Hotel Dolder Waldhaus: Kurhausstrasse 20 Zurich 8030 0041 1 251 9360 older

Hotel Dolder Waldhaus: Kurhausstrasse 20, Zurich 8030 (0041 1 251 9360), older hotel near the above; forest ambienc e 10 mins from centre by funicular Pool and ice rink. Atlantis Sheraton: Doltschiweg 234, Zurich 8055 (00 41 1 454 5454), overlooks city from Uetliberg mountain. "Kleider machen Leute" (clothes make people) wrote the 19th-century Swiss author Gottfried Keller and never spoke a truer word of his countryfolk "A man is not a man without a Burberry," says Aunty Helena. When the sun is out or the warm Foen is blowing up the lake from the south of France, shirt-sleeved citizens play games of chess with giant-size pieces on the pink and white paving stones of Platz Zwingli. When both are not, you take an overcoat - preferably an expensive one.

In 1990, Aunty Helena, Denis and Margaret were guests at a dinner party given by Lady Hurlimann- Glover at Schloss Freudenberg on neighbouring Lake Zug. The order, precision, cleanliness and sense of fair play (they hold referendums on everything) are what Aunty Helena, the Thatchers, and the rest of the world admire about Zurich and Switzerland, even if some will not readily admit it.Zurich people demonstrate their love of fine things by installing public phone booths which automatically play German classical music when you open the door. Denis's letter contains a few personal family details and a note of Carol's address in Klosters, where she has taken an apartment with her young Bergfuehrer (ski instructor) boyfriend to write a second book.The Thatchers are frequent visitors to the Confederacio Helvetica, or CH as the land of 26 cantons is known to car bores. The families are old friends who used to holiday in the mountains together in the 1950s.

Carol Thatcher refers to "the lovely people at Lenzerheide" in the biography of her father She means Aunty Helena. Distant figures practice their swings as the sun sets behind a hill of fir trees. A waiter brings the Wiener Schnitzel which has been beaten to the size of a frisbee. For such is the golf club renowned.Aunty Helena shows me a letter she has received from Denis Thatcher. David Zinman waved the baton at the London Symphony Orchestra on the million-selling recording of Gorecki's Third Symphony five years ago and has scored such a hit with Zurich society that he has been invited to join the exclusive Zurich Golf Club "He's never out of the papers," confides Aunty Helena.

"He's not much good at golf, but terribly good fun at the clubhouse.""Oh how lovely!" she exclaims when I tell her we have tickets for the Tonhalle, "I hope you've got a clean shirt, Richard." People still dress to attend Tonhalle concerts People still dress to go to the golf club for dinner We sit at a table overlooking the links. It is panelled and painted: one studies the ceiling in slow movements. In 1895, Brahms conducted Beethoven's Ninth at the inaugural concert.The fortunes of the Tonhalle Orchestra have been further enhanced by the appointment of a new and charismatic conductor. Sir Georg Solti, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Mtislav Rostropovich, Cecillia Bartoli and Peter Schreier are all lined up for concerts between 28 June and 20 July.