Which is around twenty minutes by train from where the family lives in Lausanne. Like most of the train trips I’ve been on in Switzerland, the short hop takes you through some of the most beautiful scenery on the continent.

On one side of the tracks you can see the Lavaux vineyard terraces which are one of 12 Unesco World Heritage sites in Switzerland. The terraces stretch and slope down for about 30 km along the south-facing northern shores of Lake Geneva from the Chateau de Chillon to the eastern outskirts of Lausanne in the Vaud region, and cover the lower slopes of the mountainside between picturesque villages and the lake. On the other side of the tracks, the imposing, snow-covered alps tower over the gigantic lake. The twenty minute journey flashes by, but the images stay with you forever.

Vevey is a small town which is predominantly famous for being the long-time home of Charlie Chaplin. (It’s perhaps infamous for also being the headquarters of the morally dubious multinational Nestle company - but that’s a column for another day). To see Chaplin’s home, the Manoir de Ban, and look around the adjacent Chaplin’s World exhibition were the primary reasons for our day trip.

My grandkids are 11 and 9 and like most wee ones of that age, they love any kind of slapstick and have seen quite a few of the little man’s films. The house itself is pretty spectacular. Dating back to 1705 and sitting in 14 hectares, the rooms and decor are very grand, and each room has windows which frame the sprawling, towering Alps off in the distance. Chaplin bought the house in 1952 and it became the family home until his death in 1977. He died in the house on Christmas Day.

Part of Chaplin’s semi-enforced exile from the United States was brought about by the hysteria and paranoia unfolding there about the apparent spread of communism and the attendant witchhunts of the 1930s and 1940s, led for the most part by the then director of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover.

Hoover’s suspicions about his political leanings had been heightened by Chaplin’s encouragement during world war two to open a second front to assist the Soviet Union in its fight against the Nazis. This, amongst other highly dubious accusations, led to the bizarre situation where Chaplin was considered to be “dangerously progressive and amoral.”

Chaplin always resolutely denied that he was a communist, or had ever been a member of any political party, and in a thinly veiled kick up the arse to Hoover and his paranoid hawk colleagues in the bureau, he stated that he was, in fact, “a peacemonger.”

It was Chaplin’s fear of a surge in militaristic nationalism and fascism throughout the 1930s that was the catalyst for what many believe to be his best film - The Great Dictator - in which Chaplin played the dual roles of a Jewish barber and ‘Adenoid Hynkel’, a sublime parody of Hitler himself. Filming began six days after Britain declared war on Germany and was released in October 1940.

The film is perhaps best remembered for its closing scene in which Chaplin delivers a five-minute speech directly to camera railing against war and fascism. Many saw this as the end of Chaplin’s popularity given that people would now be unable to separate his political views from his characters and films.

However, Chaplin continued to make well received films and in the early 1960s, attitudes in America were beginning to change and a reassessment of Chaplin’s life and work took on a renewed sense of appreciation and understanding. In 1962, the New York Times published an editorial which stated:

“We do not believe the Republic would be in danger if yesterday’s unforgotten little tramp were allowed to amble down the gangplank of a steamer or plane in an American port.”

Walking around the exhibition with my grandkids it was impossible not to think about how little the world has changed since Chaplin slated the evils of unbridled capitalism and fascism. We live in a world that he would instantly recognise; one where strangers are mistrusted and unwelcome; where the little people are trodden underfoot and treated like fodder by tech billionaires and megalomaniacal politicians; and where power sleeps with corruption. Still, as the little man once said:

“Nothing is permanent in this wicked world, not even our troubles.”

Charlie Chaplin Museum, Vevey, Switzerland