Tartanhäst Vinter & Vår - Scottish Swedish...Om igen, tack snälla ni från London att ni ordnar...
Transcript of Tartanhäst Vinter & Vår - Scottish Swedish...Om igen, tack snälla ni från London att ni ordnar...
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Tartanhäst–Vinter & Vår
2014
The Scottish Swedish Society Svensk-Skottska Fo reningen
A note from your editor:
With the light finally coming back
to our shores, I have woken up
from my winter slumbers and produced the first fun
filled Scottish Swedish Newsletter of the year.
Among other things you will find in the Newsletter
are some excellent articles from our cherished soci-
ety members about Lucia and Jul celebrations of the
past and present. On Skolsidan (Svenska
Skolföreningen) you can cast your vote for the best
Skolförenings logo produced by its Swedish
language students and read
much more!
Enjoy!
Härliga vår hälsningar,
Carina
Content:
Page 1: Note from your
editor & Tack till Svenska
Kyrkan I London
Page 2: “Memories of
LUCIA Celebrations Past
& Present
Page 3 : SKOLSIDANS
Logo competition & Trav-
el Stories
Page 4: Swedish Jul in
UK/ The Cranes are here!
Page 5-6: Northern
Lights: Edinburgh &
Stockholm
Torsdag den 6 mars blev vi bjudna på en fantastisk trerätters lunch på
Joseph Pierce. Maten var jättegod och stämningen likaså. Säkerligen
förstärkt med ett glas vin. Det var otroligt trevligt att lära känna fler
människor. Tänk att några hade åkt ända från Helensburgh för att vara
med.
Som vanligt var Camilla Persson vår trevliga värdinna och vi fick också
träffa en ny person för oss alla, Komminister Kristina Andréasson.
Vi ser redan fram emot nästa års lunch!
Fredagen den 7 mars var det dags igen för en träff. Denna gång fika på
Hemma.
Ett enormt kakbord var uppdukat och det var väldigt svårt att försöka
låta bli att prova på alla sorter. Kaffe, te och saft fanns också att tillgå.
En svensk film rullade så barnen skulle vara sysselsatta. Det gjorde att
föräldrarna hade större möjlighet att prata med varandra och skapa nya
kontakter. Kul. Flera av barnen lockades av det stora fotbollsspelet på
bottenvåningen.
Eftermiddagen var väldigt trevlig och vi fick verkligen dra iväg barnen
därifrån.
Om igen, tack snälla ni från London att ni ordnar det
så trevligt för oss.
Helene Nordberg
Tack svenska Kyrkan i London !
“Friends” by Håkan Dahlström
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Our family attended our first Lucia celebration here in Edinburgh with the Advent service in 1975 when it was held in the Norwegian Seamen’s church also called the Scandinavian Church in Leith, the building now known as the Leith School of Art. It was a small stone church cared for by some elderly Norwegian men where occasional services were held. One of the Norwegian church care-takers attended other events that we organised for many years afterwards.
The children changed in the small room behind the altar and it was very cramped with baskets of saffransbullar and coffee, white Lucia dresses, out-door clothes in piles on the floor and people scrib-bling the text of the songs on their cardboard candle holders. The church benches were soon overflowing with fathers and relatives.
At that time we used a metal crown with real candles which I had brought across from Sweden and which my mother had used when she was young. I dressed the crown with green Vinca leaves from the garden as I could not get hold of ‘lingon’ leaves that morning. Lucia had to have a couple of layers of wet cloths under the crown to catch hot candle wax that dripped when there was a slight breeze or she bent her head. It was a common experience that you then had to remove the dried wax from the long flowing hair in the evening. All the children carried real candles as the electric candles did not then exist. A couple of mothers carrying soaking wet bath towels had to be carefully stationed in the church in case something caught fire. Thankfully they never had to use them.
All the women brought coffee and Advent baking which we shared in the church afterwards. The Swedish priest Sven Evander came up from Ulrika Eleonora’s church in London.
When Lennart Sjöström took over as rector in London both he and his wife Katarina used to come up for the Lucia event often bring-ing Swedish stuff from the Advent bazaar in London. In some years the Swedish priest from one of the other Swedish churches came up. These days there is only the one Swedish church left in Britain and it serves both United Kingdom and Ireland.
The mothers of some of the children who participated at that time are still active in Scottish Swedish Society so Leonora Winstanley, Vicky and Sarah Hipkins, Karin and Ingrid Phillips, Kirsty and Anna Walker, Annika and Nickie Hampson, Veronica and Mimmi Sveidqvist, Kristina MacNaughton, Katarina Crabbe, Anna Stewart, Louisa Bertram, Catherine Wheldon, Sylvia and Alexandra Nairn and many others took part. The oldest girl was chosen to be Lucia according to a list of their ages so the younger ones knew that their turn would come.
The Norwegian church was very small for the numbers who turned up and the church was eventually sold. In 1985 we were in the Danish Institute which was also too small for our needs although it is a light and pleasant venue. That year we were contacted by BBC who wanted to record the Swedish Lucia tradition so we travelled to a studio in Glasgow and were filmed over several hours. The program was shown on television in January 1986.
The following year we moved to the light and modern German church in Marchmont where we stayed for some years but then had to move again and in 1990 we went to the Quaker Meeting House. We were all gathered, the children organised for Lucia and
we waited and waited. Eventually we got a message that the Swe-dish rector who was travelling up by train was stuck in a snow drift north of Newcastle. So we had to create an Advent service with hymns and readings without him!
In 1993 we were invited to hold the celebration in the private home in Caroline Park in North Edinburgh, a 17th-century mansion in Granton, the home of Birgitta Parnell. This was a lovely experi-
ence but the rooms were rather small for the num-bers who turned up.
n 1994 we were back in a church again, this time in the lovely stone church of the Good Shepherd in Mur-rayfield where we held our services until 2003 by which time both the church room and the hall were far too small for the numbers attending. By now, battery candles were widely available in Sweden so the time of soaking wet bath towels for emergencies was over.
In 2004 Marina Sundberg-Gilles arranged for us to be in the Ward-ie Parish church in Trinity which made us very welcome. We have especially appreciated the skilful playing by their organist Marga-ret who sensitively accompanied the singing of children on organ and played Swedish Advent music before the services.
Wardie Parish church is where the Swedish school is now held. We had had a Swedish school many years ago which was held in Trinity Academy but it was difficult to keep it going when the chil-dren grew up and the teachers took on other commitments.
In the last few years the Wardie church hall where we drink coffee with the saffransbullar baked by some of the Swedish women and enjoy meeting old friends has become dangerously overcrowded so the committee members began searching for a new church ven-ue and we hope that we found a place that will provide what we need.
In the Norwegian church and later on we had welcome singing support from some Swedish au pairs - though such girls are rare these days. Currently a number of the mothers provide singing support in the Lucia procession. Without mothers and fathers who have been teaching their children the traditional songs be-forehand and then turning up with the required clothing, dressing the children, combing and calming down the over-eager partici-pants, we would not have the Lucia processions.
We are also greatly thankful for the three or four mothers who organise the whole Lucia procession, and also see to feeding and entertainment for the younger ones during the Advent service. I am sure that for many of our children, memories from Swedish Advent and Lucia in Edinburgh will remain with them for the rest of their lives.
If you would like your daughter or son to participate next year, just make contact with one of the committee members of SSS so that you can find out which songs to practice beforehand.
Kerstin
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9. 10. 11.
Enter our exciting competition for the best “logo” to represent Svenska Skolföreningens
Swedish classes. All ideas and drawings above are by the students themselves. Vote quoting the
number by the picture
Email Helene Nordberg at: [email protected]
The Swedish Classes for children are
doing better than ever; Skolföreningen
now has 35 students. Congratulations!
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F or many years
I’ve thought a
Swedish Christmas was
fantastic – advent ljus, Lucia, pepparkakshus, putsning av koppar o tenn – ok, possibly not
the putsning bit;
mulled wine and presents on both Christmas
Eve and Christmas day! As a young child
trying to fit in it was a bit different, espe-
cially as there were not as many ‘foreigners’
about as there are now. Fortunately being a
starboy at Lucia was in the privacy of the
house - I still think it looks a tad KKK with
the high, white wizardy hat! Very enjoyable
though, especially the eating of pepparkakor
afterwards. I reckon that pepparkakor and
pepparkakshus are amongst the best imports
from Sweden – apart from ABBA, Volvo and
IKEA of course! As one couldn’t buy these
things then, they were made at home and
there’s photographic evidence of me ‘helping’
mamma at 8 months! The pepparkakshus was
also made from scratch and to a different
design every year. As it was glued together
with hot sugar, this was always done by my
father, though we enjoyed adding icing sugar
to it. I still recall the happy noise made by
my Primary one class mates when I came into
school with pepparkaka. When my own chil-
dren were small, I made the mistake of put-
ting in a tea light inside the house – bad idea
– the moisture collapsed the roof and the
match put carbon marks up the side so it
looked like some bombed out ruin from the
Balkans – not the Christmassy, peaceful im-
age I was going for. Getting presents on
both days as well was also rather good,
though the main day was always the 25th
though now reckon rice pudding porridge
with tangerines would make an excellent
base for Christmas drinking!
Harris
A Swedish Christmas in the UKA Swedish Christmas in the UK
Continental Cranes in Hornborgasjön in Skåne
A 3,000ha lake in Southern Sweden that was restored in the mid 1990's following 150 years of attempts to drain it. It forms an important crane stop-over
point one days flight from the Rugen-Bock region of Germany both in spring and autumn. Around 30 pairs of cranes also breed in the area.
Spring, first half of April peak of 18,500 in 2009. Late September is often also good with regularly at least 5,000 birds present.
PHOTOS by Alan South http://www.thegreatcraneproject.org.uk/
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NORTHERN LIGHTS-Edinburgh & Stockholm
Comparing Two Capitals, Edinburgh
and Stockholm. By C. Dahlstrom-Mair
What do the great Northern cities
of Stockholm and Edinburgh have in
common and how do they compare?
As it happens, if you’re not too pe-
dantic and without scratching
around on a stamp, there are lots
of similarities !
Whereas I would never dream of
comparing Edinburgh to Paris, Ma-
drid or London-because of size and
location, looking at what Edinburgh
and Stockholm have in common
feels quite alright.
From a geographical point of view;
both capitals share a northern Eu-
ropean position in the mid-50’s
(with Stockholm being slightly fur-
ther north at 59 degrees North)
which accounts for the dreadfully
long dark winters and the light
summers. And they are both locat-
ed on the east coast of their re-
spective county. However, while
Stockholm is built on 14 islands at
the mouth of Lake Mälaren looking
out to the Baltic Sea, Edinburgh is
built on 7 hills at the Firth of
Forth, not too far from the North
Sea. One is called the Venice of
the North, while the other is
called Athens of the North- no
cigar for guessing which one is
which! These names were given,
without a doubt, by some
Victorian armchair traveller who
had certainly not been to either of
the Mediterranean cities, let alone
the northern ones, as it’s a pretty
“imaginative” description of them.
*Photo 1: Actors from the Fringe Festival, Photo 2: Stock-
holm sightseeing boats & island ferries, Photo 3: Leith
From what I understand; Ed-
inburgh was first to be es-
tablished as a city and the
capital of the Kingdom of
Scotland by Robert the
Bruce back in the 10th Centu-
ry, while Stockholm was founded in
1252 according to the records by
Birger Jarl. Both cities have beau-
tiful medieval
city centres.
Gamla Sta’n in
Stockholm is con-
sidered to be one
of the best pre-
served medieval
city centres in
the world, while
the Old Town of Edinburgh is a
World Heritage Site. Both have
lovely cobbled stone streets and
beautiful, old crooked buildings (as
well as some
of the ugli-
est and
tackiest
tourist
traps found
in either
country) on
respective
High
Streets.
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Both cities have a lively café cul-
ture and lots of bars and restau-
rants, although personally I prefer
the pubs in Edinburgh and the bak-
eries in Sweden. Drinking beer is
better left to the Scots, while the
Swedes are the Aces of Cakes and
Coffee culture.
Just as the Stig Larson
“Millennium” trilogy has put Söder
on the mental map of many British
readers (which is the “Bruntsfield”
of Stockholm); Ian Rankin’s In-
spector Rebus has brought the
Oxford Bar and St. Leonard’s Po-
lice Station in Edinburgh to the
attention of foreign enthusiasts.
Both cities have beautiful churches
and castles as well as “statement”
Parliament buildings… and what you
think of them is a matter of taste.
The Scottish Parliament was de-
signed by a Spanish (not Scottish!)
architect; E. Miralles . The building
went ten times over budget; costing
the Scots £400 million in 1999. The
Swedish Parliament was also con-
troversial in its’ day; many didn’t
like the Neo-Baroque style of the
building and it cost Skr. 12 million;
which was twice the budget in 1905.
(The building was re-vamped be
tween 1980-83 to accommodate the
present Swedish government).
There are certainly similarities to
be found in the interiors of the two
buildings. Did the Scots look to
Sweden for inspiration?
Both these cities host important
International Film Festivals and
Jazz& Blues Festivals. While Ed-
inburgh hosts the biggest annual
international arts festival in the
world with the Fringe and Edin-
burgh Festival; Stockholm takes
pride in hosting a number of
open-air street festivals and
smaller cultural music and thea-
tre events throughout the sum-
mer months.
Stockholm has had trams since
1916 but it’s not always been a
smooth ride; in 2010 the Nr. 7
line (nicknamed: “NK Expressen”
because it runs along the pres-
tigious Strandvägen and goes to
Djurgår’n) made a dent in the
city’s coffers. Edinburgh, how-
ever, takes the “biscuit”; spend-
ing over 1 billion (!) on a tram
project costed at £ 375 million
in 2007. The trams will hopeful-
ly be on track in time for 2014
Scottish referendum…...