W. James Riddell MBE (27 December 1909 – 2 February 2000) was a British champion skier and author who was involved in the early days of skiing as a competitive sport and holiday industry.
Like his near contemporary, Sir Arnold Lunn, he matched his adventurism on the slopes and knowledge of the Alpine countries with an elegant record of his times.
Finally, Alpine skiing was admitted at Garmisch, but only on the basis of combined results in downhill and slalom, a word coined by Lunn for a race with shorter, sharper turns through gates of twin poles.
At Clare College, Cambridge, he read modern languages, but took a year out to practise gorilla and cheetah photography in the Belgian Congo and Kenya, interspersed with writing children's books and publicity activities for De Havilland, Selfridges and Fortnum and Mason.
[1] After the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941 the Australian's withdrew from Lebanon and Riddell became the Chief Instructor for the 9th Army on the same site, in 1942-1943 that became the Middle East Ski and Mountaineering School.
A second edition of his book "Dog in the Snow" was published in 2018 incorporating more information about the Lebanon Ski School and its staff along with previously unpublished photographs.