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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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1. 2. 3.

4.

5. 6.

7.

8.

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: helene.nordberg@narixa.se

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…...