wendy house

If you were at a Swedish speaking school you would swear in Finnish or German. Often the language at school was different from the language at home. At home you could have a conversation where one sentence would switch between languages, Finnish, Swedish German (Dad)

Dad had a multilingual upbringing in Finland, Sweden and  Hull (England). I had a monolingual upbringing, English was the only language spoken at home.

Dad did make sure we had many connections with his family history through music (Sibelius), decorations such as Dalacarlian horses, personal and published stories. Dad arranged the weekly trip to the Library to swap our story books. A big family event, such fun. Noggin the Nog and Tove Jannsen‘s Moomin’s (Muumi in original Finnish) were fond favourites of my early life. Like Dad, Tove was a Swedish speaking Finn. Little my is an occassional character in the Moomins, based on Tove.

The soundtrack for the TV series sounds almost Cajun….

Watch and listen to a Moomin episode in original musical Finnish

While wandering around the internets I stumbled upon the fabulous Finnish Immigration services website

As you do

I am eligible for Finnish citizenship because my father is a Finnish citizen and was married to my mother at the time of my birth. It looks like the only formality is for Dad to register my birth with a Finnish registry office, at the moment Finland doesn’t officially know that I exist. Dad explained that he didn’t register any of his children in Finland because that made them eligible for Finnish military service and he didn’t want us to be obliged to go through that, despite his fond memories of being stationed on the Åland Islands during his own National service

lady: does anyone know what Ludlow’s like?

wendy: its cute and its got a Castle, my dad was evacuated there as a child during World War 2. When we were children he took us to visit to see where he used to live and play.

 OMD sang Electricity

OMD quickly earned a favoured position in my teenage heart when I first heard Electricity. This song reminds me of home, of warmth and comfort. Most of all reminds me of Dad getting excited about Pylons, happily ethusing.  His excitement is contagious.

Dad started work for an electricity supply company in the early 1950′s.  Exciting times for an Engineer specialising in supplying electricity to the UK.  Building infrastructure, planning routes to lay cables and overhead lines. Dad is still passionate about the details of the tools of his trade.  He has photograph albums dedicated to Pylons.

He’s recently returned from a trip to China. He treated us to the holiday photo’s on the family TV. Amongst the photographs of temples, rivers, mountains, village streets were numerous photographs of pylons. 

Whenever I see a Pylon, transformer, dam, or insulator I think fondly of Dad.  How his face lights up and he starts talking about what’s interesting about this particular thing, its age, its construction process, its location or ability to withstand high winds.

Not only is his excitment contagious,

I now find myself taking photographs of Pylons whenever I go on holiday.

Norwegian man in Reading pub: there’s not many girls that know about assessing political risk

Wendy: I’m an ingenjör

Norwegian: what type of engineer?

Wendy: Social ingenjör

Norweigian: I find the English girls are very…..         errrrr….       how do you say ……’old fashioned’

Wendy:   Yeah,  I find the English girls are very old fashioned too,   that’s why my Finnish dad wanted to marry an English girl.                  But  look at these boots!      I’m not an old fashioned girl. I’m an ingenjör with SENSIBLE footwear.   Functionally well engineered,   good experience, easthetically funky    footwear   I blame Dad.

Norweigian: I’m sorry?.

Mumzie drives to another town to pick-up the only Rye crisp-bread that Dad considers to be like real Finnish Rye bread.

The myriad of  quirky little things my parents do for each other shows they are still in love, 52 years after getting married.

The TV remote isn’t working….

No, Wait.    it’s the  TV that isn’t working…

Oh,   actually its the socket that isn’t working….

Hang on,   its the ring-ciruit that isn’t working.  

Ah,   the fuse flipped while I was out.   Probably some freak lightening storm over the Wendy House.   Wish I’d seen that!  

During the diagnostic process I discover that the Wendy House has at least two separate electric rings in the front room alone!    

BANG!   the fuse flips again.   No lightening storm in range.   Odd.    I flip the fuse  back on  

BANG the fuse flips again.    Darn, its clearly broken and not fixing itself.   I call dad who walks me through a cunning diagnostic process that includes sniffing sockets and plugs,   switching various things on and off.   Using dad’s excellent problem-sourcing strategy I find the wiring of one socket is causing the banging.  

With  a message left on an electricians answer machine I’m about to discover the joys of having my sockets seen to.   I’m rather looking forward to it,   aren’t you?

My plan for choosing ‘A’ level’s was to pick topics where I got the best results.   Unfortunately my selection strategy didn’t work.   My results were the same in all topics.   Straight B grades.   I needed another strategy for deciding what to study for ‘A’ levels.   Mum and dad had clear guidance

Parents:   ‘you can’t go wrong with maths and physics,   you can become an engineer,   you can learn how to solve practical problems and look after yourself and your home properly’

Wendy: but I really enjoy Art, English Literature and History

Parents:  You can study Art, English literature and History  in your spare time,   you’ll be motivated to do it.   You probably wont study maths and physics in your spare time

This made sense to me.  

I talked to my English teacher.   He was furious,   I had a talent  that I should nurture,  he would never speak to me again if I chose Math’s over English.   I chose Maths, Physics and History.   He never spoke to me again.   Complying with emotional blackmail is not a personal strength.     History covered literature (Nietzsche) and art (Futurism, Cubism).    

Since that fateful decision I’ve played with writing, painting, sketching, and plagued you with my laxadaisical spelling and grammar.

Dad:   you can make elecronics stop working just by walking into a room
Wendy:   I thought I was being paranoid
Dad: No.   Not Paranoid. You have a talent for disrupting electronics
Wendy: thanks dad,  its good to know I’m not paranoid
Neverland:.

Wendy:   I accidentally pulled the bathroom light fitting on the ceiling,     today I picked up a newer sealed light fitting.

Dad:   Do you want me to bring me tools?

Wendy:   Not really,   [brothers' name]‘s  coming round with his tools,  advice,   and innovative home-improvement books on Wednesday.   I’d rather he climbed the ladder than you or I.

Dad: Yes, I do get a bit dizzy when my feet leave the ground.

Shipping (air or land) frieght to the UK requires that the owner  have a valid passport at all points when the freight will be moved.   Frieght moval times are unpredictable because of seasonal and weather variations and because frieght,   especially home-frieght,  is very low priority.   Remember by ditsy person’s annual passport?   It’s due for renewal this autumn…   …while the Wendy House is in transit….   Apart from guffaws of laughter this is what dad had to say when I asked him if I could hand-carry some stuff over to his home and leave it there ready for when I arrive,   just to be sure it would actually get there…

Mum says that will be OK…         …Passports and Passport timings are highly critical factors in travel – at least it is not as bad as in war time when you had to bring your Ration books with you if you were going out of the country – these had to be checked and if you had used next weeks rations woe betide you! That still applied the first time I came to England after the war – I nearly was not allowed to leave!

I should have guessed that it was worse during WW2.     I’m lucky that Britain and the US prefer peacekeeping to war or I’d probably have to live in a bunker at the bottom of the garden.

1977.     In  Helsinki mum, dad, and  both brothers were  visiting dad’s family.

Dad took us all into  the Kalnuun Puukko shop and we spent the afternoon each choosing a Puukko.   After Puukko’s were purchased we went off into the woods around Helsinki to find fallen wood to wittle.   We wittled together.   All good family fun.   Result?   Lots of pointy small sticks left in the woods.   My psyche was forever scarred by this experience and I’m now totally undatable.

When asked for some clarifying points on this ”knife’ aquiring experience  Dad described the social-cultural significance of a Puukko beyond my constrained concept of a ‘knife’:

Knife in Finnish is veitsi – You should never call a puukko a knife – it is much more than that – it is the basic survival tool that you should have when you venture into the forest or into nature at wintertime or summertime. Its very name is associated with its prime use puu is tree or wood and kko implies a thing associated with the former – a woodworking tool. With it you can build a shelter in the forest, make a spear for spearing fish, use as an ice pick to drag yourself out of broken ice and much more. It does not weigh you down – it is essential in hunting and fishing. The original puukko had handle made of tightly woven young birch bark which often had a spell written on it before it was applied. This had to be replaced regularly – the modern puukko often has a solid handle often simulating the old type. Taken into cities and suburbia it becomes a weapon rather than a tool and it loses its basic character. In the Finnish – English dictionary the puukko is described as a sheath-knife as English does not have a separate word for a woodworking knife . It can and is used for stabbing by roughs and the verb puukottaa means stab with a puukko and the stab (noun) is puukonisku. The blade of the puukko is puukonterä. The man who makes it is a puukonseppä ( a smith) A true puukko should be bought from the man who makes it and you should visit him so that he can choose the right blade for you – However mass production does not allow for these old niceties and a tourist shops in the city is the source nowadays.

I wonder what equivalent stories with socio-cultural significance will be handed down to our next generations…

my father once mentioned that he has second sight.   Apparently  it runs in our family

“How do you know?” …he did not  reply with…

‘how do you not know?’   …or question his  role as my biological father…

He told me a story of how, as a teenager, he shook hands with a girl and foresaw her death.   This had disturbed him so much that he avoided using his second sight,   except, of course, in his job  for divining.

Before retirement my father was responsible for the  overhead and underground lines of a  regional Electricity group  before Thatcher sold them all  off.   Dad used his divining skills to pinpoint the location of underground electricity lines or other obstacles  such as sewers when directing digging for repairs etc.   Dad kept his divining rods in the house.   As a child (5yrs, 1968) I would test him at the weekends.   A fun game.    The test involved him using his rods to find a single  tuppeny bit hidden under reams of    used computer paper I had liberally strewn across the  living room floor.    Dad used his divining rods to find the coin.   I watched him intently to make sure he wasn’t feeling the coin with his feet through the paper or using some other cunning strategy.

Dad  normally found the coin

then giggled

I see their heads, a pair of pinballs bouncing  in the distance, as they scan the hall between the taller, faster-moving, arrivals.   Dad’s thick heavy straight hair has a glass-fibre-optic luminance that is  easily held in  view.

Heading towards them, restraining the impulse to  run,  my strides extend.   I’m bound to fall over if I run amongst unsuspecting normal people.   A quick glance around confirms that   adults don’t run in arrivals lounges.   I’m an adult now.  I walk, like the other arrrivals around my parents,  very very very fast.  

After the 200yrd dash I manage to approach dad head-on and get both arms around his shoulders before he’d recognised me.   His shoulders?   I don’t remember ever having been able to reach his shoulders before now.    He kisses my cheek in front of my ear.    He can no longer reach my forehead.    Standing upright with his familiar cheshire cattish grin while  Mum joins the hug simultaneously giggling and chattering.   They had, they explained, ‘seen’ me but not recognised me…..

I hug-herd them to the luggage reclaimation rack while mother spills the first few lines of  this story,  then that,  then the other,  and another.   I barely have time to savour the images she draws before being pulled to the next story.   Dad grins silently,   keeping his sparkly dark blue eyes trained on the baggage go-round,   going round.   In  this moment of our  studying the baggage go round,   unobserved  chattering mother wanders off,   disappearing into the crowd,   giggling and chatting to herself as she goes.

Is  this how toddlers’ parents feel when they realise they can no longer see or hear their their toddler?

I’ll never know.

pre-teenage Wendy to Mum and Dad:

not ANOTHER castle,   please no.   No more Castles.   Look, Castles are made of stone,   have dungeons and halls and lots of spiral staircases and are generally falling apart.   Once you’ve seen one or two Castle’s you’ve pretty much got the Castle thing covered.   Can we go to the beach instead?   Please… please….   …or a tin mine?    

After 6 years living inn the USA,  during a visit to Mum and Dad’s home last year….

Let’s go on a day trip to a Castle or a Stately home,   or somewhere maintained by British Heritage,   please,   anywhere on your list of old places to visit?

Mum and Dad arrive in Seattle tomorrow for a week long holiday.   Holy Vacuum Cleaners!   Parental cleanliness standards are beyond my comprehension.   This means I’ll be spending Satruday blitzing the cat-fluff.   There are no Castle’s nearby so  I’m going to spring Teatro Zinzanni  on them,    wish me luck…