Pilgrimage

Nigel on a trip to the Wienerwald unit in Altötting a long time religious town 100 km to the west of Munich and just 30 km from Braunau in Austria, Hitler's birthplace.

Since the 7th century, there had been a Royal Palace here and in 876 a Benedictine monastery. It is most famous for its small shrine venerated to the Virgin Mary - In 1489 a three-year-old boy drowned, his body placed at the chapel in front of a statue of the Virgin Mary and the boy was revived.

Pope John Paul II visited the shrine in 1980 as did the Bavarian-born Pope Benedict XVI in 2006. Benedict was born in the next door village of Marktl.

Place Nigel and I had in the past visited together, and he went there several times in the course of his time in Munich.

On this occasion, I was stuck in the office in Munich - according to my diary a meeting with the company board from 10:00 -12:00. Subject matter not known.

Nigel's written comments on the postcard refer to a problem we were having recruiting new auditors, in this case in the Cologne area. I had been tasked in trying to recruit from within the organisation and while it was a pretty good job with good pay and conditions (Mercedes), it was proving difficult to find an acceptable candidate under the age of 64.

Postcards were the closest we had back then to text messages. This must have arrived the day after he wrote it.