Amongst islets and islands 112

When I studied in the evening school I had no problems to find a work during the summer vacations. Many summers I worked as a caretaker, moved the lawn and cut the hedges, raked the walks and filled the garbage and such things. But one summer I spent with another work. The girl who was my fiancée this time liked the sea very much, her father had a marvelous summer house with view of the sea on the west coast en Hamburgsund and she even was preparing for the masters certificate. Yes, she liked the sea very much. One day, reading the newspaper she found an announcement where they looked for workers on a small shipyard on the east coast. “Please”, she asked me, “apply for this work, in this way I can visit you in the weekends”. I did so and they offered me the employment. To reach the work it was necessary to go by boat, (today there is a bridge) of course the work was on an island, Högmarsö. In Sweden we´ve got a special type of boats that frequent theese routes between the islands on the east coast, Waxholm boats (a photo here) and the boat I went with was called Hugin (the name comes from one of Odins ravens in the Swedish mythology). And in this way began my carrier as a roast scraper in the company Hufvudstaden on the island Högmarsö. We were four or five workmen on the shipyard named Furusund. Three of us were students, I in the evening school and the others in the university. The boss was called Adolf and he had two brothers, twins, who worked there. There was man, Kalle, too who worked there. After some time came an American deserter, Jon, who couldn´t speak Swedish and Adolf made him my protégé because I could speak English. For me it was goldmine to be workmate with and almost teacher for an English speaking person and this founded my good knowledge of English. Of course, there was Sundman, who was 69 years and who run like a monkey among the boats in the shipyard (his last name means man from the bay, a typical name in the archipelago on the east coast). We lived in old yellow houses from the time when the activity flourished on the shipyard, but when we lived there they were flaked off, lacking paint and with chimneys that smoked in. I had a flat with one room and kitchen while Runo who was the tenants aristocrat had a flat with two rooms and a kitchen. And the work, in what consisted the work? Most of the time we raked rost from barges and ferries that belonged to the company. First we brought them up on the slips and fixed them. After that we raked and cleaned the interior and in the barges and ferries we also painted the walls with a tint that smelled awfully and that probably wouldn´t have passed the directions for industrial welfare safety. And sometimes we took a break. Then it was like this. If the boss came, he´d notice that we didn´t work, then, his brothers and Kalle began working. Runo, the deserter and I went on taking a break, quite simply because we were tired. Adolf didn´t like this because he was used to have a labour force that obeyed every hint from him. And his glass eye almost looked at us… Every time when Runo and I had finished a job, we went to Adolf and asked him if he had another job for us. And of course there were jobs, but almost every time we asked him he said something in this way: “Well, you can always rake roast on Marina (a boat), there´ll be nothing done anyway I guess”. He was something of a boss, Adolf, because we worked more than the others. But we didn´t begin work only because Adolf appeared. But the evenings…. The Swedish summer is very light and the twilight is late. We used to go fishing in the big boathouses round the shipyard, extended on the bridges with the fishing-line in the hand, without rod, staring in the green water, with a sight of four meters to the bottom, we saw giant perches. And they bit, yes the bit, with the worms we had picked with the mosquitos flying around our heads it was impossible not to bite. We fried the perches in the old frying-pan that belonged to every flat. With potatoes and butter they gave very delicious meals. Kalle had an old fishing boat that he had tied at a distance from the shipyard. The boat made water and every day after work Kalle, and sometimes together with us, had to empty the water in the boat. Kalle had great expectations for the future. In the English Channel there are many wrecked ships. With the trawler and some education how to dive, it wouldn´t be so difficult to take up the richness from the wrecks and if I helped him he´d share the richness half and half with me… For him this was completely true y he felt offended when Runo, who had a more sober view of life, teased him for it. When Runo and I meet now and then we use to speak a lot about Kalle and his dreams to be rich taking up wrecks of the English Channel. Yes, I think this was the summer of my life. My wife says that from the way we speak about this period you may think it was about years of work. But it deals with a month and a half. There happened many things and everything was very intensive. I live it over again when we take trips with the ferry to Åland. From it it´s possible to see the island Högmarsö. At one occasion when we were travelling my wife said to me: “Why don´t we take a trip to the island, so I can know what you and Runo are talking about?” Yes, and so we did. We met a woman who could tell us interesting things. Her daughter for instance, who live in Canada, comes every year to open the shop there. The rest of the year there is no shop and people have to by their articles and food in other places. But today there is a bridge and it´s easier. She told us that Adolf, the boss, had died that spring, very, very old. She also told us that the houses where we lived were pulled down. In the shipyard we met Tomas, a man who made even me feel small (and I´m 189 tall). He told us that the shipyard is private own now and it´s a little company where people can hire a place and fix their boats. He gave us some minutes to show the boats they had there. He liked very much Adolfs device “You can always….” and he liked to reintroduce it on the shipyard. And we went home and the dreams from a time so distant fell back in the mind and everything was as it was before. Here are some photos from the trip.