At summer camp - sexual abuse, or not?

I had just turned 13.

As springtime continued I spent more and more time away from the city, at my father’s cottage.

There was a girl, Sonja, a couple of years older than I. She was not the brightest light, academically speaking, but we had known each other since I was about the age of four.

She lived, as an only child, at her parents’ farm only a few hundred metres away, through the forest, from my father’s cottage. We spent a lot of time together. 

This summer we would play, as always.

We did games, played cards, built little forts, made a fire and roasted early apples, swam in the lake and rowed the row-boat to the blueberry patch across the lake.

We were always very comfortable with each other. This year I got a new problem. It became painfully clear to me that looking at her would make my penis grow. I tried to stand facing her so my sideways profile wouldn’t give me away.

One hot day, we decided to play Indians. Sonja put on a short cape, covering her to above her knees, and I put on a loin cloth.

I didn’t notice at first, but my very definitely erect penis was sticking out on the side of the loincloth for quite a while.

She looked at me, very intensely, and I eventually followed her yes to my erect penis.

What was I doing?

I tried to hide away. She just stood there, in full amazement.

Then, as she moved quickly, her cape flew open. There we were, she showing her bare breasts and underpants and I with an erect penis, facing each other.

We gathered up our clothing and continued that day as if nothing had happened.

The next day was again nice and warm. We continued our game of Indians. She let her cape hang so it barely covered her breasts, which were easy to see from the side. I noticed that she wore no panties this day.

I made my loincloth a bit narrower, showing myself quite easily.

No, we didn’t touch each other all that summer. We met many times, even went berry picking practically naked. It became a bit of a game who show each other what we had. We were too young and probably too innocent to even think of intercourse. That didn’t happen between us until a couple of years later.

I wonder what her parents would have said. They seemed quite prude to me.

My father didn’t mind. I already knew that he was a naturalist. I had seen photographs of my parents, naked together when I and my sister were little. This was before their untimely divorce when I was seven.

So here we were, my father in shorts, his 13-year old son and the neighbour’s daughter as near-naked as one can imagine. I guess we all learned something that summer.

Nakedness is not necessarily lewd in closed company.

Sonja told me, eons later, that my father liked to pat her on her naked buns, occasionally. He never touched her in any other manner.

The summer was, as I mentioned, warm and sunny.

In late July I went to the three-week-long gymnastics camp, by the coast of the sea, for the first time.

We were in army barracks, not too well aired out since their usage last year. The boys were in theirs and the girls in other barracks. Each room, with 24 boys or girls had a leader, most commonly an army NCO for the boys or an army nurse for the girls.

The camp administrator was a good friend of my mother. Both my sister and I felt welcomed.

The gymnastics program started on day one.

At first, I was out of shape but soon it dawned on me, I am quite agile.

As the weeks progressed I became more and more at ease with the routines. I was selected for the elite team and we did so much more. Sure, I did fall occasionally. Once I tripped off a high beam, about two metres from the ground. I grabbed hold of the pole and slid all the way down.

The skin on my chest took quite a scrape. I bled a bit and the local nurse was called in to patch me up.

To my embarrassment or pride, I performed with a white bandage around my chest on the last, final show-the-parents day.

Being in thy gym team was great. Half or the participants were girls. I quite enjoyed looking at them in their practice. Now that I knew how to look, thanks to my friend Sonja, I was probably quite a voyageur.

This summer I had added a pair of very tight swim-trunks to wear under my gym shorts so I wouldn't be showing any immoral parts on the field.

Boy, did it hurt at times? My rising penis was squeezed up and held tightly against my stomach.

Girls had entered my line of vision and they were very important. I had had ever touched a girl or even knew much about what and who they were.

That fall I joined a mixed class. The girls were mysterious and challenging. There was one, half a head taller than most of the boys in the class. She had very noticeable breasts. Obviously, every boy secretly desired to touch them.

I was the lucky one. I had free movie tickets, thanks to my father’s position as a local tax collector. The boy with the movie tickets wins.

We would go to the movies together. In the dark, we would hold hands and I could let my hand slide up and cup her breasts under the clothes. I could feel downwards under her beltline and even touch the front of her tummy, all the way down to where I could feel the budding pubic hair of hers.

On our way home, especially in the dark and cold winter days of the north, we could stop in a dark place and kiss, lightly.

My father’s apartment was perfect for parties. It was the only one in the building, with a separate street entrance to the two flights of stairs. The offices were all closed and the building was usually empty by 19 every night.

My friends could visit, unseen, at any hour after that.

My father? He worked long hours in various committées and often wouldn’t come home until after midnight, expecting me to be solidly asleep.

I usually was, but I had left all the lights on. Being alone was always scary.

As for parties, we had ample notice of which evenings I could hold them. My friend Christer had a cousin with many friends, and we also invited the boys and girls from our class.

With time we developed a little clique of about 10 friends, five boys and five girls who would meet at my place for fun. We started off with board-games, continued with card-games. As the fall continued, we became more and more comfortable with each other.

The lights would be dimmed and there would be some light petting here and there.

Then a new game: “Change partners”.

The rules were simple. The boys would each seat themselves in a soft chair or couch. We covered the windows with leftover black-out sheets from WW 2, still standing in the front door closet.

The lights were turned off to leave us in absolute darkness.

Then we began.

The boys sat down and a girl found each of them and seated herself nearby. Very near, I may add.

The boys’ wandering hands had free play. Some girls were shyer than others, we were all 13, remember.

“My partner is good but Johnny’s is better.”

The girl in Johnny’s lap would leave and find her way to your place when “my” girl moved to Johnny.

The trick is getting the right girl, the one with the biggest boobs, or the wettest scrotum, or the one who knew how to tug at your penis best, was to remember who exchanged partners with whom. 

I never asked any girl how she liked the game, but they were back the next week, and the next, again.

Now, you can say, was this a “proper” game for a bunch of 13-year olds? Who can tell? We all enjoyed it and no harm was done. At least, no virginity was lost in that game. On the good side, I think we all learned a little more about the anatomy of the opposite sex, even if it was pitch dark and you couldn’t see a thing.

As the winter eased up, the sun returned with more daylight and longer evenings, we moved on. Our game was deemed impossible if it wasn’t held in total darkness. I guess we were too innocent and a little shy to see each other’s faces as we touchy-feeled each other.

My favourite, the girls with the biggest breasts was, of course, my movie-companion Anna. We saw each other in school every day.

My life changed abruptly the day my father suddenly passed away in a stroke, a few days after my 14^th birthday.

I was back at summer gymnastics. This was summer No. 2 for me. I had greatly enjoyed my first summer and even advanced to the elite gymnastics group, performing for the parents on Sundays.

The camp looked the same, but we had some new leaders.

My lodging had a new supervisor, one I hadn’t met before. He liked us, the boys, more than the one last year, and spent a lot of time with us in the lodging.

Sometimes he would sit with a boy, reading a newspaper. I noticed that some of the boys moved away as he came close but thought nothing of it.

He talked to me about how lonesome I must have felt, now that my father was gone and he hoped that he could be like a father figure for me at camp.

Then, one evening, he came and sat close to me, with the proverbial newspaper in his hands.

I noticed how his free hand moved and started to fondle my testicles. I moved away.

The next night, he was back again. This time, covered by the newspaper, he fondled me more deliberately. I didn’t suffer and didn’t much object. After all, my testicles had been fondled by girls the preceding winter and I had learned to like the feeling. It even gave me an erect penis, as little as it may have been. More hands? No real problem.

I became much more apprehensive when he, being a lot heavier than little skinny me, the gymnast, lifted me enough to reach my anus. There he put his finger inside. To have something in your anus was not an altogether unique experience. In those days the only way to take the temperature was to use a rectal thermometer, and they were made thick and solid so they wouldn't break in use.

I didn’t react at first and he did the same thing the next night and the next, ultimately jerking on my penis at the same time.

This was all done on the quiet, usually when we were alone. I noticed that his hand smelled of vaseline soap. 

That must have been the lubricant.

One day he invited me to sit on his lap. My anus was a bit softened up from repeated visits by his finger the days before and I could feel how the tip of his hard dick would seek its way in. We were still covered by the newspaper so none of the few boys in the cabin would notice.

I could feel how his dick throbbed as he ejaculated inside me I had to visit the toilet afterward to dispose of the "white stuff".

I didn't find the experience unpleasant and liked the attention that I got from this leader during day time. He liked to have me sit on his penis again, ever so lightly, and we did that when few were around so nobody would know.

A couple of evenings later he tried to enter too deep and that hurt me.

I instantly stood up and walked out.

From that day we never exchanged a single word between us. I focused on girl watching and totally forgot what had happened, these events were of absolutely no significance in my life.

Imagine now? That would not have gone unpunished.

He had a few other favourite boys but they, as well as I, soon turned away completely. This officer-on-vacation may have been a boy abuser. I read in the local paper that he was murdered in a bar in Spain a couple of years later. Perhaps he had touched the wrong boy there?

I already knew at the beginning of the summer that I had failed too many classes to continue. My father got upset, but he soon passed away and could do no more. That fall I had to do the same class over again. I lost contact with my girlfriend and a few others that I had been with the year before.

-----------------
If you want to read my memiors, "The seasons of Man", buy the book here:


https://www.amazon.ca/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=bengt+lindvall+the+seasons+of+a+man

13 years old - My first girlfriend

Me, the teenager.

I turned 13. I am just another teenager. Then life dished out some real changes for me.

• I witnessed my father die in front of my eyes when 14
• Sailed the Baltic Sea on cod trawlers the summer I was 14
• Worked on a farm the summer of my 15^th, never got paid a penny because I had eaten too much and not worked hard enough
• Sailed on a coastal steamer the summer I was 16
• Dropped out of High school and joined the army before I turned 17
• Left the army when 18 and ...
• Went to sea again and sailed around the world just before I was out of my teenage years.

But, was the definition of teenager even invented then? I don't think so. It was an invention by marketers when they found out that there was a lot of young people with money to spend.

On my three speed Crescent bike. My mother took the picture.

I wasn't in that spending group, ever, only in the age group by this time.

I was a kid in High School who had just noticed girls. They were noisy, hard to talk to and had some sort of a mystical pull to them.

At the school dances I danced with girls, awkwardly, while watching older students dance cheek to cheek. That activity was frowned on by our, ever present, teachers acting as chaperons. They would even step out on the dance floor and break up any couple that looked too excited.

The cheek-to-cheek activities could continue outside but not for me – yet – I was too innocent. Invariably school dances took place on dark and rainy nights. That didn't deter the enthusiasts, they just moved a little farther away, out of the rain, and took shelter in the darkness under a passageway between the new and the old buildings. The new dated from 1936, the old from 1912.

The covered area is under the passageway, on the right. 

I already had a girlfriend when 13. We would go to the movies together and hold hands in the theatre. If it was dark and gloomy and we could feel that nobody was watching us, we would even hold hands walking to and from the movie house.

My father, the city treasurer, was also the pleasure tax inspector for the area. Not only did he, occasionally, seldom or never (?), inspect the tills of theatre groups, touring circuses and magicians or even the people who held ”interesting talks with sciopticon pictures” about their last visit to Timbuktu. But – the most glorious bonus of this job, he had two free tickets to every single pleasurable (?) event in the area – I had access two free movie tickets. My father had obligingly signed a whole booklet with requisitions that I had hid away, to be used when it suited me.

My girlfriend and I were in the same class. She was the most gorgeous of all human creatures to look at and her dress, oh that was something to behold. Her favourite was a pair of jeans, most likely two sizes too small with a thin cotton sweater, similarly sized.

All the boys drooled over her, but I was the one who got the price. I was the only one with free access to movie tickets. Naturally, the boy with the most assets wins the girl.

No, that may not have been the only reason, we honestly liked each other.

................

That summer I went to a gymnastics camp. It was run by an offshoot of the Swedish army and staffed, mostly, with military personnel on vacation.

Children, some 100 or so, 12 – 14 years old were picked up from the whole of Blekinge province. We arrived by a chartered steam powered train. The trip was super exciting. It was the first train trip on their own for many. I stood on the platform at the front end of a car just behind the locomotive and, of course, arrived well blackened by the soot from the engine.

In front of one of our dorms. (My photograph)

We lived in a multitude of dorms, under the auspices of one of the vacationing NCOs or officers. The girl's dorms were run by army nurses. We were all strictly controlled.

The food was really good and enjoyed by most.

Of course we did have to prove that our nails were clean, on occasion, before dinner. We all had brought our own dishes. After every meal we stood in line for the few cold water taps to rinse our plates, cups and utensils. Was that hygienic? Who knows, but I never heard of any ill effects.

The washrooms were most rudimentary and in the open. They would have been superb by mid 19^th century standards and smelled the part. Fortunately, they were located in the forest, some distance from the common areas.

The morning toilet was mandatory. My mother had been pre-warned and I possessed real salt-water soap, i.e. Soap that would melt in seawater.

After reveille we were allowed a few minutes for washroom service, then lined up in our swimsuits and wrapped in dry towels for the 500 metre walk to the sea-shore. There we had to get into the water far enough for it to cover our knee-caps. Now, brush our teeth and rinse. Then show that we washed not only our face but our necks as well, all supervised from the shore.

Was it cold? Imagine walking outside in your swimsuit on a 12 deg C foggy morning and then getting into 14 deg C seawater. It was supposed to harden us. Some mornings were wonderful, though, with sunshine and really warm water, perhaps 16 deg C. I always read the big thermometer on our way down.

I felt properly hardened every day.

This was a three week long gymnastics camp. I may never have been much of a gymnast in school, but this summer I surprised myself. I was good, became better, and was even chosen to perform with the elite group at our weekend meet-your-parents days.

The gymnastics were great both to perform and watch. True to form, I would go out of my way to watch the girls practice.

I did fall off a gym-bar once. It was high and I grabbed the support pole. It was rough and scraped the skin on my chest as I slid down. The nurse washed off the dirt and put a plaster on to arrest the blood oozing out. It did leave a lasting mark, I still have some scratch marks on my chest.

Sexual abuse hadn't been invented yet.

Our dorm, with about 25 boys, had a supervisor who liked us all and encouraged us to sleep naked. That was a bit cold and few obliged. He would like to sit on his bed and invite me, and a few others, to sit next to him. He would then read a newspaper and show articles for our approval, at the same time fondling our private parts.

I noticed that he had his zipper open and that his member would grow, substantially, covered by the newspaper and only visible to the boy next to him.

We, the favoured kids, learned fast never to sit ”there” and read the newspaper with that man. Strange how busy we were, doing other things when he was near.

A little side story; I learned, years later, that he had been murdered in a bar in Spain. Perhaps he fondled the wrong boy in the wrong company.

One of my dorm mates had a father who was a pilot in the Swedish air force. He came visiting his son in a sailboat. The father promised to do a fly-over in a Saab Tunnan J29 the next day at a certain time.

All of us from that dormitory lined up outside at the appointed hour and – true to the promise – a single Saab Tunnan jet plane swooshed down over our camp, really low.

The noise brought all outside. Then the airplane came back, almost touching the treetops as it flew by. We were really impressed. Imagine, having a father who not only had his own sailboat but also flew a real jet plane.

June 30 was to be a very special day, there would be a total solar eclipse, mid day. The preparations include lectures on the solar system, the moon, and, not to be forgotten, lots of information on how to protect our eyes. We were lucky, no clouds. The whole camp stood in the open, amazed, with our black, sooted, glasses during the entire 2 minute and 22 second darkness. We also confirmed that the birds fell quiet as the sunlight dwindled.

....................

I came back to town, invigorated by my newly found gymnastics skills. I signed up for a gymnastics program that fall and enjoyed greatly.

Then I noticed something. There was a ballet class in a nearby gym. Most of the participants were girls with only a few boys. I switched to ballet, primarily because that's where the girls were. My career was cut short by my father's death. I still developed a life long love for ballet and the accompanying music.

..........................

School was always an afterthought and I never tried very hard. I still had extremely high marks in Biology, Chemistry and Physics. I really found those subjects interesting but utterly failedin other subjects.

My best friend then was Christer who has long since passed away as I write this. He may not have been the most savoury character. We found many ways to get in trouble together.

There was an election that fall. I went around town and mutilated an election banner: ”Down with taxes, the Communists”.

If you used your pen knife and cut out ”the taxes” the sign clearly read: ”Down with the Communists.”

That was not a good move. Someone saw me and went to my father. He, even though he was no admirer of the Communists in town, told me to cease and desist.

I did.

The communists got only 4 % of the votes that fall. I felt very proud. After all, a lot of people must have followed my political advice.

................

Christer's mother was a member of the Bethel free church. He and I were offered 2 kronor for each Sunday mass visitor we could bring in. I had many friends. One krona for you and one for me if you go.

I got a few reward kronors that fall until I got too greedy and asked the same person to come back once too often. Well, it was good as long as it lasted.

Christer's older brother, Tore, acquired a small 120 cc motorcycle. It lacked many finer details, such as brakes. I am still 13, but talked him into let me try it.

I did and ended up in a wood pile. Nobody noticed if there were any new dents or scratches on the motorcycle, but I got some. That called for another run to the hospital to stitch up my bleeding elbow. I was more careful about verifying vehicle brakes after that event.

.....................

My parents had been divorced for about seven years by now. I lived with my father in a huge apartment on the top floor of city hall. The largest room was ten metres long, with chandeliers in the ceiling.

Wedding photo.

One, or both of them, have erased all photos of them together. All I have is their wedding picture from 1935 that I found as bookmark in a long forgotten book. The two boys are my mother's brothers.

My father was active in the local politics, often worked late and would come home long after I was in bed. I was alone a lot.

I hated the dark. In truth, I was afraid of being alone in the dark. When on my own, I would search the apartment for ”one more light” that I could switch on. I even left the refrigerator door ajar so the light could shine over the floor in the kitchen. Needless to say, that was not appreciated.

Being home alone also meant that we could have parties, not chaperoned by any adult.
.

My girlfriend and I danced, of course.

.................

I had long driven my father's Renault Juvaquatre 1948 model car. At first by holding the steering wheel, sitting by my father's side. This year, still 13, I learned to drive from the driver's seat to and from our cottage, 35 km away. I would sit on one pillow, with another pillow behind me, and have a hat on my head so I looked older.

I was no master at shifting gears but did learn the rudiments of taking the foot off the accelerator when you clutched. The final part of the road was very narrow and you had to pull over to the side and stop when meeting a car or a horse drawn wagon. I never stalled the engine when starting up again, I think.

This was probably not entirely without legal risks for my father, he was occasionally the acting chief of police.

Father's fiancee, Sandra, lived in Stockholm, some 600 km to the north. Normally he would take the train but one time he decided to bring some furniture and drive, even though we were in the month of November. But, the weather was still nice so why not?

That didn't go so well. Half way there, the snow started to fall. Who knows, nor does it matter, but he collided with a car driven by a dentist from Stockholm. The cars were dented and taken to a nearby body shop. My father arrived to Stockholm by train with the furniture in the luggage compartment.

Then, once in Stockholm, he got a very painful blood clot in his leg. He ended up in the hospital for a few days before returning home, also by train.

Later, just before Christmas, we both traveled, in first class on the train, to Norrköping to pick up the newly painted car to drive it home again.

I thought our dinner in the restaurant car was just the grandest of all.

This time the weather was nice, cold an crisp, and we drove home through a bright snowy landscape. This French car may not have had a heater designed for the temperature of the far north. We both had blankets around us.

The next time we were in Stockholm we visited the dentist and his family. They served a candle lit dinner in their grand apartment, overlooking the city hall, and all had a good time.

To collide with someone is not my preferred way to meet new friends but, but why not?

......................

This winter had its pleasures, I have never understood people who complain about winter. Dress for it and "get out there".

The skating rink was close. I got a pair of brand new white (!) figure skating skates. Why white? that was the only pair in my size in the store, so my father bought them. Was white for girls? I didn't know, but many of my friends did.

Sure I had my tumbles, but got better with time. Then, one of my classmates came from behind and hit me. I landed hard and broke my right wrist. I continued skating for a few minutes but something must have been wrong, The pain in my arm got steadily worse.

My father walked me down to the hospital and I left, a few hours later, with a plaster on my right, the writing arm.

Karlshamn Lasarett.

The white skates?

I traded them with a girl classmate who had gotten black skates from her father, the fisherman. That was a trade that stood me in good stead the next summer. I went fishing with his trawler on the sea.

What to do about school? Learn to write with your left. I did and I can still write passably with  my left hand.

..................

Spring again. Our cottage beckoned my father. We would arrive while there were still remnants of snow in the shady spots and thick pipe-ice on the lake. That melting ice had more of the consistency of slush than ice. It would freeze hard over night but was extremely dangerous to walk on.

The cottage was, of course, ice cold inside. It had a 380 V power supply that fed a 7 kW open coil industrial heater, sufficient to dry out and overheat the inside in less than one hour. The heater had come out of a building demolition, stolen by me, and dragged on my bicycle to my father. He saw the need and, to the cottage it went. The installation was far less than to the electrical code. My father admitted that he hadn't worked with wires since he was 20 years old in 1913.

Summer arrived and now we could enjoy the growth everywhere.

Father decided it was too hard work to rake the dead leaves and dried straw from last fall. Why not just burn it?

That thought may have been the beginning of the end of his life, the moment that left me fatherless and changed my life forever.

He put a match to some grass in an open area. It was dry and the fire spread. It was moving into the forest undergrowth in minutes. 

He was slashing at the fire with branches, probably to little avail.

I ran, the fastest two km run of my life, to the next farm.

It took seconds to convince all available hands what was about to happen. The smoke was already visible over the treetops. Several men and women ran with me back.

The undergrowth fire was finally put down by sunset, many hours later.

There was still one fire left, though. The ground cellar was built with very solid beams. They burned all night. I was out with my father, carrying buckets of water from the lake to pour on that.

After a nearly sleepless night, the next morning was calm again and we returned to the city.

King Gustav VI was on his Eriksgata, visiting all of Sweden. He would pass through next week and stop over for a dinner with all the ”important” locals. My father was assigned a seat close to the king.

Now, back in town, my father who had been on sick-leave on and off the last few months, learned that he would not sit at the King's table the next week. He was relegated to a seat far back in the dining hall.

This was a crisis. What can be done to reverse this?

He and I went for a crazy four hour walk through town, talking to most all in authority, to no avail.

That may just have been too much for him.

We returned to the apartment where Sandra, his fiancee, had prepared lunch. He was to set the table, leaned over the cutlery drawer – grabbed it hard and stood there, as if in panic.

We lead him into my bed. Sandra called my father's best friend, Dr. Walter Paulsson. His office was just across the street. He was with us within minutes.

Dr. Paulson practically screamed when he saw my father: ”Harald, I told you to take your blood tests”, turned around and called for the ambulance.

My father was dead three hours later – from an internal bleeding inside his brain. The Post Mortem confirmed that he had far too much Warfarin, a blood thinner – also used as rat poison – in his system. He had failed to check his blood values or adjust his prescription after the blood clot the previous November.

I spent the afternoon in a state of chock, circling the hospital on my bicycle between visits to my father's room.

On my last return I was met by a nurse. She held a small gray envelope in one hand and a glass of water in the other.

”Take this.” It was salt of Bromide, a mild sedative.

He was dead. I looked at him, so quiet and seemingly small in the bed, and left.

The King arrived one week later and was greeted by the major of Karlshamn. My father was not at the dinner...

My life had changed forever.

The next year I was 14, you can read that story here:

http://ayoungboysjourney.blogspot.ca/2017/04/growing-up-14-years-old.html

---------------------------
If you want to read my memors, "The seasons of Man", buy the book here:

https://www.amazon.ca/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=bengt+lindvall+the+seasons+of+a+man

14 years old - Father died.

I was fourteen.

My father had passed away and my life changed forever early that summer.

The Blekinge Fair, Blekingeutställningen, was to open a few days after my fathers funeral. It was to be a grand industrial and cultural fair with tens of thousands of visitors expected. The preparations had gone on for years.

Blekingeuställningen 1954

It seemed as if every kid in town were engaged, somehow. My first job was to sell chocolate from a basket strung around my neck.

The summer days were hot, my chocolate got soft and some even melted. I traded the chocolate for Ice cream. The box was heavy but I sold a lot. The weather changed and that summer went down in the annals as one of the rainiest in memory. The attendance at the fair dwindled under the cold, gray and wet skies.

................

At the appointed day, I returned to the same gymnastics camp as last summer. I had some fabulous three weeks. Sure, it rained a lot and I don't think I was ever warm. There were no means of heating in the dorms. You often performed gymnasts dressed in woolen sweaters. The vagaries of Swedish summer weather at play.

Part of the performance field near the dormitories. (My photograph)

.....................

What about the fishing harbour? That seems like an interesting place. I often talked to the fishermen.

Fishing trawlers in Karlshamn

One trawler was owned by the father of a classmate of mine, the girl that I had been, occasionally, skating with that winter.

“Would you like to go fishing with us, Bengt?”

“Yes.”

“OK, be here at 04:00 with warm clothes and rubber boots.”

Wow, I am going out on the sea in a real ship, a 15 metre trawler. It had a crew of four, I was number five.

Me with herring in abundance. (Photograph from my camera)

We were out for two days, trawling for herring. The silvery “gold” was loaded on ice, below deck.

The rolling of the boat soon made its effects known. With a round bottom, it would move from dipping one railing in the water to the other in seconds. That is just the way trawlers are built to maximize the in-hold cargo space.

The food was prepared on a single burner in the front cabin. It smelled great, except I was in no condition to enjoy it. I was seasick, an affliction that has stayed with me for life even as I traveled around the world in a much larger ship, later.

Seasickness creates no after-effect, so you feel great again within minutes once the movement abates a little.

Back in port I was rewarded for my efforts, not with money, but with “off-fish”. That is any fish other than the intended herring. Unfortunately, at least then, it was illegal to sell any other fish that you were licensed to catch. That was seen as unfair competition to the fish dealers.

I came home to my mother, loaded down with many delicacies of the sea. Eel, cod, plaice, one lobster and many other strange-looking seafood but no herring, that was all sold at the wharf. My mother went across the street and convinced the butcher shop to let her put some in their freezer.

After that, I was paid in money too, in addition to lots of free fish for my mother.

................

By the end of the summer, I had moved to the home of my mother and sister They lived in a one-bedroom apartment, nice and sunny but too small for the three of us.

Gone were the days when I'd had my own bedroom, a large room for my model railroad and free access to a few other rooms. All of my toys, tools and other paraphernalia were put in an unheated attic where they disappeared, little by little, or deteriorated from the humidity in the winter.

I resided in the kitchen. I had a box with my belongings under the bed and a few books in the living room, where my mother slept.

My mother had a lot of free time and we enjoyed every warm day to the fullest

Summer, ready to go to the beach.

The freedom of the town was absolute. My bicycle was a treasured friend, taking me anywhere.

The Mieån river powered a flower mill. It was pure magic to observe the drive shaft power divided to many lesser shaft by means of gears made from wood.

I spent many hours there but was eventually thrown out, never allowed to return. I had moved too close and almost fallen into the drive mechanism. The miller grabbed me and threw me out, hard. He probably wasn't prepared to answer for a 14 year old boy that was chewed to mincemeat by his mill.

...........

Another favorite place, even more exciting, was the railroad station. Steam trains and so much more.

Steam powered shunt engine.

I talked myself on to the little steam driven shunt engine. With time I learned to operate the controls, running back and forth on the yard

It was cold in the winter and cargo cars would freeze into the snow and ice and needed extra efforts to release.One day nothing could be moved, the train of couldn't be moved at all because the car brakes were set. I walked the train and opened the air tanks the little engine could get them moving again.

I took a liking railroading.

Locomotive stalls

It got better. The large line engines were parked in a locomotive stall. It takes a lot more than just putting fire in the fire box to make a steam engine go. They require many hours of service and upkeep.

I met one of the engineers and said; “I would really like to drive on of these on the track.”

“I'll take you on my morning run to Karlskrona, it's a three hour ride. Be here at 04:00 tomorrow morning.”

I was there, unbeknownst to my mother or high school administration, of course.

It became a trip to remember for life.

Light freight train in 1954

I learned to verify the brakes, start the train, blow the horn when the signals said so and – how to set the cylinder fill adjustments for maximum efficiency. A steam engine needs far more than a throttle to work.

This was local freight train. It stopped at several stations for local goods to be exchanged. I was only allowed to jump off when nobody was looking, and had to go round the train and get on from the side facing away from the station.We arrived in Karlskrona around sunrise. The engineer and the fireman brought me to the railroad cafeteria where I, full of pride, had a full breakfast, complements of SJ (Swedish State Railroads).

How to get back to Karlshamn? Not a problem, it was all pre-arranged. A conductor walked me to the morning train, going west. No ticket needed. This was a passenger train running in daylight, I was not allowed to be seen in the driver's cab and relegated to the third class wagon.

I bragged of my newly learned skills to a bus driver, on his way to pick up a bus in Karlshamn. He sounded almost envious, he never knew it would be so much fun to drive a train, he had always thought that it was “hot, cold and windy”.

To drive a train was certainly all of hot, cold and windy at one time.

I even worked at the maintenance shop at that station one full summer, many years later. The steam engines were gone. All power was by Diesel engines then, far less exciting.

.....

With my new found interest in moving equipment I spied an interesting contraption, the train transporting clay at the local brick factory.

This engine was of a most unique design. I have only seen something like it at a technical museum in Germany since.

Again, I befriended the workers and – of course – got to ride the engine.

It was a single cylinder, slow speed, kerosene fueled engine with a huge flywheel, running at constant speed from morning to evening. It was built in in 1938 and two years older than I. The power takeoff was by means of a small wheel moved in our out on the flywheel from the centre, an early version of our modern constantly variable transmissions, a.k.a. CVT.

The brick production was in full swing.

The bricks were formed by hand in little boxes. The top was cut off straight with a wire. The soft bricks were put into the oven.

The burning oven was round, with about 12 – 15 sectors. They were fired in sequential order with peat moss and wood. After the heating cycle was finished, the oven was bricked in and left to cool down for a few days. Then the cycle started again.

The next time I passed by that brick factory, some 35 years later, it was gone and replaced by a hotel.

............

I may not have been the most diligent student but anything mechanical or chemical was interesting.

Sure, we learned how to make gun powder, didn't all high school students?

It burns in the open, as demonstrated in our chemical lab, but explodes if you enclose it. That was not demonstrated, only taught in theory. We decided to make our own.

Said and done. There was no problem with the ingredients, between matchboxes (!), the drugstore and the hardware store. The latter supplied many, many metres of black, slow burning, fuse.

For a container, we chose 6.5 mm gun cartridges. They were available in infinite numbers at the shooting range.

Our home made explosive mini-bombs went off with a resounding bang. But, why only one and one? Can we make a fusillade? We made about 20 bombs. Then we walked the main street and placed 10 of each on both sides of the street. 

Once the little bombs were set, we walked down the street lightening them one by one, starting with the longest fuse.

They went off at a rate to make a machine gunner proud. Someone called the police. We waited to see them arrive and look up and down the street in consternation. Nothing to see there.

This was on Saturday night, next Monday morning there was an article in the local paper. “A strange projectile had shot through a large picture window, an empty cartridge, probably shot up by a passing car.”

My mother, who had a fairly good understanding of mine and Christer's destructive talents instantly demanded, and confiscated, our remaining gunpowder supply.

I told her how dangerous it could be if she threw it out, she could blow up our entire building if it went into the garbage. She filled our gunpowder bottle with water. It stood on the kitchen counter all winter. I secretly suspect that she brought it on our first swimming excursion the next summer and disposed of it in the sea.

This was the end of our chemically destructive era.

...................

I joined the shooting club at a young age, starting with the shorter carbines of navy class. The youngest boys shot only pellets, you moved up to real bullets at age 14. By that time I became a really good shot, I even got a medal for those skills in the army, years later.

But the excitement, only shooting at a paper target at up to 300 metres, had its limitations.

I owned a Daisy air gun, far more accessible and easily transported than the army issue weapon which was always so carefully kept under lock and key.

One fall evening we brought it out and set out to shoot at street lights. We only choose those that were in a remote locations, not watched by any pedestrians. It was a very satisfying experience; Every hit was acknowledge by a “pop” and darkness.

We may only have been out that one night. The local paper, again, reported of the huge expense the city had absorb to replace shot out lights – and that the police now had their eyes out for any suspicious persons.

My Daisy gun never left home again.

But, in practice at home at least one of my father's valuable paintings took an injury, two shots went through. It was behind the target.

After that the gun disappeared, never to be seen again.

......

My life had changed drastically after my father passed away, I had to repeat one class and I lost contact with my girlfriend. We didn't meet again until 62 years later, thanks to Facebook.

On the good side, I made a lot of friends in my new class too.

A life lesson, good friends are important even when bad things happen in your life.

Most of the photographs here are taken by me, but there are some stock images from the Internet.

The next year when I was fifteen was quite exciting too. Click here:

http://ayoungboysjourney.blogspot.ca/2017/04/growing-up-15-years-old.html