Of course I am a Swiss Patriot, but wait a minute, I was born a cockney in London. Should I be showing a photo of Queen Elizabeth – no not really. I am one of those that got away, 20 years England and 50 years Switzerland, so let’s stick with the Swiss. On the other hand I cannot yodel, and have never made a cheese fondue myself, buy it in a packet and warm it up in the fondue pot.
What do I have to show for my Swiss heritage? Well I have a Swiss husband that can trace his roots back to a place known as the Gohlgraben in Emmental in Switzerland. I could never really trace my english roots. Half of them were just there, and the other half were Huguenot refugees chased out of France because of their religion.
However, I have two Swiss sons, with Swiss passports, one of them even served in the Swiss army – yes we have one. Every able bodied Swiss has to do his time and to support them in the hard days of service, they are fed and clothed. Being Swiss one of the parts of their soldier diet is chocolate, not just any chocolate, but Swiss army chocolate. This is so successful, being part of our heritage, that you an even buy it in the supermarket: packed in a ration of 50 grammes and it is marked on the paket (in the three swiss languages of course) Army chocolate. This is the Swiss secret weapon, the reason that our army would be so successful in battle (no it was not Wilhelm Tell that was the national hero, it was Suchard, the Swiss chocolate maker): our Swiss heritage.
Chronicles of an Anglo Swiss 
Ich liebe Schweiz as you know. 🙂 The chocolate is a small part of the reason.
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Me too, Mr. Swiss being a big part of the reason. I have been here too long now, Mr. Swiss says I am often more Swiss than the Swiss. And the army chocolate would not be part of the reason. It is OK, but Suchard does it better. Frey is a Migros label.
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In Wallisellen is? Was? A Milka factory so the smell of chocolate filled the air. The smell alone was pretty wonderful. 🙂
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that’s really interesting!
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🙂
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What about the Swiss army knife? I was the proud owner of one, but when I wanted to fly home once, the security people confiscated it.
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You see how the knives are feared. No-one has ever had their Swiss army chocolate destroyed, it is our secret weapon. You can buy the knives everywhere, but not the army chocolate.
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It can’t be difficult to poison chocolate.
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Swiss army chocolate has built-in antidotes 🙂
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Dat glöv ick nich.
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Chocolate is a wonderful heritage as is cheese, which I greatly enjoyed while there.
janet
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Our soldiers thrive on it.
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I am wearing a Swiss watch as I type this. I want to come back and visit soon as I can’t find the pictures I took in Interlaken in 1968.
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I like Interlaken very much. We spent many summer holidays in the Bernese Overland.
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Well, rum worked for the Brits, but I think chocolate is a MUCH better idea!
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Of course when my son got his ration in the army it wasn’t so nicely packed, it was just in silver paper.
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Love chocolates! And one of the few reasons why I wanna go see (and maybe live for awhile) in Switzerland.
❤ http://www.annalovelife.com
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And the Swiss even make chocolate for their army 🙂
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When my brother comes to visit I always ask for him to bring Swiss Chocolate. The milk you have makes a huge difference to the chocolate you get in Switzerland to that which we get here. The other things I think of when I think of Switzerland are watches, swiss chalet houses, red cross and yes, Swiss Army knives.
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And I sometimes think back to my days of english chocolate, although I am surrounded by Swiss chocolate. My youngest son was in the Swiss army and of course they all had their knives. M son was in the army, and got himself a second knife to show at the daily inspection so that he did not have to clean the knife is used.
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Now that shows ingenuity.
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