Magic Moments in Norway

I've always loved the music of Edvard Grieg. It speaks to me, deeply. As the song goes, I don't know why, it just does. It makes a connection somewhere within me, maybe from another life. Who knows? There's a sad, beautiful melancholy in the music, something to do with the scale of A minor as I understand, but it's more than that. I hear it deep in my soul.

I first became of aware of Grieg's music over half a century ago, in my teens, back in the days when there was just one TV channel, broadcast by the BBC. Continuity announcers Sylvia Peters and MacDonald Hobley, attired very formally in evening dress, provided the programme links. And we had Intervals (bvws.org.uk); time to go off and make a cup of tea, ready for the next show. Sometimes the TV studio transmitter simply broke down and programmes disappeared, whereupon Sylvia or Peter would apologise and put on a record for us to listen to while the screen showed "Normal Service Will Be Resumed As Soon As Possible" and engineers scrambled to fix the fault. I am sure, though it's hard to verify, that they often used Grieg's "Last Spring', or 'Våren', during these pauses. The sad longing refrain softly sang to my soul and has remained with me ever since. It led me to the beauty,charm and humour of the rest of Grieg's music, making him my favourite composer by far.

So, a working life later, I find myself almost alone on the observation deck of a beautiful Norwegian Coastal Hurtigruten ship, slipping smoothly and quietly along the dark glass waters of the Geirangerfjord in Norway. My iPod is, of course, loaded with Grieg's music. Headphones on, I listen. I watch. Glistening waterfall cliffs glide smoothly by on the music of 'Solveig's Song' and 'Morning'. Impossible summer farms, straight from tall tröll tales, perch precariously on narrow green ledges high above the water, on the sheer black rock face walls. Gulls wheel and waltz over sunbeams flashing and dancing on rippling green wake. An interlude of magic.

Yet from these peaceful summer fjords came Vikings. They came to Britain, fought bloody battles then settled in peace. Their blood intermingled with British blood and remains there still, over a millennia later, in friendship. 

I am sure it strums ancient chords deep inside when we visit each other's countries. It does in me, I feel it. And Grieg helps me make that connection, something confirmed to me when we visited Norway on another occasion. Traveling the length of the Sognefjord, we stopped off for a few days at the little waterside town of Balestrand. Years ago we had travelled along the other side of the fjord and gazed across the water to Balestrand, marked by a grand white waterside hotel. We wondered what it would be like to stay there, then drove on elsewhere.

Now here we were, in another life, walking past this grand establishment, which could easily have come from a gracious South Carolina scene, on our way to our rather more modest, but nonetheless lovely, hotel for a few days. To our delight it came with a perk. By agreement, guests from our hotel were allowed access to the glorious lounge and facilities of the grand white waterfront Kvikne's Hotel. As it happened, while we were there, we were able to go to a concert of Grieg's music in the Kvikne's Hotel, played on the piano for us by the internationally famous Norwegian musician Åge Kristoffersen. 

It was to be another magic occasion.

Seated in the quiet pine wood splendour of the hotel, with views through large white framed windows across the deep sparkling waters of Sognefjord, towards distant snow dusted mountains, the scene was set. Åge appeared before us to polite welcoming applause, smiled, and bowed slightly. Then, with wit, wisdom, and all the skills of a Viking storyteller addressing a rapt audience by a roundhouse fire, he took us into the world of Edvard Grieg and his music. His concert hall piano playing sent Grieg's soul music soaring through the lounge and beyond, out into the town and through the open windows across the fjord waters and home to the high mountains. We went to his wedding at Troldhaugen, wept with beautiful jilted Solveig as she sang her sad song and despaired with Peer Gynt's mother. We awoke with the young tearaway as he peered out of his tent in the African desert, watched the morning sun rise and dreamed of Norway.

And so we rode on Åge's magic musical carpet through Grieg's Norway.

Some moments, some concerts, are very special. Thanks to Åge Kristoffersen, this was. I shall never forget it.

Patrick Wise's Schooldays - How it all Began ~

I have written elsewhere about how much I hated my schooldays. But as I've grown older and learned more about the world that shaped me, so I have come to learn that it has shaped others too. As a child I had no idea about such matters and so didn't understand. I had come from a loving and free life-style where I met and mixed with the same small cast of characters every day. There were other characters who played regular but lesser roles, the seed salesman, the vet, the baker, the doctor to mention a few. But I still knew them. They were familiar. I would go running off to tell my Dad or Mum when any of them arrived. They would come out from house or shed to meet them and offer them a cup of tea, which was seldom refused. People had time in those days to sit around the kitchen table discussing matters, whatever time of day it was. 

There was always home-made fruitcake on these occasions, and we'd frequently be joined by Percy the Postman, who would lean his bike up against the garden fence and come to offer us pearls of wisdom, and read out loud for us any postcards we were about to receive. 

I knew this world. I knew my place and role in it. I was Dad and Mum's gofer. Stamps from the office for Dad, cake knife and plates for Mum. I had a place and purpose. And seemingly endless freedom.

But then one day I was plunged, with very little warning, into a world of strict restriction where I understood nothing and knew no-one. School hit me like a runaway coal lorry. 

There were what seemed to me like vast crowds of strange children with strange ways. They appeared to understand this strange scary new world. They made a lot of noise. They pushed, pulled and tugged and shouted. And what was worse was that Mum, who had taken me the two miles to school in our old Morris car, told me to stay with a strange woman called Miss Kinchin, who would look after me. Mum then turned and waved briefly, got in the car, and left. She drove away. I was abandoned. I shrank inside. I'd never had to face anything like this before. I had only the vaguest notion of what school was all about. 

Somehow I survived and got used to it, though I never learned to like it. I didn't like being restricted indoors in a room with windows set so high I couldn't see outside apart from a bit of sky. I didn't like being seated behind a desk in rows. They all faced the same way. They faced Miss Kinchin, who sat behind a larger, higher desk, facing us. She kept order with a glare and a twelve inch ruler. 

"Be quiet, Smith! No talking!" Bang on the desk would go the ruler.

In hindsight, Miss Kinchin, was a kindly lady who, with her live-in companion Gerty, made sure I had a drink and a chocolate biscuit after school each day in her house next door. That kept me going until my mother could find the time in the busy farming day to come and fetch me. 

But Miss Kinchin had a job to do and so, I quickly learned, did I. I was there to learn. I was there to learn my 'times' tables and the 'abc'. I did the best I could, despite frequent blinding migraines and a broken leg, but that is another story. 

Runaway Train

The moment is like a fast train

Hurtling from fast receding past

Into the blind unknown,

And I've passed my stop.