Bridge over River Kwai builder tells his story

I found some crumpled photocopies with this typewritten story in an old file cabinet that was to be discarded.

There is no (Google) evidence that these pages have been published, but I would be surprised if they had not. Unfortunately I have not been able to find any person that is associated with Mr. Sayers today. Here is the story. If you know more about the origins, please let me know.

YES, THAT BRIDGE IS STILL THERE

Memories on re-visiting the War's most dreaded feat of railroad engineering built not with machinery but with bodies.

As recalled in 1976

By

C. TRANS SAYERS

 
I was a Lieutenant in the Royal Netherlands Army - Field Artillery -that is in the Army Reserve in April 1939 when I was sent out by a Dutch export house to the then Netherlands East Indies. On arriving there I was transferred to the Army Reserve of the Royal Netherlands Indies Army automatically when the war started in September 1939. All officers in the Army Reserve were called up in the East Indies for special training. This special training lasted for one month after which we went back to our jobs.  It was repeated every two months.

On May 10th, 1940 the Germans invaded amongst others, the Netherlands. We were then called up again and were told that as officers we were not allowed to leave the Netherlands East Indies although we wanted to go to Britain.

The Japanese bombed Pearl Harbour and the war in the Pacific started. After the fall of Singapore in February 1942 it was obvious that the Netherlands Hast Indies would be lost.  By that time there were very few of our own or American planes left in the air. We were being bombed regularly by Japanese planes who also came over with their Zero fighters.

After the Battle in the Java Sea where practically the whole Allied Pacific fleet was sunk it was suddenly strangely quijt. The Japanese landed in the East Indies with the result that the Netherlands forces surrendered on March 9th while our unit on an island off the Naval Base of Surabaya surrendered on March lith. We were then shipped to Surabaya and interned in a larpc camp where we stayed until August or September 1942 and were then taken by train to Batavia where we stayed another month in another camp. The treatment by the Japanese was brutal.

In October 1942 my group was shipped in the holds of small Japanese freighters to Singapore to the Changi Barracks. Together with other officers and men 1 was sent to the Australian Imperial Forces part of these barracks. There was a whole Australian Division taken prisoner in that area.

After several months there in appalling conditions, such as shortage of food and medicine especially, we were sent in metal boxcars to Thailand. There were so many men per boxcar that it was impossible for anybody to sit down or to lie down. This trip lasted for 4 nights and 5 days until we reached Ban Pong, in Thailand. Some of our people had already got malaria and dysentery and you can well imagine what the conditions in these overheated boxcars were.

From Ban Pong in Thailand we were sent by open trucks up North into the jungle.  This trip took two days. At night we just slept in the open air. When we arrived in this camp which was only half finished, more huts had to be built of bamboo, more latrines dug etc. We were then split up into parties and we walked under Japanese guard for three days up a kind of elephant path. The railway at that time had barely been started and all that was being done was various camps were built along the track. When we finally reached our destination quite a few in this party of about 400 who were all Dutch, were sick with dysentery and malaria. We then started, all the 50,000 POW's, Dutch, British, Australian and Americans along the line to Burma to work on the 'Railway of Death'.

We started from the Siamese side (later called Thailand) and others who had been snipped also from Singapore and from Sumatra started on the Burmese side working towards each other. In about September or October 1943 the whole dreadful railway was finished. It was all done by manual labour. At that time we had some elephants but there were no such things as drills to bore holes in the rock for blasting or bulldozers or tractors. The railway was built right across the jungle through rocks and mud at the cost of some 16,000 prisoners of war. A lot more died after the war of the after effects.

Later on during the period when we were driven by the Japanese like slaves and coolies, they brought in so-called 'Free Asians' - these consisted of Tamils, Indians, Javanese, Chinese, Malayans etc. These people were also put to work on the railway and died like rats. The Japanese gave us little or no medicine and hardly any food although plenty was available in Thailand.

The most vivid memories of that period was the cholera epidemic when people died like flics; the dysentery and malaria, the horrible tropical ulcers of which so many of our friends died, lack of food and vitamins with the result that quite a few were practically blind because of the deterioration of the eye nerves and the enormous courage of quite a few who were desperately sick but still wanted to live and did. Above all, one remembers the cruelty and stupidity and red tape of the Japanese. The Koreans were not regarded as human beings by the Japanese and they in turn took it out on us.  Other vivid memories are the millions of maggots in the latrines, the black mud in the jungle during the rainy season and the dripping trees; The early morning parades when the Japanese rounded up everybody who could barely walk, or not walk at all, who pushed and beaten had to be working on the railway.

The most heavenly sound was when later on the Allies got the superiority in the air and we heard planes coming over in the middle of the night. They were Flying Fortresses going over to bomb targets in Singapore or in the neighbourhood of Bangkok. It was something unbelievable when you are in the middle of the jungle in conditions we were in, to hear these planes coming over. Later in the night you could hear them returning. The thing that kept most of us alive was that we were convinced that eventually we would win.

In 1944 on December 7th, I was taken back down the railway during the day to Tamarkan after first, I believe, passing through Chungkai. However, what stands out in my memory was that it was December 7th, the date marking Pearl Harbour Day. We had already seen planes coming over, all allied planes, and when you are being transported on a railway during the day it gives you an uneasy feeling in wartime. We were with a mixed group of about four or five hundred British and Dutch POW's.

During our trip we had to stop in the middle of the jungle for the locomotive to take on water. While we were standing there we heard planes coming. Suddenly we saw a huge Flying Fortress about two or three thousand feet up. We waved at it. The guards had already disappeared right into the jungle. Some others who had come down from Burma and had already experienced the bombing by allied planes had also disappeared into the jungle. Two more planes followed and went on their way down the railway line. Suddenly I heard them turning in the distance and they came back. While everybody rushed out of the boxcars into the jungle,they dropped several sticks of bombs.  One of them fell right across the right hand side of the track. This killed 52 POW's. From then on these planes went up and down the train using 20mm machine guns and bombs. I was lucky that I jumped out of the other side of the train where no bombs fell at that time. When it got dark we collected the wounded who practically all died because we had absolutely nothing with us to hclp them. The next morning we buried the dead in some shallow graves and continued on our way down the track. The railway was actually finished and used by the Japanese as their main supply line for Burma. Altogether it must have cost at least 100,000 lives including POW's and all the so called 'Free Asians'.

Practically all POW's were, as of 1944, assembled in large camps more in the neighbourhood of about 100 kilometers North of Bangkok. From time to time parties of 150 more were sent up the line to maintain it.  From 1944 onwards we were visited by allied bombers quite regularly and altogether we must have lost at least 300 or more people because of allied bombings.  They knew where we were but we were always close to the railway line and I am quite sure that they could not avoid hitting us.  In those days we never saw a Japanese plane.

Then fortunately for us, the Americans dropped their atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  This saved our lives because if I am not mistaken, the allied landing in Malaya would have taken place not before the 19th of September 1945.  The Japanese surrendered on August 17, 1945.

It was very strange in our camp because the Japanese commander sent for the Commandant of our group, which in this case was a British Officer and told him that the Japanese had surrendered on the orders of the emperor.  You have to bear in mind that there were no allied troops anywhere nearby. The Japanese surrendered to us, gave us their rifles and ammunition and we took over. It was another month before the first allied troops, Pathans under British officers, arrived from Burma. In the meantime some paratroopers had also arrived and helped us.  From then on some of us were put back into the Army, as I was, or flown back to the homeland.

The famous Bridge On The River Kwai which is now being visited every week by tourists is actually a metal bridge.  It was bombed several times during the war which we could watch whenever the bombers came over. It was hit and part of it was knocked out. It was interesting to watch the bombing from close by.  In the beginning, the planes that came over were all Flying Fortresses of the American Air Force and they always took the same bomb run: they circled and then came in from the original direction.  There were two Japanese anti-aircraft batteries near the bridge; they were also hit. When the Royal Air Force came in they had different bomb runs; they would attack the bridge from several sides. By mistake they also dropped one stick of bombs, that was at night, right across one of the camps at Nonpladuk.  We lost 100 men that time.  When the bridge had been put out of action the Japanese built - or rather, we built, a wooden bridge alonside it.  This was in use until the end of the war. After the war the metal bridge was repaired again by the Thais. When the Japanese surrendered in August 1945, I was put back into the Netherlands army, being fit enough to serve. At that time we had our problems in the Netherlands East Indies and the Netherlands needed a lot of troops. After having been trained by a British Major I was sent to Malaya - to Kuala Lumpur, where we had the Netherlands Forces headquarters. At that time we had about 22,000 troops who came from the Netherlands and about 5,000 marines who had been trained in California. I was then sent to Port Dickson, also in Malaya, to join the staff of one of the Brigades.  In April 1946 I returned to the Netherlands on the "New Amsterdam", then still a troop ship carrying 5,000 men; also a number oi'  women and children returning to the Netherlands.

As President of the Canadian Importers Association Incorporated I was invited by the Federal Government in Ottawa to join the Ministerial Trade Development Mission to Southeast Asia in February and March 1976. It was apart from the business side of the mission and quite a moving experience to go to the places where I had been before, just prior and during the war.  When it became known to the Minister, the Honourable Donald Jamieson and the other Govern-ment Officials who accompanied him, especially Lindsay MacNeil the Director of the Pacific area, they very kindly arranged with the Canadian Embassy in Bangkok that my programme would be such that I would be able to visit the Bridge On The River Kwai.

Because we were tired and because probably I had discussed this experience with several other people of the Mission, the night of March 9th was quite a strange experience.  Before I went to sleep and even in my dreams, 1 re-lived the whole dreadful experience again. I even imagined 1 heard the voices of old friends. It sounds silly but it actually happened.

The trip to the Bridge On The River Kwai from Bangkok is 134 kilo-meters by road.  In this case I travelled under slightly different conditions; I had an air-conditioned car at my disposal with a driver and a guide and one of the members of our mission who is also a free-lance phofreelance photographer joined me for this trip - J. E. Herrmann of Oilweek in Calgary.  We left at 6 in the morning and arrived at the site of the bridge in Tamarkan at 8 o'clock in the morning.

Everything of course has changed. The bridge is still there but now as a tourist attraction.  The wooden bridge which ran alongside it is gone. There is a small open-sided bamboo restaurant serving beer or soft drinks and food.  We took quite a few pictures and then left to go to the cemetery in Kanchanaburi.  The cemetery is extremely well kept by the Allied War Graves Commission.  There is a Dutch, Australian and British section.  In this cemetery 8,000 people arc buried.  There are two other cemeteries in Thailand and one in Burma.  Of the actual campsite - at that place, nothing remains.  I could find no trace of it. I then tried to find where our Boon Pong was.  He was the Thai who lived in Kanchanaburi and who had a small shop there and risked his life many times during the period that prisoners of war were there, to smuggle in money and medicine. He also gave us the latest news which he had heard over the radio.  Whatever was smuggled in was paid for by many people with cheques, all of which he accepted and which were all honoured after the war - when he was given the British King's Medal for courage, He does not live in Kanchanaburi now nor has he his little shop. He now lives in Bangkok, a rich old man. I tried to reach him but he had left. It was disappointing not being able to give, him a 'thank you'.

As far as Boon Pong is concerned, there is a very interesting story; Just after the war in Siam (or Thailand as it is called now) there were a lot of Thais running around with knives, sub-machine guns, revolvers, pistols etc. In our region there were quite a few guerilla fighters who had been fighting the Japanese all the time. For some reason or another also Boon Pong's life was being threatened by some Thais.  As I at that time was attached to the liason Military Police, we had to protect him. Therefore at night, a friend and I would sit, each on one side of Boon Pong who was still in his store. You have to visualize that these stores in the Far East and Southeast Asia are open at the front.  The store was well lit but outside it was pitch dark. We would sit there with our 45 Colts and our sub-machine guns quite close to him, hoping and trusting that nobody would try to shoot from the dark at us.  However, one day, when I was sitting on the verandah of the Officer's Mess, across from his store, a few shots rang out.  We rushed out of the Mess with our 45 Colts but the man who had fired the shots had disappeared around the corner. Boon Pong had been shot and had two bullets in his body. We rushed him to our small Hospital which was still in the same camp and I am glad to say that he fully recovered.

There is also a Japanese Memorial not far from the cemetery. Apparently once a year various Ambassadors and so on, go to the Allied Memorial to pay their respects, while the Japanese go to the Japanese Memorial, but this is never done at the same time.

If you ask me after 31 years, in 1976, what I think of that period - it was a horrible experience. The Japanese were very cruel, although not scientifically cruel like the Germans, and also very stupid. It is simply unbelievable that if they needed this railway line so badly, they didn't feed all their prisoners of war and coolies properly. 

There was absolutely no problem in Thailand to feed people because they had more than enough rice, even in those days; fruit, fish, etc. - everything we needed. They gave us nothing and let us starve and die. My feelings was that we should have hanged quite a lot more than we did. However, it was a marvelous feeling when the war was over and you could say to yourself "I have made it".
My wife (1 did not meet her till after the war) who with her family was in another camp, suffered as only the Japanese can make one suffer but - and this is a frequent comment of Canadians we meet -we do not now express bitterness against the Japanese. To perpetuate bitterness only serves to perpetuate one's sufferings so - except when specially reminded by such a re-visit I have just described, it is best to turn over that page and close the book.

*************

 

The Globe and Mail, Toronto, SATURDAY APRIL 17, 2010

IN LOVING MEMORY

Frans (Charles Francois) Sayers

April 19, 1916 - April 9, 2010

WW11 Veteran

It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of Frans Sayers, in his 94th year. He was the devoted and loving husband of Lydie for 63 years and the loving father of Frans (Debra) and Renee (Johan Petersen). Opa of Celia (Eric Coulombe), Delphine (Junior Boutin), Nikko, Serena, Kirsten, and Christian as well as the proud great- grandfather of Taylor, Tyson, Reese, Maya and Kees. He leaves behind a legacy of great memories and accomplishments. His remarkable community spirit will be greatly missed by many here in Canada and abroad where he travelled and worked. A family service was held. If desired, donations may be made on his behalf to the Royal Canadian Military Institute Heritage Trust Fund, 426 University Avenue, Toronto M5G 1S9. 

FOX news can do wonders to uninformed minds.

Not a communist in sight, or?

I have often wondered about people who voted for and believe in Donald Trump. What twisted logic can make them support a person with so few, or no, redeeming character traits?

I got my chance, talking at some length with a retired American surgeon and his wife from major city in a Southern state.

On the subject of Canada:

"You are leaches of the earth and sucking the life out of the American worker. Your 270 % import duty on American milk (!) is just a blatant example of how you mistreat your trading partner – and get away with it."

(That duty is a penalty on a quota representing 0.0002 % (2/10,000) of all Canadian import from USA and has never been imposed.)

"Your health care systems sucks and Canadians lead a life of pain and misery, dying while you wait for your poorly rationed health care to be available to you."

(Canadians live four years longer than the average American.)

"Canadian doctors are “probably” the ones that failed to qualify to work in USA and had to settle for being employees of the state in a second class country." 

Said by a surgeon from USA.

Needless to say, he was a great fan of Fox news.

After a few more failed attempts to connect on a more factual level, I innocently asked.

“You just told me that Donald Trump has proudly said that he has almost eradicated Obama care, making forty million Americans uninsured.”

"They all get excellent health care, all they have to do is to walk in to the nearest ER and they will be looked after."

"What kind of care?"

"They get what services they need to leave the hospital and will be charged accordingly."

"But what if they cannot pay?"

They will be charged anyway. But the hospital may have to write off the fees as uncollectable.

"You were a surgeon in a hospital, how many operations did you make that you were not paid for?" 

"About 20 % of my patients couldn't pay. I sent the bill and after a certain time had gone by, forwarded my claim to a collection agency. Sometimes I got paid a little but often nothing at all. That’s life."

"Did you perform different operations when you knew that the patient couldn’t pay?"

"Not really, but I may have cut back on some of the long term possible cures. I knew that they couldn’t get them, anyway. My objective was always to do enough so that the patient, hopefully, could leave the hospital soon.

Some of the uninsured are losers and slackers. They are unwilling or unable to find work with an employer that would pay health insurance fees to support themselves and their families.

Millions are illegal immigrants and they deserve nothing from the US government. They will soon all be deported. Trump is doing a good job of arresting them and sending them out of the country. Then they will no longer be a problem to our health care system.

We also have the same problem with all the criminals, all the drug dealers and other persons that live off crime. They don’t deserve anything at all and may soon die on their own."

I stopped taking notes at this point.

His wife turned to me and asked: “Which church do you go to?”

Church?

She proceeded to tell me that only good people were in church. The kind of people who look after their fellow man and live a righteous life.

My next question, posed to both of them: 

“So you think that is a good Christian way to let so many people go without access to health care insurance?"

I drew a blank on that one.

The two of them immediately changed the subject and were more interested in Canadian socialism, which in their minds was exactly the same as total communism, where our government “spends other people’s money until it runs out”.

How poor Canadians are hounded by the government who controls so much of our lives and makes Canadians pay what must be the highest taxes in the world.

The discussion soon ended when I told a few financial facts and when I explained them, correctly, that Canadians pay far less in taxes than Americans do. 

We get many public services that we appreciate, add in the value of free-to the-user health care and Canadians are paying among the lowest taxes in the OECD.

They had never heard of OECD.

I didn’t sleep well last night, having met two representatives of true Trump supporters, totally convinced that FOX network is the only news station that tells the truth. All other news sources carry fake news. 

They both agreed that Donald Trump is the best president that the USA has ever had. He will make the land prosperous like never before.

"Look at how well he negotiates our trade around the globe."

and...

... "Just wait until Trump has put that soon-to-be Nuclear-armed Iran in its proper place..."

These persons were very well off, well educated and with bright minds.

Oh – what propaganda can do.

Joseph Goebbels, Minister of Propaganda, Nazi Germany,  would have felt proud to hear the effects of one-sided propaganda today.

They loved America, the best country of all...

... "especially if compared to Canada that is run by such an incompetent and lying Prime Minister as Trudeau." (sic).

I felt sick…

---------------
If you want to read my memoirs, "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

Me and the newspapers

Thinking, reading and aging.

I was 9 when I realized that I was a “me”.

I could make things better or worse around me, almost at will.

I always read the cartoons in the newspapers. We had five daily papers delivered to my father’s apartment.

At age nine, I looked at the headlines and turned the pages to follow up on particularly interesting stories.

The Swedish airforce seemed to always have three accidents in close order, then nothing for a long while.

One day I saw an accident, or at least the aftermath of one, before the story was in the newspaper. A twin-engine airplane had crashed in the water just outside the harbour. It was fished up and brought in to quay within a few of hours. 

This picture that I saw for the first time

one year AFTER I had written this story. Was my memory good?

The pilots had jumped and both stood by the quay-side, wrapped in dirty blankets over their still-wet uniforms. The blankets probably came from the fishing boat that had picked them up as they landed in the water, 

They stood there, looking at the sad, soaking wet, remains of their airplane, suspended off the rear crane of a service boat. One half wing and one of the engines were missing and almost all the windows were broken.

(This was written from my memory. I have since learned that both pilots had perished. The wet-looking persons were most likely the rescue workers that had just hauled up the airplane. - but you have to excuse me - I wrote from a 70-year old memory-recollection.)

This was the moment when I realized the clear and undisputable connection between the real world and what was written in the newspapers.

The next morning I was up early, grabbed Karlshamns Allehanda from the front door and sat down with my father at the breakfast table. I could fill in the newspaper story with details, and also explain what all the items were in the accompanying photographs.

I knew the photographer. The paper was produced, typeset and printed in the same city block as we lived. We would sometimes wake up at around 2 am when the presses started rumbling, producing that day’s batch of about 6,000 papers, almost one for every household in town.

That day, I went into the offices and sought out the photographer. Did he have any more pictures, how could he get them into the paper?

He was a kind man and showed me the magic of his Linhof press camera – the one with a moveable lens mount – and also introduced me to the photo scanning machine, the one that makes all the dots that are printed as a picture. (It took me another 20 years until I got my own Linhof camera)

Linhof press camera, ca 1947 - it looked the same forever.

As we stood there, the telephoto machine started up and a picture of our king appeared right in front of my eyes. Telephoto machines may have been around since the 1920’s but to see one in action in 1950 was still seeing a wonder.

This spurred me to explore the world of newspaper news ever more.

The year 1950 had entered with much fireworks. This was he half way mark of the centennial. All wars had ended (?) and a limitless future lied ahead.

I drew pictures of space rockets, with special sleeping arrangements for taking off and in weightlessness in space.

Cars had no fins yet, but new speed records were broken that year, prompting me to design my own cars, some missing a few elements of inherent stability, but why not?

Our library was in the same block and the librarian a good friend of my father. She would bring out today’s paper, show me an interesting article and give me an easy-to read book to read on the subject. 

I got hooked on actually reading newspapers on my own in December 1951.

Captain Carlsen stayed on his sinking ship, The Flying Enterpise, in the English Channel until it sank. He became a world hero, followed for the 17 days it took his freighter to finally go to the bottom.

Picture from Wikipedia.

Another 51 years came to pass before the mystery of “why” was solved. The freighter had a substantial amount of the nuclear isotope zirconium in the cargo. That was part of nuclear rector operations in those day. Any salvage company that had put a line to the ship, if it was unmanned, would have owned the ship and its cargo.

My teenage years were as tumultuous for me as for all other.

I focused on my life from day to day. Time flew by.

Every day started with a good perusal of the newspaper. I though Aga Khan was the greatest man, being so rich and getting a new wife, again and again.

Haile Selassie was making mayhem in Ethiopia. I wanted to go and see for myself. – Not yet, you are too young.

The dictator Peron was ousted from Argentina. I did did go there a few years later and see the city of Buenos Aires. It was scary, we were shot at by a machine gun, operated by some Peronistas.

I may not have had much money, but I sure did practice and try out many things.

Everything was a new adventure now.

Some adventures were better than other. Four of us climbed the narrow service ladder to the top of a newly built 40 metres tall radio tower. You entered the top platform via a trap-door. Going up was a child’s play but not so climbing down. One in our gang, not me, froze on the top platform. Nothing could budge him. (He is a retired dentist now. There were probably no great heights to climb in that profession.)

The fire department came and one agile fireman climbed up and got the boy down.

The next day the local newspaper looked different, we were photographed on page one. “Dramatic rescue…”

Not good.

Over the next few years, I developed a different relationship with our local paper, it was far too intrusive for my liking.

I started and failed in the publishing business. I had published a “school paper” on my own. It was too radical. The principal confiscated all my printed papers and I was severely spoken to. I had had bad advisors on what to say. Use better news sources in the future.

The next day I was on page two, in a photograph with my name. My father and a few others were furious at me for my self made "fame".

A small fire at my Highschool wasn’t all good for me either. There was a towel fire in one of the boy’s restrooms. I saw it and called the caretaker in to put it out. I was not the guilty firebug but ended up named as suspected pyromaniac on page two just the same.

I learned to drive a Caterpillar on the construction site for our new railroad station.

Me on the Caterpillar tractor.

One day the regular driver was drunk and managed to sink the tractor in the semi-frozen mud. I was just a passenger but was identified, standing on the sunken tractor as "an adventurous city boy" by name. That newspaper photo gained me some fame among my friends

Would TV dethrone the written world for me?

Not so.

The announcement came; We would, finally, get a strong TV signal in my home town. I borrowed a TV set and jury rigged a good size antenna.

The TV set from 1959

Then – the moment of truth.

My mother, sister and I sat down to watch TV at home for the first time, ever.

I lasted 15 minutes. This is too slow. Give me a newspaper so I can choose my own news and how deeply I want to learn about them.

I have never learned to watch TV and especially not TV news. They are too slow and superficial.

All thoughts in those growing up years were very "now"-oriented.

A few years later, as a married man, I became a father of a bouncing baby girl.

Then life really changed. There was this tremendous responsibility for my family on my shoulders.

No more “now” but rather, “what now?”

I worked hard and diligently for years and years to support my family.

The newspapers were always with me. The world events sometimes scared, entertained or moved me.

But – what can a lowly individual do? I may have wanted to become a special assistant to President Kennedy during the Cuban crisis in 1951, but he never called me for advice.

Keep working, stay away from people with too outrageous ideas and try to stay sane.

With time, world or local events came to touch me in a far too personal way.

Every downturn in the economy of USA led to one in Canada, six months later, and people would get laid off. All too often I was one of them, too.

The separatist issue in Quebec was a huge negative factor in the lives of many. I had no particular ties either way, had a job and couldn’t be anything more than an observer. Taking any political stance would, surely, have rendered me jobless soon.

Réne Levesque - leader of Parti Quebecois in 1978

The 1980 referendum, staged By Réne Levesque, had a terrible effect on the economy of Quebec. Hundreds and hundreds of companies moved out, leaving far too many unemployed behind. At one time the official unemployment rate was over 13 %, a hitherto totally unheard number for anywhere in Canada, not seen since the 1930’s.

In my opinion, to read the newspapers became an agony. There were these never-ending news stories about how we had a large provincial party, Party Quebecois, and their federal ilks, Bloc Quebecois, that only had one goal in mind, to destroy Canada as we knew it.

Finally, many years later I broke. I couldn’t take the incessant talk about separation in Quebec or the forecasted and the real economic decline any more.

I took a job in Ontario and sold my house in Montreal.

It was eerie to open the newspaper the first few mornings we were in Ontario. Nothing on the first page about separation, perhaps a small article on page 6 only.

What a relief.

Now I was getting a little more mature and my outlook on life took a different turn. The children were long gone and quite on their way building their own lives.

We talked about where to, perhaps, retire in the next few years.

A condo downtown Montreal had always been a dream of ours. But, that was hardly a realistic thought, now that we had sold our Quebec home at a huge loss and moved to Ontario. (Thank you, Premier Jaques Pariseau, for destroying the Quebec housing market in preparation for yet another referendum in 1994.)

Monica had always had a soft spot for her home town, Karlskrona, in Sweden. We checked out the housing situation during one of our Swedish vacation trips and found it quite good. We could get a nice apartment, overlooking the Baltic sea, for a reasonable cost.

Then – we ran into the Swedish bureaucracy. It didn’t take many days to confirm that we were ill prepared for what would be coming at us from there. To get an unlimited driver’s licence again would take three years. Since we hadn’t paid taxes in many years and had no credits to apply, the first year’s taxation would be double of the next. We put our Sweden retirement thoughts back on the shelf.

I went through a number of job changes in the 90’s and found life as an employee ever more insecure.

Now I was no longer learning about the future, reading any science fiction stories or taking much interest in politics.

A state of survival had arrived. Every day had to be focused on “what next”?

Eventually after some four years of worsening illness, Monica’s cancer killed her.

We held a funeral with only the family present. After a few days all had returned to their own lives in different countries and there I was, all alone.

I had no ties to anything in the world. No job, it had disappeared in a bankruptcy a few weeks earlier. 

The house was large and empty and far too full of memories from earlier days.

I made a clear and concientious decision to live as a “grumpy old man” from that day on.

The newspaper took on a new meaning. I read about the world, its twists and turns with different eyes.

Where would I fit in? I was not ready to retire and took a few short time assignments that in effect gave money but led nowhere.

Me and Norwegian Princess in Ushuaia,

Argentina, the world's southernmost city.

One assignment was to be a dance partner on a cruise ship for one full month. That helped clear my head. I came back with a new goal in life. I realized that I truly like women, their company and their way of being. I should have known as I had been a happily married man for 41 years already.

My new goal: To meet someone to share my life with.

That well designed and executed project was soon accomplished. I wasted no time on random leads or meetings. A few months later I had a new girlfriend, a lady who became my wife some three years later.

We decided to “do it now”, go for what is on the bucket list.

Now, some 15 years and 22 countries-visited later we are both glad we did.

We danced as two of 20,000 dancers one night

at the Carnival in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Newspapers?

Oh, they are still there and still devoured for quite a while every morning.

Being pensioners with a “limited” ~20 year life span ahead there are some subjects that I just don’t have to give much thought to. any more.

It shocks me to jump over the latest medical break-throughs or the latest wild public transit scheme, so long in coming that I may celebrate my hundredth birthday on the day of inauguration.

The financial pages are interesting, but worth about as much as the weather forecast – ever changing from day to day.

Our bodies don’t have the right proportions any more, it seems as if so many parts, bits and pieces have moved downwards over the years. Sure, it is nice to be nicely dressed, but so many of the in-fashions don’t “work” any more.

We make sure to spend as much time as is practical with “the young”, may they be 20 or 60 years young. It is dangerous to let your brain fossilize.

We count our blessings for having had (see how much I talk in past terms now) the wherewithal to take an apartment smack in the middle of Toronto.

An apartment high up with a view, has no lawn, no gutters to clean, no snow to shovel and not even a hose to wash the car with.

Instead we live quietly with all that the city has to offer within a short walk from home. It is such a joy to take the streetcar, the subway or the bus. No traffic to contend with and, best of all, no need to find a place to park the car.

Next?

---------------
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

The wrong gun in the wrong hands

When new in Canada, with very little money we camped a lot.

This is when I had my first view of the so reprehensible gun culture of USA. When buying fuel in a hardware store in Vermont, we talked to another young couple. Their little their baby was in a carriage.

Vermont didn't, then as now, have any restrictions on who could buy a gun. 

The young man insisted on buying his girlfriend, the mother of the baby, a present, a gun. She wasn’t very keen on that, we gathered.

“It is good protection for you, there are so many bears here.”

They ended up buying a nine-millimetre pistol, obviously totally useless against a bear. They left, with a holster containing a loaded gun strapped to the side of the baby carriage.

I asked the young lady,

“Have you ever shot a gun before?”

“No, never, but I guess I just lift it and squeeze the trigger.”

So much for a gun in the wrong hands, and for the wrong reason.

---------------------

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

How I survived being spindled, folded and mutilated.

Do not spindle, fold or mutilate.

These were the famous words printed on every utility bill form the 1940s all the way in to the late 80s.

Why were you not supposed to “not spindle, fold or mutilate” your bills?

Because then they were damaged and could not do their job correctly. (To allow an 80 hole card reader to process them automatically.)

This is my story about what happens to a person who is “spindled, folded and mutilated”?

Every layoff from my job came as a total shock, regardless of how many “vibes” I ought to have picked up at work.

I despised my first job as a new immigrant in Canada and wished I was somewhere else every minute on that job. A few months after my arrival, I was called to the personnel office. There I was handled my pay cheque for the next two weeks and a yellow form saying that I was “let go for cause” and was not eligible for any Unemployment Insurance.

I walked all of the 500 metres home to my apartment, not entirely downtrodden. It was a great relief to be “otta there”.

A problem, my wife had just given birth to our first daughter. This was not a good time for a family man to suddenly stand at the front door without money or any prospect of any more, soon.

She was a strong woman. Then as later said, “we can handle this”.

I had been spindled, folded and mutilated. – “And so it goes.”

Time to execute “Plan B”, finding a job again.

I did and found a job.

A few years later I sensed that our business was about to take a turn for the worse. Our target customers were having really hard times and not about to make any new investments in the foreseeable future.

I was called into the president’s office and told,

“I am really sorry, but we cannot keep you on staff. I will give you three months notice, from today. Good luck in finding another job, soon.”

I was totally stunned, I never expected that. I was a company man, true and true. I even carried a corporate logo on a pin under my lapel, to show how devoted I was to my company and our customers.

I took the customary commuter train home but forgot both my book and my house keys on the train. I guess I was in a total state of shock.

My wife was in the eighth month with baby No.2. She was totally surprised.

She was a strong woman, then as later, and said, “we can handle this”.

I had been spindled, folded and mutilated. – “And so it goes.”

A couple of months later, the entire office gathered at a popular restaurant for a going away celebration for me and Al G. He was in the same field of business and had no better future in the company than I.

I worked for my three months of notice. Al and I left in a state of glory, we were both going to far more responsible and well-paying jobs than we’d ever had.

A few years later our family lived in the not-so-great metropolis (?) of Port Hawkesbuy, Nova Scotia. The smallness of the location and the people who lived there really started to get to us, my wife and I was toying with the idea of finding another job, away from there.

My plant manager, Ted LeMaistre, invited me for another family dinner at his house. We were good friends and he had helped me tremendously, and I him, over some rough patches in the operation of the power plant.

He convinced me, over some whiskey, that leaving the plant, and him, would be a very poor decision.

I agreed to stay on for a while. Then, quite furtuitously, the plant got a new operations manager, one who really knew his engineering-stuff. Here was my opportunity.

Time to execute Plan "B", to find a job again.

I started my search and had a new position secured in only a few days.

Ted LeMasitre and his wife had us in for one last, somewhat sorrowful, dinner at their home.

Then I left.

No, this was not a sob-story at all. Nobody was angry, but I felt quite guilty for leaving Ted to the “great forces of intra-company politics". He was soon displaced and served out his remaining years to retirement as a rather sad staff-engineer at the head office.

We moved back to Montreal.

A few years went by and I had become the darling of my San Diego, California based company. I could do nothing wrong and felt the “happy vibes” wherever I traveled on Company business.

That was not a good or sustainable feeling.

I became too big for my britches, fully convinced that I truly was

"God’s gift to any business”.

I was not.

One day, my unfounded feeling of self worth made me commit the single largest error of my life. I succumbed to the lures of a head-hunter.

I paid dearly for that.

My reputation preceded me and I got a fabulous job for a Montreal based international company. I was to have two bosses. – Why didn’t I back out at that piece of news? (I should have.)

I was given two completely equipped offices, one in Montreal and one at the Embarcardero in San Francisco, California, with a pad of Air Canada travel vouchers to pay for the five hour long bi-weekly airplane commute.

I had two bosses. That may not have been all bad – but they each hated the ground the other walked on, with a gusto.

I traveled the world, with either of the two bosses, and quite enjoyed my new business focus.

But – there was something I didn’t know, even though the facts had been quite clear from day one.

This was an 18-month experiment.

It failed. - Fire the participants.

One morning, four days before Christmas and two days before I was about to leave on a three-week vacation with my family in Sweden, my Canadian boss walked in. He sat down in front of my desk with a piece of paper in his hands.

He started reading:

“You are not contributing to the operation of our company and you have no future here. Take the next five minutes to collect your personal belongings and proceed to the personnel department on the 12th floor.”

We were on the 16th.

The security guard who had stood quietly a the door led me by my elbow to the elevator.

Once in the personnel department I received the mandatory EI document – “fired for cause and not eligible for Unemployment Insurance” and signed many documents.

Another of the many papers to sign was the ownership certificate for the company car – it became mine. There was also a cheque of substantial value, far more than what could have been expected, considerding my term of employment.

I continued the next 12 floors down in a very sombre mood. But – before I even set foot on the street a thought occurred. This was “bigger than me”.

It was.

I immediately crossed the street with the cheque and deposited it in my bank account.

The entire group, all six of us on that project, were laid of within days, the boss who had read the letter to me remained unemployed for over two years.

I drove home with very mixed feelings. What really happened?

My wife met me at home.

She was a strong woman, then as later, and said, “we can handle this”.

I had been spindled, folded and mutilated. – “And so it goes.”

The tickets for the family vacation in Sweden were all paid for, so it was just to “pack and go”.

We had bought some new wallpaper for the house. This was a good time to hang it. Never have any air bubbles been banged out with greater force. I gave a name to every one of them as they were methodically banged flat and eradicated under the wallpaper. The end result was superb.

There was a little problem with our Sweden-trip. I was a newly unemployed man without any prospects. (?) I lied about my job and kept up a very false façade, all the time silently crying inside.

Time to execute Plan "B", to find a job again.

I soon had a new job.

It may not have been promised as the ultimate or the final one, but my talents were to be put to good use.

The President and co-owner, who’s stability of mind and capacities were far to the left of ordinary, had embarked on a great project to bring some high quality German made air compressors to Canada. They had never been built to North American standards and he had some great ideas about setting up a factory to make the modifications on the finished product in Canada.

I should have known. After our first meeting in Toronto, when I was hired, we went to a bar in the same building. He ordered a 12 oz bottle of whiskey, a mickey, for himself with only one glass – seated himself on a bench in the far corner and rolled himself up in a ball as tight as a grown man could get his limbs.

He didn’t talk to anyone as he slowly emptied the whiskey bottle.

Then he went across the street to his new Cadillac that had many scrapes on the side, and left, all alone.

I was left in total bewilderment. What had I just witnessed?

Why didn’t I leave then and there?

A few months later, after a couple of trips to Germany for me it was clearly obvious to all, this was a fool’s errand and there was no way to convert any product in Canada. The president of the German supplier politely, as straight forward and with the force of a battering ram, told me: “Get out of here. Your boss is crazy as a coon and there is no way we can do business with him.”

I was still running the industrial distribution franchise in Montreal, but that was soon to end in a fright.

I had repeatedly asked for a financial statement. There were just too many disgruntled suppliers calling and asking me for money. The bosses, both the co-owners came to town. We went for lunch and I said:

“I am sorry, but this operation is not tenable, we are losing too much money.”

“We will take care of that at this moment. - You are fired.”

I was.

I returned to the office for a few minutes to carry my personal belongs out and that was it. No yellow paper for the EI this time.

I drove home and told my wife. She was a strong woman, then as later, and said, “we can handle this”.

I had been spindled, folded and mutilated. – “And so it goes.”

The company closed and declared bankruptcy only two months later. I met the boss many years later.

“Are you still alive? I though you would go home and commit suicide the day we fired you.”

Time to execute Plan "B", to find a job again.

I soon had a new job.

By this time, computers had come to play. I got hold of a list of Montreal Board of trade members and mailed out about 200 letters, all personalized and computer generated.

This was on a Thursday.

On Monday I got a call and I was hired that afternoon. Again with a higher salary and larger company car than ever before.

A few years later I went on one of my many European trips, this time to Germany. I was specifically asked to go to Frankfurt am Main and to visit the president of the company that now owned 50 percent of our 800-employee company. Fifty percent – not enough to affect the outcome of any board meeting.

I was seated in an office with two interlocking doors with rubber seals, totally sound proof. The German president was very formal.

“Tell the president that he must stop investing so much in new machinery, it is time to pay more profit to us.”

Why through me? I knew that they talked to each other on the telephone almost every day.

I travelled back to Montreal in a bit of a troubled mood. – Why was I the carrier of this message?

I reported to the president. He muttered something along the lines of “What a fool that German guy is? This is my company and I decide where to spend our money.”

Christmas came and went. Then a call to the president’s office.

“We are not making enough profit and cannot afford to keep you. You can leave now.”

“Oh, we have no use for your new company car, you can keep it for a while.” I drove it for several months before they called and wanted it back.

This was after 7.5 years of faithful work.

I drove home and told my wife. She was a strong woman, then as later, and said, “we can handle this”.

I had been spindled, folded and mutilated. – “And so it goes.”

Time to execute Plan "B", to find a job again.

My new job search wasn’t as easy any more, I was a little longer in the tooth than in earlier years.

It took a few months to confirm my next position but we had enough money from my separation cheque to handle that.

The next job paid even more and saw me negotiating some seriously large multi hundred million dollar deals in USA, Canada and Chile.

Then we got a new president at the US head office. He came to Canada once:

“I love you all. You are doing a great job and there will be no changes.”

A month later, to the same 200 office employees:

“I love you all, but there will have to be some small changes in the operation. Nothing of importance, just some adjustments.”

A month later, in the same meeting room with the same group of listeners:

“I have decided that we don’t need the Canadian operation. We will close this down and move all the job assignments, but not the people, to my home town in Ohio.”

In the end, only four people of almost 600 who were laid off moved to Ohio.

I soon found out that I was No. 82 (of 600) on the layoff list.

My lay off meeting was almost funny.

I had gone on my second visit to Japan, all of eleven days this time, and had just come back with my head full of information and several reports to submit. They were written on my computer in the first-class cabin as we had returned, non-stop, from Tokyo to Toronto.

So, when called to a meeting, I brought a slew of heavy books, a notepad and my lap-top computer.

There was to be no meeting. There was my boss, a personnel officer and, as I found out later, a psychologist from the USA head office.

The subject was to tell me … and to hand me a whoppingly large separation cheque. This time the yellow sheet said that I was laid off “for lack or work” and that I did qualify for Unemployment Insurance. (I was never out of work long enough to apply.)

I met the psychologist later. He told me that his services had been needed as some employees with over 20 years of service “had gone wild at the news…”

I drove home and told my wife. She was a strong woman, then as later, and said, “we can handle this”.

I had been spindled, folded and mutilated. – “And so it goes.”

Time to execute Plan "B", to find a job again.

My next job was fortunately not long in coming.

The primary task in my next position was to expand our North American and European customer base for water wheel castings. First I travelled USA. After that I worked diligently on the telephone and fax machine before I had a long list of European customers who had expressed preliminary interest and given me firm appointments – in five countries.

The week before my departure the company was sold to a large American corporation.

My schedule and budget for the Europe trip was cut in half. I went on an abbreviated tour to only three countries and succeeded quite well with my appointments, coming home with a slew of inquiries.

Then the American owners came to town.

“We have our own sales organization and we also cover Europe quite well. Therefore the entire six-person sales team will be laid off, effective immediately.”

The departures were nasty, The new owners had never met any of us before but were dead set on not spending any money. They made up a bunch of reasons why none of the six sales persons should receive any severance pay, contrary to Canadian law. I got none and was forced out the door with quite a bit of commission pay unpaid. Several thousand dollars, enough to seriously harm my already strained household budget, to be more specific.

I felt really rotten. I had given “my all” to get this business expanded, to no avail and little compensation. My much promised commission payments had evaporated. That really hurt, in many ways.

I drove home and told my wife. She was a strong woman, then as later, and said, “we can handle this”.

I had been spindled, folded and mutilated. – “And so it goes.”

Time to execute Plan "B", to find a job again.

My all too many job changes, coupled with a complete sell house – buy house from Montreal to Kitchener had seriously damaged my financial health.

This was the fall when Bank of Montreal had gotten a new
president, may he burn in hell for all eternity, who decided to be tough on any delinquent borrower or credit card owner.

Awaiting my first commission cheque in the new job and with my cash running low, I had innocently enough called Bank of Montreal to inquire if I could hold off on paying my regular credit card payment for one month.

“Not a problem, we will send you a new payment plan.”

They did, in the form of a legal summons to put a lien on my house or to transfer my house to them… I owed $ 2,000 on a credit card and $ 7,000 on a line of credit, neither which had ever been one day late or near maximum limits, ever.

That took four years out of my life, ruining my sleep and hurting me in many ways. I had never, even once, missed a single payment on anything. Now starting a new job with a greatly reduced initial paycheque, I was to be furter punished by a lowly clerk at a bank.

My accounts were closed, nothing could be deposited. “Talk to your lawyer”. I did, but hat only cost money not leading to any resolution.

I discussed all this with my wife.

She was a strong woman, then as later, and said, “we can handle this”.

Several years later I read in the newspaper that Bank of Montreal had another new president.

I mailed off a letter, “Personal and confidential” to that new president, a letter with 52 enclosures. It was mailed on a Friday. On Tuesday I got a call: “There has been a misunderstanding, please come to our nearest bank branch.”

I did, the misunderstanding was cleared up and my, by now quite substantial, outstanding amounts were converted to a regular loan. I paid that off in less than a year.

Note, the bank didn’t lose one single penny, but they kept running my credit card and line of credit for several years at full interest rate, 27 % for the credit card. There was no compassion, no adjustment, not even the slightest hint of an apology.

Net result, I soon had no debt but my credit rating showed as if I had gone bankrupt – for seven more years.

Do you wonder why I have to restrain myself from spitting on the Bank of Montreal branch windows every time I walk by one?

Fortunately, the bank that had held my home mortgage was not affected so I could live a rather normal life, after all.

My new sales manager’s job under my friend, the newly minted president, didn’t last long.

Nine months in, it was painfully clear that our 65-person factory didn’t have enough orders to carry on. We had used up our line of credit and the owner showed some serious concern.

“I’d better sell the company, but first we must clean house.”

I was out again – and so was my new president. He went to a car dealership and was selling Volvo cars the last time I saw him.

My firing was swift, no time for any sweet talk or time to mention about EI documents, severance pay or my unpaid sales commsisions. Then, again, I lost thousands of dollars in unpaid earnings. “Just leave – now.”

I drove home and told my wife. She was a strong woman, then as later, and said, “we can handle this”.

I had been spindled, folded and mutilated. – “And so it goes.”

Time to execute Plan "B", to find a job again.

Now I am getting seriously older and can no longer consider myself as God’s gift to any business.

I was uncermoniously fired on a Monday night. Computers were big now. I used my computer programming talents and sent out over 500 single page solicitation letters by fax to all sorts of companies in the area over night. I had no desire to move or travel too far work.

Tuesday morning; the telephone rang. I went for an interview.

“Do you know how to use a spreadsheet?”

“Yes, I do.”

I was hired in the next hour and started work on Wednesday morning. I had been unemployed for all of one calendar day.

A couple of years later I did get a funny feeling that I was no longer in the good graces. My task was finished. I had, thanks to my spreadsheet skills, been able to collect over two million dollars of underpaid bills from our major customer, one of the largest car manufacturers in the world.

I had just come home from a sales trip to Japan. I was really concerned that our customer was about to put some terribly costly demands on us. Our future profitability, or even existence, could be endangered.

My report was tabled and I awaited what to do next.

I was called to the president’s office. In addition to him, there stood the owner, our personnel manager and a security guard.

The president stood up and said, “We will charge you with criminal behaviour. Here is a list of ten items where you are guilty of, each and everyone serious enough to put you in jail.”

I never saw the list nor heard any of the charges repeated.

I was in an absolute and total state of shock.

Every single item was a total fabrication, picked out of thin air.

The security guard guided me out to the parking lot, where my car was – and that was the end of my career in the automotive supply business.

I got no separation pay, even if that was enshrined in Canadian law, not even my last paycheque. The company must have saved themselves a few thousand dollars that way, and took it all from me.

Somebody must have been proud of his business skills?

I never heard anything more from any one in that company, and of course not anything about my purported crimes.

I drove home and told my wife. She was a strong woman, then as later, and said, “we can handle this”.

I had been spindled, folded and mutilated. – “And so it goes.”

Time to execute Plan "B", to find a job again.

The truth, as I found out some months later, was that the president who I knew as a real wheeler-dealer from my time in Quebec, had conducted some rather involved affairs with another customer – putting unearned money his personal bank account. I probably knew too much for his likening at the time of me being fired.

He was swiftly walked out the door about six months later and, as far as I knew, never worked for anyone again.

This was on a Monday. Back to the trusty computer and my fax machine modem.

Tuesday was quiet.

Wednesday morning I got three calls, "come see us".

Two of the meetings were quickly dispatched with promises that...

“We’ll get back to you.”

I came to the third caller by lunch time and was hired as a consultant by 2 pm. I was to start my job by going to Edmonton on the next day, Thursday morning.

My task was to clean up the mess left by a previous sales manager. He had purchased four million dollars worth of non-certified and totally unsellable industrial valves.

The only place to offload them was to some less scrupulous industrial supply houses in USA.

I travelled wide and far in the next few months, and even started to see some of the stock go out the door. As a consultant, I was making really good money.

Then, a new Vice President was hired. We spoke briefly before I left for the next trip, by car, to USA.

A few days in, I got a call while in a customer’s office. Oh for the glory of cellphones.

I stepped to the side and was told:

“We have decided not to sell any more of the valves, they will be sent to scrap. You are to stop all sales efforts and will only be paid until the end of this telephone discussion. Come home now.

I was one full day’s worth of driving away from home. They didn’t pay for the mileage driving home.

My job career was really becoming shaky. My periods of employment were shorter and shorter and always seemed to end the same way – with an instant “go away”.

I drove home and told my wife. She was a strong woman, then as later, and said, “we can handle this”.

I had been spindled, folded and mutilated. – “And so it goes.”

Time to execute Plan "B", to find a job again.

500 more letters were sent out that same night.

The next day the phone rang. It was a local company that I had sent my fax résumé to some eight months earlier. The president and owner had not seen it then, but my new mailing had sparked his interest, he said.

I was soon hired and installed in yet another job. This was a solid company, I hoped, with some 140 persons in the shop.

I dove in to my new tasks with a gusto and we soon, within months, had so many orders on hand that we had to start planning for a plant extension. We added two plants and many employees in the next couple of years.

Then, a catastrophe struck.

The US based power plant construction boom of the last years came to a sudden halt. Thousands of people were laid off among our customers and suppliers.

“I am not worried, said the owner of the business. We have a good backlog and our customers love us.”

Love didn’t quite hack it when our customer firms were closing or laying of entire departments at one time.

We built out the backlog and started hurting. No more orders.

Finally, a big lay-off for us. I was told to go home and had a yellow slip, proving to EI that I was worthy of their support. I was laid off for “lack of work”.

No severance pay yet, though. There was none to come, the company declared bankruptcy one week after my departure and there was no money to be had.

This time my wife was not a strong woman any more. She didn’t say anything.

She didn’t know it then but she was only eight weeks from her death. I was free from work, applied for Unemployment Insurance and spent the next eight weeks by her side.

This was effectively the end of my working career, at age 63.

Sure, I had a few more stints as temporary employee or consultant, but nothing that led to any future for me.

What had happened to the proud Mechanical Engineer of year 1963?

I had certainly seen the world from above for a few years, travelled and worked in 28 countries and experienced a lot. The downwards slope of my career had been unstoppable. I emptied and put away my briefcase almost on the day 40 years after my graduation.

Had I changed the world? Had I improved the world?

I don’t know, all I know is that I had given my all for many, many years.

The total sum of my earned pension after all the years in business added up to one big zero despite of all the promises and pension plans that I had signed up for. They had a way of not materializing at the end. Fortunately, I had saved on my own.

Put it more succinctly: I had been spindled, folded and mutilated many times, but not lost my spirit.

“And so it goes."

Note: That last sentence is borrowed from the book "Slaughterhouse five”, a far worse story than mine, but with a somewhat similar unchangeable ultimate destiny.

-------------------------
If you want to read my memoirs, "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