Nancy lived at Chateau D'Oex, at a height of 3000 feet in the Bernese Oberland in the canton of Vaud. 

In 1945 when the war ended. Nancy took George to Chateau D'Oex to help with his recovery. By 1947 he had begun to compose again, and they took a room in an old barn at Corcelettes, a small village by Lake Neuchatel. There he composed his Fifth Symphony during the long hot summer, which he later described as 'the happiest time of my life.' The old barn is still there.(See below)

George's father William travelled to Switzerland in 1912, with his friend the American painter Paul Dougherty, then living in St Ives. They walked in the foothills of the Matterhorn, where Dougherty painted this scene, and William wrote a dramatic short story about two climbers, rivals for the affections of the same woman, one of whom saves the life of the other after a fall.  

In Dougherty's painting, the mountain is viewed from a greater height than the photograph. He made several sketches, later used as the basis for larger oil paintings.   

Before he moved to London in 1972, George had resumed his study of the violin after a break of almost 40 years, and in 1970 he wrote his Violin Concerto No 1. In 1975, he was practising daily while composing pieces for violin and piano.  In 1975 he travelled to Cremona, home of the most famous violins in the world, where, at the workshop of young instrument maker Stefano Conia (Stefano Conia) he purchased two instruments.  

Playing the Conia violins, he completed three new works for violin and piano. Lament, Air and Dance, (1975) and Sonata for Violin (1976) followed by Violin Concerto No 2 (1977)