1. From early morning one by one the flags were going up in the neighbourhood. Large flags on substantial flag poles, small flags with birch leaves along the gates. Flags, flags everywhere. Methinks they take it seriously here.
2. You would feel at home on this day. The general fayre is sausages and ice cream as much as you feel like eating. Nothing else sausages and ice cream.
3. Shortly after 10 the drums were heard in the distance. Time to stand outside with the flag to wave, best clothes and a rosette, and horn. Up the road they came, marching, twirling their batons, the girls in the red dresses. All the children and most of the parents were dressed in national costume and those that were not had their best bib and tucker on.
4. The train, as it is called, was around a mile long. All along the way, the cries of hip, hip, horrah for 17 May.
5. Well what did we do after the procession had passed? Had an ice cream, of course.
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1 Yes, amongst all the recollections over the years has been the recollection of - the reading about - the separation of Norway from Sweden. Marshal Bernadotte, onetime Napoleon's chief of staff, who was absent from Waterloo, became King of Sweden in 1814, and so became King of Norway. A comfortable conclusion, I thought and still think, to what had been a successful military career.
2 It was on 17 May 1814 that the Norwegian constitution was established, and it is that date which is still (evidently) celebrated in Norway rather than the date of the separation.
3 You may have heard that the Norwegians ratified the selection of their own king, a young Danish prince. (That is, Norwegian adult men ratified the selection.) He was a long-reigning king, and he spent the war years in London together with the Norwegian government-in-exile.
3 So I'm sure you enjoyed the National Day. As ever, of course, I registered the existence of a National Costume. You know my thoughts, Watson.
4 Here, I recall a distressed mother. In the visiting room at Brook House, the detainee was looking over my shoulder; I could hear raised voices. Then a man came into vision as he strode towards the door and his block. As he reached the door, he had time and energy to say goodbye with the words @Fucking slut'. With one child in her arms and holding another by the hand she replied with a cheerful 'And you can fucking go back to where you came from@. The visits continued.
5 Later, I saw her outside the Visitors' Centre crying as she spoke into a mobile telephone whilst pushing the pushchair backwards and forwards and keeping an eye on the walking, moving, indifferent to danger elder child. I wonder about her journey home, about her relationship, about her condition. An encounter.
6 I wonder if they have detention centres in Norway.
7 What about your access to the BBC radio, to news, to other people. Perhaps the National Day should also be a day on which people say Hello to people they haven't yet met?
Stayathome.
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