My Brother

I loved him very much, even though he could irritate the life out of me on occasions. I still love him wildly and I miss him terribly.

I lost him when I was 24. He was 19 and died in a car crash, only a few days before Christmas in 1974.

Life was never to be the same for our family. We never quite recovered. This tragic event showed many things, one of them being that there may be no greater trauma than for a parent to lose his or her child.

My brother was a musician. He played the guitar in a band who had just started recording their first album. He had just finished his A levels and was having a year off to tour with his band, get some experience and make some money before he started at the Royal College of Music.

My mate. I miss you. There's so incredibly much I would have liked to talk to you about and discuss with you.

We couldn't go skiing anymore as we used to because I have ruined my knee. But we could still go swimming in the summer. Go for a ride in the car, too - any season. And laugh and joke, like we used to. And we could listen to music, lots of music...

I miss you indeed.

My Mother

This is my mother, the woman who all her life tried to make everyone happy. And I mean everyone.

She never seemed to have acquired the ability to prioritise until very late in life.

From childhood my best memories of her are her magnificent artistic abilities: she was an extraordinary piano player, and began studying music at the Music Conservatory. Similarly, she was an exceptionally gifted fine artist. When I was a child she used to make extra money by drawing ads for local businesses which were shown at the local cinema before the film started.

She was always conscientious and sincere, and despite having a wicked sense of humour she seemed almost naïvly earnest. I inherited that quality from her. Her concern for everyone's happiness and wellbeing, brought her to collaps from exhaustion when I was 12 1/2. I remember that summer very well. It was a difficult one for us all.

Twice she got cancer. The first time was in 1970, the second in 1974. She was seriously ill on both occasions, and underwent very major surgery on both occasions. Only a few months after her second bout of cancer, however, she faced may be the deepest trauma of her life, by far surpassing her cancer: the loss of her youngest son in a traffic accident.

My mother's life was not an easy one. Because she was always concerned with other people's well-being, there was little room and few ears for her to share her story, her pain, her despair.

I wish I'd understood her as well when I was young as I do now as a mature adult.

My Most Extraordinary Grandmother

Much of my childhood was spent with my grandmother. She taught me that greatest joy in life: reading! I was four and she had bought me an ABC. She was very excited when she unwrapped the book, excited like I had never seen her before. I remember the moment very well because it was as her breathing was quicker than usual, and her hands revelaed a slight tremor. As she began showing me all the drawings in the book along with some signs which she accompanied with funny sounds. She kept repeating them to me, over and over, having me repeat back to her. She called these mysterious signs in the book letters.

Since before the day I could move in an upright position, she took me out for walks. I understood much later in life that the whole purpose of these walks was discovery. These walks were short ones at first. Then they became longer and longer. Having grown up in a small hamlet called Grindaheim, right in the heart of the magnificently beautiful mountain range of Jotunheimen, she had a great respect for nature which she carefully communicated, thus passing it on to me. She taught me the names of all the flowers we came across on our rambling strolls across fields or mountains.

She spoke with the animals, as she did with her plants. And they all thrived around her. She loved everything that lived and spent every minute of her conscious life supporting life.

Every day that followed she sat with me for a little, and very soon I could read. By the age of five I was reading books on my own. I could also add up and subtract, because she had taught me some other mysterious symbols, the numbers, and what to do with them. And in the process she had taught me to read.

The best time of year was the Summer when my grandmother and I would take the cattle high up in the mountains. For two whole months we would stay in this mountain kingdom, surrounded by spectacular nature and animals. All we would do is read, natter, and sing. And always looking and listening: looking at the mountains, the colour of the sky, she shape of the clouds, the animals, each other...

Never once in my entire life did I ever feel her love for me not be present, or even wane. When I came to visit her, at the sound of my car, she would peak out from behind her kitchen curtains. When she saw me, she looked as if she'd just seen the sun rising - every single time.

She was a paradox indeed, my grandmother. Toward the end of her life and full of days, she was deeply frustrated because Life wouldn't let go of her. One day and deep despair, she cried out, "Oh, my dear God! Oh, bloody hell!"

I guess that sums up life for many of us, but especially so for her. My, was she brave - and so amazingly wise, in a most ordinary way.

I'm deeply grateful to her. For everything. Our love is as solid and eternal as the mountains of Jotunheimen amongst which we wandered, learnt, laughed, and sometimes cried for all those years.

My Dad

This is my dad. The photo was taken in 1948.

The Nazi occupation of Norway had ended three years ago. Norwegians were still happy it was over, their exuberance only having started to wane ever so little little. They were full of optimism, determination and hope for the future. Everyone was busy sharing one superobjective: rebuilding the country. There was a sense of joy, libido was in the air, and everywhere one went people were engaged in creating and supporting life.

The occupation had been long, exactly five years and one month, and very harsh. My father, as did my family on both my father and mother's side, had been actively engaged in the resistance.

My dad was 22 at the time this photo was taken. He had recently met my mother. Less than a year later, they got married.

I am so glad they did.

Our first move

I'm struck by the presence of trains and railway stations in the pictures and memories from my early childhood. The railways are important in my life, my father was devoted to his work in the Norwegian Railways.

I have always liked traveling by train. I still do. It gives me a sense of room, of openness. It leaves me the freedom to do things whilst being on my way towards my destination. And it always feels so very safe. "Statistically," my dad used to tell me when I was a little boy, "travelling by train is by far the safest way to travel." I could always sense an air of dignified pride about him when he spoke to like that. It lingered in the air and sort of tingled inside me long after the words had been uttered.

My parents had very little money at the time I was born. That's putting politely; they were outright poor. My father had only just finished his engineering studies at Oslo Tekniske Aftenskole, which he had done at the same time as he was engaged in his apprenticeship with the Akers Mekaniske Verksted. They were married at Blaker kirke. After they got married, my dad continued his apprenticeship contract with Akers Mek and the Norwegian Railways. My dad made hardly any money at this time.

Fotunately he was a magician on the accordeon. During week-ends he did jobs on the side playing gigs. That brought some money in, but certainly not enough. Nobody has ever said this either, but I'm sure this was reason why we stayed with my father's parents for the first few months of my life.

Although it's never been said this either, I suspect my mother's pregnancy with me had not been planned. Passion had got the better of them, and I was given the oppportunity of life. Although my nan, my grandmother on my mother's side, who was deeply steeped in the christian faith, tried to suggest mine had been a premature birth. As I weighed all of 8 lbs at birth, that's rather unlikely. My nan held on to her particular perceptions about my arrivial in this world, however, until the day she died.

My dad finished his education with phenomenally good results, and shortly afterwards he applied for a job at Dokka, a small village in the municiplaity of Nordre Land in the county of Oppland. He got the job, and our family moved for the first time.

Not much later my dad was promoted and he became the youngest train engineer in the country ever. He was very pround indeed, and so were we.

Throughout my early chilhood he would let me come to work with him. I remember the feeling of standing right at the front of the train, looking down at the rails which seemed to disappear underneath the train itself at lightning speed. It was so exhilararting.

But the ride home on his bike, sitting on a small child's seat behind him and holding my arms around this big man in front of me, was even more exhilarating. My beloved dad.

A Beginning

Everything has a beginning.

For a long time I've wanted to create a log where I could put images and memories representing my life. This is the beginning of that project.

This where I was born, in Lillestrøm, a small town situated in the municipality of Skedsmo, a few miles outside Oslo. When you arrive at Oslo Airport, this is the only stop the train makes on its 20 minutes journey between the airport, Gardermoen, and Oslo Central Station, called Oslo S.

The greeen area you see in the middle of the picture of the city centre to the right, is a rather astonishing feature in Lillestrøm called the Town Garden. It's rather beautiful but not open to the public as it's part of a luxury apartment complex.

I spent only one night Lillestrøm, ever. The whole purpose of this one day visit was to be born, to incarnate. The name of the midwife who helped my mother and me on the msot significant occasion was Engeline, which translates as Angeline for the English speaking. But I guess you already may have guessed that.

Here is another shot of Lillestrøm, taken on a misty October day. I have no memories of this place. It looks quite pretty and very friendly leaning upon that gentle hillside, don't you think?

The day after I was born, my dad came to pick up my mother and me. He took us back to Blaker where we lived for the next 6 months. My dad was an amazing musician, but had been brought up in a tradition of getting a "proper" job. The arts did not constitute what was meant by "a proper job", so like his father, he began working for the Norwegian Railways. My grandfather was station master at Blaker, a small hamlet in the municipality of Sørum, a part of Akershus County Council. Blaker is not very far from neither Lillestrøm, nor Oslo. This is where we returned to, and we lived in this tiny little yellow station house with my grandparents.

The journey of my extraordinary life had begun.