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Startpage Photos from Norway trip 1984 Click photos for larger copies  
Garry Jones in recognition of his outstanding achievement in reaching the top of the world, viz. our aforementioned city, and the coasts thereto adjoining, the title of Member of the Royal and Ancient Society of Polar Bears- In testemony whereof witness my signature this 18 day of the month of August in the year of 1984 Arnulf Olsen Mayor Highres 998 
the Swedish Railway Arctic Circle Society can only be possessed by a person who has crossed the Arctic Circle by train Swedish State Railways Bengt Furbäck Highres 999 Photos 1984 Trains and Stations 
All 149 Photos <- USE THIS if you have good Wifi 32 photos - Journey Views 20 photos - Trains and Stations 33 photos - Towns 44 photos - Hammerfest & Rypefjord 18 photos - Norwegian friends in Hammerfest 2 photos - Certificates Dancing with the deadly reindeer in the summer of 1984 In 1984 I spent the first part of my summer holiday in Västerås visiting friends and then I travelled up to Hammerfest to visit a Norwegian I had met in London in the autumn of 1983. In those days I used to drink a lot in London's West End and exchange addresses with interesting people I met from overseas. Then I would visit them during my summer holidays; planned visits after writing letters of course. I wasn't sure about visiting, but when I had looked in my atlas and discovered where Hammerfest was I knew I had to go there. It was so far North in Norway there was no room on the page and the top of Norway was placed inside a small box on the top left corner of the page and there in the middle was Hammerfest. I took the train up to Narvik from Stockholm. The train journey was wonderful with some of the greatest scenery I have seen in my life. It stopped on the Polar Circle so we could take photos of the white stones marking the monument, but it was dark so not much came out. However I was given a certificate by the train conductor as proof of crossing the Arctic circle by rail. I then had a 15 hour wait in Narvik for my coach to Tromsø. I had the money for a hotel but I was a "come what may" traveller. Besides there was a warm bus station and the coach was at 4 o'clock in the morning so what's the point of a hotel room? It was August and when planning the journey I had reckoned with summer warmth. I had a beer in the town centre, took some photos and headed for the bus station around ten in the evening. I made myself comfortable and was asleep by the time the Norwegian security came to lock the bus station at midnight. I was told I had to sleep outside. Fair enough; so I made a bed out of a couple of jumpers. Don't ask, I know these were backpacking days, but if you're a Englishman you travel everywhere with an old suitcase with no wheels, well that's my excuse. So I had no groundsheet and had to use what I had in the suitcase. I always had a large Union Jack with me in those days and pulled it over the top of me as a blanket. Yes, it was the summer but there was a real chill in the air. I was kind of asleep but heard voices; German voices. My feet were being kicked lightly. I pulled the flag back and looked up. It was a group of four young (west) German guys. "Are you English?". What a stupid question, like, yeah, I could really see how a Spanish tourist would be under a bloody Union Jack at Narvik bus station at one o'clock in the morning. But why had they woken me up? It soon became clear when one of them exclaimed "The ball didn't cross the line". "Oh that debate again", I thought to myself. England had won the World Cup in 1966 and the West Germans have always maintained the ball for England's 3rd goal didn't cross the line. So I sat up and saw they had some cans so I asked for a beer and we had a football debate for the next couple of hours. They told me they were taking the same coach as me and had been looking around Narvik for women. The town was pretty dead and the only woman I had spoken to in the pub was the barmaid and she had a boyfriend (I asked). I got my bottle of whiskey out and chin-chinned with the West Germans. Around 3 in the morning they were all asleep and I was wide awake drinking their beer. Then the coach came, I left them asleep and got on the coach. Then as the coach started I shouted out of the window: "Germany, look, the coach has crossed the line". The driver stopped the coach and opened the door so the German lads could climb on board and take their seats as we set off for Tromsø. One of the Germans shouted "Very funny, Englishman!", I just replied "I thought you Germans were always on time" and everybody on the coach laughed. I was never actually going to let the coach driver get too far and it was smiles all round. The coach journey was on winding roads with sheer drops over the sides. I was at the back of the coach behind the rear wheels and on a few tights sections looking out of my window I appeared to be suspended in air hundreds of metres above lakes and fjords. Then I noticed the face of the elderly driver in his rear-view mirror, he appeared to be dosing off. I changed seats, it felt safer but I knew that wouldn't help IF the coach actually went over the side of the road. Still there was such a large drop I'd have time to write my will on the way down. Thankfully we made it to Tromsø alive and well. As I got off the coach I felt like kissing the ground like The Pope used to do in the 80s when visiting new places. Earlier this week I was going through my photos for this web page and discovered that The "Cathedral of Our Lady" in Tromsø is the most Northern Catholic (and indeed Christian) Cathedral in the world. The Pope I referenced (John Paul II) did actually visit Tromsø five years after I had been there; he even spent a night in the Cathedral so it was funny I actually thought of him when I arrived there. There was just a seven hour wait in Tromsø for the boat. I ate some lunch and spent the early afternoon taking photos in the picturesque town with its fanastic bridge. Then I got on the Hurtigruten ferry to Hammerfest. On the boat I meet a Londoner and a German woman in their late 60's. They were doing the entire cruise from Bergen to Kirkenes and back as elderly singles and had "found" each other during the first few days of the journey. They had the most incredible story. It's for moments like this I have always socialised with people on journeys. A story is always better told. His wife had been killed in a German bombing raid in WW2. Her husband had also died in the war, he had served in the Luftwaffe on a Heinkel bomber and had been shot down over the Kent coast on the way home from a bombing raid by an RAF Hurricane. The Englishman had been a gunner on a Hurricane. Incredibly it turned out these episodes had occurred on the same day during the London Blitz. He obviously remembered the night because they'd scrambled and he had a couple of kills that night intercepting a fleet of Heinkels on their way home on Kent coast. Then on returning the base he got the call, half of his street was gone and his wife was dead from the intense German bombing raid. There was a chance the German lady's husband had dropped the bomb that had killed the Englishman's wife and he may well have been the gunner that shot her husband's plane out of the sky about 30 minutes later. I had a bite to eat with them over a beer and listened to their unfolding story. I just hope their new found infatuation with each other lasted and they didn't end up trying to throw the one another over the side of the boat for revenge. Any Hollywood movie script writers reading this? You have at least enough material there fore a feature film followed by a prequel and a sequel. Finally I arrived in Hammerfest around 60 hours after leaving Stockholm. I met many lovely local people and I remember having some very deep political conversations which opened my eyes to social injustices and introduced me a new way to look at the United Kingdom. Believe it or not I had the first pizza of my life up there. I remember the Norwegians being surprised when they said they were going to pick up a pizza one evening and I innocently asked what a pizza was. That was the pie 'n' mash south Londoner in me shining through. One afternoon I was invited to meet the Mayor of Hammerfest and was granted a life time membership of the "Royal and Ancient Society of Polar Bears". I stayed with my friends in Rypefjord, a small village just a few kilometres outside of Hammerfest. I walked between the town and the village a few times and had my first encounter with reindeer. The first time I saw them I shit myself and ran away, they followed me and starting looking at me. After about five minutes I think they were just laughing at the crazy Englishman screaming and running down the street so they stopped running alongside. It was those antlers that did it for me after growing up in London where we only ever saw large wild animals when they were locked up in cages in London Zoo. Thinking about it I realised those barriers and fences in zoos are usually to keep the animals safe from humans. One afternoon my Norwegian friends took me fishing. We fished off of the cliffs into the Barents Sea. Having never been fishing before I didn't really expect to catch anything. They showed me how to cast and I threw the line out into the sea. I immediately screamed "I've got one". They all laughed and told me it isn't that easy. But it sure felt like something was tugging the line, I started to reel it in and sure enough the biggest cod I had ever seen rose from the sea. About this time my Norwegian friend shouted out "Bloody hell, he HAS caught one". As I wound it in I became apprehensive. The only fish I had ever had to deal with had come from Safeway's in a box with Findus writing on the box, this was a real live fish wriggling and writhing. I have seen fishing on TV so I thought we were just going to detach it from the hook and throw it back in the sea to swim away to it's family. Not so. One of my Norwegian friends arrived with a cigarette in his mouth and a knife in his hand. He gutted the fish from the head all the way down its body with blood spurting out. Not really sure what I was expecting but this is how hunter man has lived for tens of thousands of years. This wasn't sport fishing; we continued the evening catching a few more cod and after we got back other friends were invited round for a lovely fish supper. The fish were prepared and perfectly cooked and I realised there is actually something to eating what you catch. It was a lovely meal and washed down with a few bottles of Norwegian Mack Beer. However the experience didn't bring out the hidden fisherman in me and in fact I have never been fishing since. I had initially intended spending three or four nights up there but changed my plans and stayed for a week. On my last evening there I was asked to step outside into the chilly evening air. It was snowing! – Yep! - just a few drops, but anyway snow on my summer holiday in the middle of August! It was a sad goodbye to my new and old Norwegian friends. As my ferry left Hammerfest my head was full of memories with new impressions that were to change focus and create purpose in life. There was a recent popular instrumental piece of music by Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits called "Going Home": It was the closing track from the1983 film "Local Hero" about an American from LA who visits a small fishing village in Northern Scotland. I listened to the track on my Sony Walkman as the ferry pulled away and the port of Hammerfest faded into the distance as a small dot on the horizon. The music itself and the connection to a man from a big city visiting a small remote village enhanced the emotions. On the way home I travelled back on the Hurtigruten boat till Tromsø, coach to Narvik and train heading for Stockholm. Fun fact about Tromsø: The record ever lowest temperature is - 18°C, I live in Mora in Sweden today and we are often down to -25°C, I am a cyclist and was even out training in -38°C around lake Orsa back in the 90s when I was racing. So it's hard to think that they have only ever had 17 degrees below zero so far up north; it is of course, because of the Gulf Stream. Anyway, back to the journey of 84: somewhere up near the Norwegian/Swedish border the railway line had subsided into a fjord. We were taken off the train at a small train station called Rombak. The station was manned with an attendant and a ticket office. In 2021 Sweden closed the last three manned ticket offices at Swedish railway stations in the large cities of Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmö; sign of the times and the digital age, but what a contrast to how it used to, I don't see it as progress. The Rombak station attendant came out and asked if we needed to let people know we'd be late; we were allowed to use the station phone. He then made a few phone calls around the village and local people came out and fed us. They refused to take money. The train had some sleeper wagons and they allowed some seat passengers to sleep in them even though they had only paid for a seat. I was 23 and myself and a few other younger ones just slept in our seats, the locals had lent us blankets and pillows. On the old SJ trains it was possible to lay across the rows of seats quite comfortably. The elderly passengers were offered room in the town by the locals who seemed worryingly accustomed to trains being held up. It was all rather too well rehearsed and it made you wonder if the train track could subside without a train on it what the weight of a laden train could do to it. On the second day a few of the locals turned up with violins and accordions and played Swedish and Norwegian folk music and polkas for us. There was a spontaneous dance on the green next to the train station. One of the loveliest afternoons of my life. This was and is the real genuine warm Swedish/Norwegian hospitality that drew me here. I had around 20 visits to Sweden from 1981 until emigrating here in 1988. There is no defining moment of when I decided I'd like to live in Sweden, it was due a sequence of happenings, events and experiences and a feeling that grew in me. This was another such event/experience with strangers making friends when we were held up, and total acceptance of the delay on the train line and then being looked after by generous locals. A few reindeer turned up to the party and after my experiences on the road to Rypefjord in Hammerfest I now knew wild reindeer aren't deadly animals that like to bite the heads off of English tourists so I danced, a reindeer came over and danced with me for an unforgettable ten seconds of jiving to the accordion. Eventually the track had been repaired and we all got back on the train. This was a the day after we had arrived at the station. I had spent that afternoon dance talking to a local Sámi girl my age called Mari. I later lost her address which was a pity as I had intended to thank her for showing me how to dance without stepping on toes. So Sámi Mari, thanks for the dance lesson in the summer of 1984 if you are reading this. It was a sad goodbye at the train station as we tourists departed and the townsfolk were back with their instruments and played "We'll meet again..." as the train pulled out. Those old SJ carriages had large windows that pulled down and we were all leaning out waving goodbye. I remember Mari smiling running alongside the train waving. During the train trip back to Stockholm many new friendships blossomed. People who got on the train at the stops along the way had no idea of the wonderful experience we had been through. Can you imagine a day's delay today? People would be angry. There would be demands for refunds and cries of "I want a taxi now". The local train station would be shut and there would be nobody to phone around the local village for assistance. The poor train staff would bare the brunt of the anger from the passengers and they'd be posting on social media tagging posts with "f*cking SJ" and everyone would be stressed out by it. There would be a major news story in the Swedish media with live Breaking News video from passengers complaining on social media. What a world we have become. Can you imagine Christopher Columbus turning his boats back because the sea was rough or Marco Polo being scared of foreigners along the Silk Road and abandoning his journey? Travel and exploration are the vibes of life. From the cradle to the grave life is to be lived, it's not about the destination, it's about the journey. I have always seen the journey to Hammerfest as the trip of a lifetime. After that marathon journey to get there I felt like slamming my flag down in the ground and announcing "I claim this land for King and Country". Probably just as well I didn't. I later found out Britain has never really been forgiven for sending two naval frigates to Hammerfest in the summer 1809. The pointless attack was held off by two Norwegian canon crews who bravely fought back even killing a British sailor who was buried at sea. The locals held off for 90 minutes before running out of gunpowder. The British military entered the town with the intentions of murdering everyone alive – don't ask me why, heck this was 1809; they probably didn't know themselves - they were just following orders. However the brave fight by the Norwegian gunners had given the townsfolk the chance to take to the hills. The Brits roamed the empty town before burning it to the ground and leaving from whence they came. They didn't tell us that in school! The journey outwards across land and sea was more importantly a personal journey inwards. I was 23, soul searching and contemplating the life I would lead. The answer became Scandinavia and 12 years after that trip to Hammerfest I was married with three children and living in Mora in Sweden. I am now 60 with more of my life behind me than ahead of me. The time has come. Next week I return to Narvik, to Tromsø and to Hammerfest. The biggest ever trip down the biggest ever Memory Lane. I go into this with my eyes open. I know that the memory of what was can not be recreated but I am so looking forward to retracing my steps for a completely different reason that I first made them. The danger to avoid is expectation so I'll take it as it comes and for what it is and create some new memories. But this soon to be 61 year old man will see places he saw through the eyes of a 23 year old 38 years ago. It's poetic and emotional just thinking about it. Eight years ago I had a life saving heart operation and learned all moments in life are be cherished. Not just the trips one makes, but each and every day. What I was looking in 1984 turned out to be definition of the journey of life. Life is a series of journeys, through time, places and mind. With that I'll sign off with the words of The Beatles; no, not "Norwegian Wood"; but "In my Life" of course: There are places I'll remember All my life though some have changed Some forever, not for better Some have gone and some remain All these places have their moments With lovers and friends I still can recall Some are dead and some are living In my life I've loved them all Garry Jones / 17th June 2022 PS Hammerfest is known as the most Northern town in the World. Take a look at the map!  |
