Excerpt from Routines and Orgies: The Life of Peter Cundill

Christopher Risso-Gill’s Routines and Orgies is the biography of value investor Peter Cundill – marathon runner, world-traveler, philosopher, cultural enthusiast, and playboy. 

Supported by four decades of Cundill’s meticulously kept daily journals, which are intimate, frank, self-admonishing, and confessional, the biography all aspects of what Cundill referred to as his “wonderful life” – commercial, artistic, romantic, and adventurous. 

The following is an excerpt.

Peter’s involvement with United World Colleges, and his generous gifts to Pearson College, its school in British Columbia, had led to two invitations to visit the original Atlantic College at St Donat’s Castle in Wales. There he had met several trustees, including the young duke of Westminster, and former prime minister Sir Alec Douglas-Home, with both of whom he had struck a chord, admiring them for their dedicated work and practical approach. it was therefore no surprise to receive an invitation to the silver jubilee celebrations of the United World Colleges foundation. What did astonish him was the lavish scale of the affair, even though UWC was close to Prince Charles’s heart because of the support it had enjoyed from Lord Mountbatten. And so at the beginning of August, Peter and Joanie flew to London on a specially chartered Concorde, with a hundred other guests, including Jeanne Sauvé, Canada’s governor general.

At Highgrove, Prince Charles’s country house in the Cotswolds, they were welcomed personally by Charles and Princess Diana, and escorted on a tour of the celebrated organic gardens. At the splendid lunch in a spectacularly decorated marquee on the lawn in front of the house, Peter was seated beside a rather supercilious ten-year-old girl, the daughter of a Florida mall developer. She had been on Concorde plenty of times, she said, but was a little cross that her dress for the ball at Blenheim Palace was not new – she had already worn it once before.

At the dinner at the Royal Academy of Arts in London, Peter was more fortunate in his companion – very rich, very LA, a little overpowering but actually very nice with it. The speeches designed to open cheque books failed to impress: the last speaker was a patronising dandy who considered himself to be the last letter in superiority and thoroughly enjoyed the sound of his own voice prattling on. But the highlight of the three days was a grand ball at Blenheim Palace, hosted by the Duke and Duchess of Marlborough, as well as the Prince and Princess of Wales:

We entered the gates just as the sun was setting. What can one say except to repeat Prince Charles’s line, “As palaces go, it’s OK.” There were cocktails in the Great Hall and the guests were received by our two hosts and hostesses, and [philanthropist] Armand Hammer and the Westons.

By contrast with yesterday the speeches were excellent, focusing on the achievements and goals of UWC. Prince Charles was especially good and he paid a warm and charming tribute to the work that Lord Mountbatten had put in before his death. After dinner we made our way out to the terrace to watch a floodlit display by the trumpeters and drummers of the Life Guards and the band of the Coldstream Guards who performed a tattoo. For some strange reason I thought of Nuremberg, but it was a spine-tingling, rather than spine-chilling, experience by any standard. There was a wonderful finale when all the Atlantic College students marched out carrying seventy different national flags …

We danced to Lord Colwyn’s band, which played jazz numbers, the Charleston and Dixie. Galen [Weston] danced with Princess Diana, who looked stunning, with a slight air of mystery and detachment about her. She has a stunning figure – finely toned as well as elegant – but with a distinct provocative allure. I danced the Charleston with J, rubber-legged as always, and then with Hilary Weston … I was very proud to be Canadian. The Yanks and the Brits came to Blenheim to party after a two-day skirmish. The Yanks were flaky, vapid and ignorant, the Brits aloof above the fray. The Canadians were refined, never rowdy and only let themselves go when they were dancing, which is just as it should be! We won the party.

With scarcely a pause for breath, Peter and Joanie flew to Zurich for a hiking expedition in the Alps around Interlaken. Peter loved it for the physical challenge and the breathtaking mountain scenery. Although not as awe-inspiring as the Himalayas, it provided much tougher exercise than the Everest expedition. Peter described a typical hike:

We got up to about 7,000 feet and lunched at the Hotel Obersteinberg. It has no electricity and the delicious food is all cooked on wood fires with the produce being carried up 4,000 feet on mules. The sound of rushing water is everywhere and the spray too, glistening in the sunshine. After a lunch of spit-roasted veal with wild mushrooms and rösti, we climbed down almost precipitously back as far as Stechelberg and then, without stopping, straight back up again to Murren, which may have the most spectacular views of all across to the Eiger and the Jungfrau. We took the little cog railway train back. We had walked and climbed for nearly five hours and were deliciously tired, with protesting muscles, after a truly magnificent day.

Protesting muscles notwithstanding, Peter rose at dawn to do his favourite run, winding along the paths at the bottom of the river valley to the little town of Lauterbrunnen: It is perhaps the prettiest of all the runs I do anywhere and I delight in it. It is about 16 miles and I was pleased with my strength after yesterday’s strenuous efforts. Later on we moved to the Palace Hotel in Gstaad; it is much grander but I love the gentle Victoria-Jungfrau more – probably as much as anywhere I have ever been. After dinner … I watched a breathtakingly magnificent electrical storm flashing great bolts of lightning across the sky and lighting up the mountains in a way which reminded me of one of my favourite paintings, John Martin’s “Plains of Heaven” in the Tate Gallery.

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