Northcote, the granddaughter of Stafford Northcote, 1st Earl of IddesleighStafford Northcote, 1st Earl of Iddesleigh
Stafford Henry Northcote, 1st Earl of Iddesleigh GCB, PC , known as Sir Stafford Northcote, Bt, from 1851 to 1885, was a British Conservative politician...
. They had three children, Peter, John and Jaqueta. Though not keen on mountaineering, Mabel shared her husband's love of skiing. She was the first woman to pass the exacting British First Class skiing test, and she was a founder member of the Kandahar Ski Club. When her brother became 3rd Earl of Iddesleigh
Earl of Iddesleigh
Earl of Iddesleigh, in the County of Devon, is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created in 1885 for the Conservative politician Sir Stafford Northcote, 8th Baronet...
in 1927, she acquired the courtesy title of "Lady Mabel". Her husband writes: "In the aristocracy of Mürren she welcomed this modest reminder of the fact that inventing the Slalom was not the only Lunn claim to respect." The Swiss, however, could never understand how Arnold could be "Mr. Lunn" and his wife "Lady Mabel", and their feelings were aptly conveyed by a member of the Kandahar who congratulated him when he was knighted "on making an honest Lady out of Mabel."
"Mabel," Lunn writes, "was invincibly English and I was much consoled during the dark days of 1940 by the fact that her confidence in final victory was never shaken." Lunn once said something nice to their daughter Jaqueta about the latter's courage during an air raid. For this he was later reproved by Mabel. "I want Jaqueta to feel," she said, "that the only thing which calls for comment in war time is cowardice." Lunn was an agnostic when they married, and Mabel a devout Anglican, which she remained all her life. Lunn writes: "Mabel's husband, brother and three children became Catholics, but I never expected her to follow our example. Humanly speaking, she was bound to remain a member of the Church of England." An Anglican vicar once asked Lunn to preach in his church. "I asked you," he said, "because you have never written anything unpleasant about Anglicanism since you became a Roman Catholic." But Lunn could never have written "anything unpleasant" about Mabel's Church, and when the first shock of his conversion was over, "Mabel soon yielded not merely notional but real assent to the belief that the doctrinal differences which separated Mabel the Anglican from Arnold the Catholic were infinitely, yes infinitely, less than those which had separated Mabel the Anglican from Arnold the agnostic."
Lady Mabel Lunn died on March 4, 1959.
Phyllis
Two years later, on April 18, 1961, Lunn married Phyllis Holt-Needham. In the early 1930s, Lunn was on the point of advertising for a secretary when his wife told him that she had found the perfect secretary for him, the niece of a friend of hers. As his wife had made up her mind, all that remained was for Lunn to demonstrate his "manly independence by a formal interview before engaging her candidate for the job." Two days later "a rather shy-looking young woman" was ushered into his office, Phyllis Holt-Needham. An amusing account of the interview is given in Lunn's book Memory to Memory. At the time Lunn was exchanging controversial letters with J. B. S. HaldaneJ. B. S. Haldane
John Burdon Sanderson Haldane FRS , known as Jack , was a British-born geneticist and evolutionary biologist. A staunch Marxist, he was critical of Britain's role in the Suez Crisis, and chose to leave Oxford and moved to India and became an Indian citizen...
, published later under the title Science and the Supernatural. Phyllis, who was an agnostic and very familiar with modern attacks on Christianity, confidently expected that Haldane would demolish Lunn, and was "both surprised and annoyed" by his inability to do so. Her first reaction was to find fault with Haldane as a controversialist and to be "unduly complimentary" about Lunn's controversial talents. Gradually, however, she began to suspect that it was the weakness of Haldane's case which enabled Lunn to get the better of his "intellectual superior," and this was the first step in her return to the Christian faith.
Although Phyllis was only mildly keen on skiing and never an accomplished practitioner, she nevertheless rendered great service to the sport as Assistant Editor (to Lunn) of the British Ski Year Book. In recognition, the Club elected her an Honorary Member, a comparatively rare distinction. Lunn himself knew nothing of the proposal to offer her Honorary Membership of the Kandahar and Ladies' Ski Clubs and the Downhill Only Club until after she had been elected.
Not long before his first wife died, Lunn writes, she "confided to a friend that if anything ever happened to her, Phyllis would take me on, and few second marriages have been so warmly welcomed by the husband's children and friends, and for less obvious reasons by the husband's hostesses."
Publications
- Guide to MontanaMontana, SwitzerlandMontana is a municipality in the district of Sierre in the canton of Valais, Switzerland. It is one of the six municipalities that form the ski resort Crans-Montana .-History:...
, 1907. - Oxford Mountaineering Essays, 1912 (editor).
- The Englishman in the Alps, 1912 (editor).
- The Harrovians, 1913. Novel. ISBN 1453809481
- Ski-ing, 1913.
- The Alps, 1914.
- Loose Ends, 1919. Novel.
- Was Switzerland Pro-German? 1920 (as Sutton Croft).
- Auction Piquet, 1920 (as "Rubicon").
- The Alpine Ski Guide to the Bernese Oberland, 1920.
- Alpine Ski-ing at All Heights and Seasons, 1921.
- Cross-Country Ski-ing, 1921.
- Roman Converts, 1924.
- Ski-ing for Beginners, 1924.
- The Mountains of Youth, 1924.
- A History of Ski-ing, 1927.
- Things That Have Puzzled Me, 1927. Essays.
- Switzerland: Her Topographical, Historical and Literary Landmarks, 1927.
- John Wesley, 1928.
- The Flight from Reason, 1930.
- The Complete Ski-Runner, 1930.
- Family Name, 1931. Novel.
- Venice: Its Story, Architecture and Art, 1932.
- Difficulties, 1932 (with Ronald KnoxRonald KnoxRonald Arbuthnott Knox was an English priest, theologian and writer.-Life:Ronald Knox was born in Kibworth, Leicestershire, England into an Anglican family and was educated at Eton College, where he took the first scholarship in 1900 and Balliol College, Oxford, where again...
). - The Italian Lakes and Lakeland Cities, 1932.
- Within the Precincts of the Prison, 1932.
- Is Christianity True? 1933 (with C. E. M. JoadC. E. M. JoadCyril Edwin Mitchinson Joad was an English philosopher and broadcasting personality. He is most famous for his appearance on The Brains Trust, an extremely popular BBC Radio wartime discussion programme...
). - Public School Religion, 1933 (editor).
- Now I See, 1933.
- Ski-ing in a Fortnight, 1933.
- A Saint in the Slave Trade: Peter ClaverPeter ClaverPeter Claver was a Jesuit who, due to his life and work, became the patron saint of slaves, Colombia and African Americans...
1581-1654, 1934. - Science and the Supernatural, 1935 (with J. B. S. HaldaneJ. B. S. HaldaneJohn Burdon Sanderson Haldane FRS , known as Jack , was a British-born geneticist and evolutionary biologist. A staunch Marxist, he was critical of Britain's role in the Suez Crisis, and chose to leave Oxford and moved to India and became an Indian citizen...
). - Within That City, 1936. Essays.
- Spanish Rehearsal, 1937.
- Communism and Socialism: A Study in the Technique of Revolution, 1938.
- Revolutionary Socialism in Theory and Practice, 1939.
- Whither Europe?, 1940.
- Come What May: An Autobiography, 1940.
- And the Floods Came: A Chapter of War-Time Autobiography, 1942.
- Mountain Jubilee, 1943.
- The Good Gorilla, 1943. Essays.
- Switzerland and the English, 1944.
- The Third Day, 1945.
- Is the Catholic Church Anti-Social? 1946 (with G. G. CoultonG. G. CoultonGeorge Gordon Coulton FBA was a British historian, known for numerous works on medieval history. He was known also as a keen controversialist....
). - Is Evolution Proved? A Debate between Douglas DewarDouglas DewarDouglas Dewar was a barrister, British civil servant in India and an ornithologist. He wrote widely in newspapers such as The Madras Mail, Pioneer, Times of India and periodicals such as the Civil and Military Gazette and Bird Notes.-Biography:He particularly advanced field studies of birds and he...
and H. S. Shelton, 1947 (editor). - Switzerland in English Prose and Poetry, 1947 (editor).
- Mountains of Memory, 1948.
- The Revolt against Reason, 1950.
- The Cradle of Switzerland, 1952.
- The Story of Ski-ing, 1952.
- Zermatt and the Valais, 1955.
- Memory to Memory, 1956. Memoirs.
- Enigma: A Study of Moral Re-ArmamentMoral Re-ArmamentMoral Re-Armament was an international Christian moral and spiritual movement that, in 1938, developed from the American minister Frank Buchman's Oxford Group. Buchman, a Lutheran, headed MRA for 23 years, from 1938 until his death in 1961...
, 1957. - A Century of Mountaineering 1857-1957: A Centenary Tribute to the Alpine ClubAlpine Club (UK)The Alpine Club was founded in London in 1857 and was probably the world's first mountaineering club. It is UK mountaineering's acknowledged 'senior club'.-History:...
, 1957. - The Bernese Oberland, 1958.
- And Yet So New, 1958. Memoirs.
- The Englishman on Ski, 1963 (editor).
- The Swiss and Their Mountains: A Study of the Influence of Mountains on Man, 1963.
- The New Morality, 1964 (with Garth Lean).
- Matterhorn Centenary, 1965.
- The Cult of Softness, 1965 (with Garth Lean).
- Unkilled for So Long, 1968. Memoirs.
- Christian Counter-Attack, 1968 (with Garth Lean).
- The Kandahar Story: A Tribute on the Occasion of Mürren's Sixtieth Ski-ing Season, 1969.
He was a contributor to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, and editor, from 1920 to 1971, of the British Ski Year Book.