Memoirs about Denmark Village Life in the Nineteen Thirties

 

ur village, Styding, was country while Kliplev, where Mother came from, was town. We had a choice in Kliplev between several streets, grocers and bakers. Besides, they had the church, two inns and there was Kliplev Market, even twice yearly. It was a long journey to get there and Mother prepared days ahead; dresses were sewn, the boys got new shoes, we all should arrive in style.

Then came the day. If we went by train there was first the business of waiting. Trains did not wait for us but we had to wait for them, and each station had for that purpose a waiting room. They were all built in the Prussian style, cold and pompous halls with high ceilings that dominated all with their size. Everybody became silent and sat staring straight into the air or at the timetables and railroad posters. Little children were hushed to silence, a journey was a seriously event.

Everybody had to be ready on the platform before the train finally arrived, because a train was in a hurry and would only stop for a few minutes. There was right away a very different mood out here in the open air, now of expectation and excitement. Then came the train. Not sneaking like a modern electrical train that steals into the station, as if making an excuse for itself. A steam engine had great dignity and self-esteem. It was also received with all the respect it deserved. The stationmaster stood ready in his uniform with a signal. It was a small, white disk on a stick, which he ceremoniously held up to show the king of transportation that everything was ready to receive his Majesty.

ll at the platform took involuntarily a few steps away from the tracks when the enormous locomotive arrived, roaring in an explosion of smoke and steam that went into a deafening shrill of a joyous whistle. Then followed a grating of brakes, all crashing down on the wheels simultaneously and sent them shrieking. It was the absolute master showing off its impressive power before it stopped with a satisfied sigh. The last steam was let out and enveloped everybody and everything while the ticket collectors came jumping down on the platform and impatiently goaded the passengers into the wagons.

³Don't waste our time, we are in a hurry!²  From their elevated post the engineer and the stoker looked down with pity on the common crowd fighting to get up the gawky steps,- here they were in charge.

The compartments were narrow rooms with sliding doors where one sat down between strangers, all silent and aloof, everybody acting as if they were alone in the world. It became impossible to keep children in such unnatural frozen state for long and we were allowed to go out in the long corridor.

Here we could look into other compartments, but even more interesting was a sweet little shiny ax in a glass case. A sign said that only in emergency could we brake the glass and use the ax. How we wished we could experience a small emergency, but surely we would never be so lucky! There also was a shelf with a decanter full of water and a glass. We became thirsty just by seeing it and asked mother for a drink of that water, but she had no confidence in the railroad company in that matter, the water was surely age old and God knows where it came from! The idea with an ax and water for emergencies was fine, but I doubt they ever were used. People would rather faint than drink the suspicious water, and the sweet little ax could not do much good in a real emergency, but how alluring they were for us children.

The train stopped at every little station. Passengers left and others entered, edging themselves with all their bags through the long, narrow corridor, peering into every compartment to see if there were any empty seats, and if people there didn't look too unsympathetic. We made room for newcomers, but reluctantly, the compartment had fast become ours. Halfway we had to change to another train, and again spend time in a waiting room, just as cold and unfriendly as the first one.

e were received in Kliplev with such warmth that the long-winded trip was soon forgotten. Grandfather was at the station and Tante, in her large, white Sunday apron, stood mild and plump with her smiling eyes waiting for us at the garden gate. We were now so far away from home that the people here spoke another dialect. They had other names for many things like garden, gate, breakfast and supper and they rolled their r's. It was even more amazing that Mother also started to talk that half-foreign language. We were now on foreign ground, but it was blessed because we felt welcome.

 As dear guests and repaid by behaving as was expected of us. We were treated as responsible and well-behaved children and we tried to live up to their expectations. It was easy because our new surroundings occupied us right away. We went with Grandfather to the church where he was to rehearse hymns on the huge organ before the Sunday service, and the boys took turns treading the large bellows. The old roof of the church was being renewed and we watched fascinated how molten lead was poured into big forms. We walked in awe on old tombstones with relief of ancient noblemen from the nearby castle, who as mummies were having their final resting place in the basement under the floor. Father had been there with grandfather before it was walled up, and said he had shaken hand with a dried-up old count. 

There was an old clock on one of the walls in the church, where a small figure of a man slowly came out every hour and stroked a bell. On another wall hung the jingle-purse, a little bag of red velvet at the end of a long, polished pole. The verger used it when he took up the collection by walking up and down the aisle, and from there letting it pass by each member of the congregation. Mother said that when people had fallen asleep, he would gently give them a push with the pole. An old, poor man always bent his head respectfully when the purse came to him, but he never gave anything. Tante told about a little boy who had seated himself with the men, while his mother sat on the opposite side of the church with the women. When the jingle-purse passed by him, he with a loud voice told the verger "Mother will pay!"

utside the church stood a solid old wooden bell tower, build around a huge trunk of an oak. Upstairs in the impressive loft hung the three bells between enormous beams. It is an art to ring the bells and they knew that art in Kliplev. On Easter Sunday, Christmas and at other great church festivals they also tolled the bells. We would wake up at that breathless banging, until the peal of all three bells together gave a joyous end to the jubilation. Yes, Kliplev certainly was different.

Salomonsen's Encyclopedia occupied the two lowest shelves of a tall bookcase in the corridor. We would sit like roosting chickens, each on a step of the stairway, brooding over the disclosures. Here we finally could find answers also to questions we couldn't ask anybody. Mr Salomonsen was a virtuous man, but he had to unveil mysteries of propagation in the name of enlightenment, and scientific language allowed him to mention the unmentionable. That made it also difficult to understand and we didn't become much wiser. The world of the adult was still full of mysteries which we tried to unveil by constant cunning.

There were merry, colored glass in the windows of the little veranda. In two corners stood tall whatnots with stones from the Hartz and all the other Germanic peaks Grandfather and Tante had climbed through the years, each stone carefully labeled. The monstrous old typewriter hovering on the table was even more interesting. A bell made an encouraging clang at the end of each line, as a reward for the trouble we had picking out the letters.

hen Grandfather's handwriting had started early to be shaky, got the typewriter while it was still a very rare contraption. Besides being the head master of the school, he was also the local registrar. He got the impressive new gadget to make the certificates for a whole generation's birth, marriage and death readable. Tante changed into her Sunday dress if she had to be a witness when a meek couple came for a civil marriage. A civil marriage was always a little dubious in a small town. Why couldn't they openly go up the church aisle like all other couples? But Grandfather was not prejudiced and Tante was a romantic. The little ceremony was solemn and the couple said good bye with great relief.

Then there was Kliplev Market. The staid little town changed for a few days not only its look but also its personality. As demure citizens, who once or twice a year let themselves go, attend a carnival as Pierrot and behind the disguise can be anything else that demure for a short while. The main street changed from one day to the next from being an ordinary road between church, inns, farms and houses, to become an oriental bazaar. Huge women stood in tents with glittery junk and angrily told us "Go away!" if we too long stood and admired their wonderful display hanging in long, tempting rows. There were whistles in the shape of a cock with wildly colored feathers, hula-hula dolls with bristly skirts, trumpets, drums and all kind of toys. How could we make up our minds in a hurry?

o much earthly splendor tempted us from every tent, especially honey cakes with romantic pictures and "Lucky-packs." For five pennies we would first have the lovely thrill of opening the little package. Inside would be a ring, a brooch or a whistle, and also a reminder of the silent movies. Old films were cut into small strips to let us feel we got something for our pennies, and then there were crumbs of biscuits. Perhaps they were to make up for the filmstrip, that had neither a begin nor an end.

Father had given each of us half a crown and it demanded endless deliberations to decide between all the possibilities. Two tendencies fought in me, because I had an inborn craving for extravagance, but was taught that to be thrifty was virtue over all virtues. Kliplev Marked appealed more to extravagance than to thriftiness, and of my half crown nothing was ever left for the piggy bank.

Grandfather also had a car. He told us that the horn in his first Ford T for a long time didn't work. Except when they drove through Kolding, where the horn would hoot happily all the way through the main streets paved with cobblestones. I don't remember that car but I remember the next. It was a tall and impressive Ford with plenty of room for everybody and also for the many baskets, pots and boxes we dragged along on picnics. Baby Adda was in a laundry basket when we at Kollund beach were surprised by a heavy thunderstorm and ran for shelter to a barbershop. I was only three years old but it is forever imprinted on my memory how everybody ran while holding something, Father and Mother with Adda in the basket under claps of thunder, lightening and rain. It is one of these early memories that will forever remain because they are connected with fear. The barber's little girl showed me her doll and appears to me as a dove after the deluge.

here are other fearful memories. I am sitting in a bakery shop in town and crying inconsolably. The sales girl is trying to cheer me up by showing me tiny decorative swans, but I don't care about swans, because I'm lost. While

mother was shopping in the largest department store in town, I suddenly couldn't find her and ran in panic out onto the busy sidewalk, where somebody brought me to the baker's. Mother had just as frightened been looking for me, and a call was made to the police station. Fortunately, the baker did the same, and soon Mother and I were united. The fear of getting lost remained all through my early years, but also the belief that if getting lost, I would be found.

Later we are at a large rally at a beach resort, Sølyst, where there is a speaker. I cannot see him, only all the many coats surrounding me, and suddenly the coat next to me isn't Mother's. All coats are almost identical in shades of gray and beige, and I cannot find hers. But I knew where to go.

Earlier that day Hans also got lost and although he was less than three years old, they had found him sitting in grandfather's car at the parking lot. Fortunately nobody locked car doors, because who would ever dream about stealing a car? I was happily eating from our neighbor, Louise's cookies, when they came and looked for me in the car.

ur world was small and secure. Adults knew everything, and one could always depend on them, but children had first to be sized up. Little children were boring and children older than ourselves were inaccessible, only children our own age had any interest when we were between strangers. During the early years in Kliplev it was the baker¹s two little girls, Eva-mie and Sonja, who became my playmates.

Here I found a new and fascinating world. Baker Eskildsen and his apprentice kneaded, rolled and cut the dough with a speed and confidence Mother and other women never could obtain. All the cakes on a tray would in no time each get an impression and sugar on top. Then they vanished into the enormous oven, where tray next to tray hovered over flames like in purgatory. Eva-mie and I picked lumps of icing sugar from sacks and ate them like candy. At Christmas time they sung German hymns, even prettier that our Danish ones. "Die Kinderlein kommetŠ Und sehe wass im dieser Hoch Heilige Nacht..." It sounded marvelous.

Copyright Anna Maria Michaelsen Ghaibeh 

June 4, 2006