Norvege: dix points
February 2, 2010
The novelist Thomas Wolfe famously said “You can’t go home again.” Only I just did. From the ages of 9 to 13 I lived in Oslo, and last weekend I went back to the city for the first time since we moved away.
We lived in the hilly northwest suburb of Holmen, in a newbuilt house at the top of a steep cul-de-sac. It was an upside down house with open plan reception space on the upper level and a wraparound balcony looking out onto the Oslo fjord; both groovy and modern concepts in the early 70s. Behind the house was virgin forest, bursting with wild blueberries and populated with elk, which would wander down into our garden and munch on the bark of the silver birch trees. At the bottom of the road a bus stopped every morning and picked up my brothers and me, delivering us about twenty minutes later to Oslo’s only international school. At break time we were served delicious cocoa from an urn, and then hopped out of the classroom window and tobogganed straight down a snowy bank into the playground.
A weekends we would get together with family friends and have huge ski-ing or skating parties, or my father and I would hike up the hill, armed with one thermos of soup and another of whisky-laced coffee, and watch the ski-jumping at Holmenkollen. Christmas brought a round of glamorous embassy parties, prayers with the royal family in the king’s private chapel and presents specially shipped out from Hamleys. Summer weekends were about barbecuing and boating on the fjord, or heading up north to the lakes near Lillehammer where we built a raft from logs and sailed it on the icy water. Do I hear you say “idyllic childhood”? It most certainly was.
Oslo now has a metro system, and Holmen is about 10 minutes along the line that heads west. In London that wouldn’t get you past Notting Hill, but Oslo is such a small city that 10 minutes take you into a snowy wasteland, barely penetrable by car. I’d looked up my old address on Google Maps, but once I got off the train everything was just a blur of white punctuated with wooden houses. It was several degrees colder than in the city and the snow was so deep there was no sense of road, let alone pavement. And it was utterly silent with the muffled hush that snow brings. All of which was deeply disorientating. I trudged in what I hoped was the right direction, looking for familiar landmarks, but didn’t recognise anything. My hands were so cold, even with gloves, that I was about to turn back and head for the station when I realised I was standing at the foot of the cul-de-sac. Two children with sledges were sliding down it, just as my brothers and I used to. And there it was.
As I walked towards it, I felt a huge lump in my throat and tears pricking in my eyes. Some of the forest has been cleared to make way for apartment blocks, but otherwise it’s exactly the same. Even the name on our neighbours’ mailbox. They had a lovely golden retriever and a hot teenage son who was my first pre-pubescent crush. Only he’ll be a pot-bellied, balding 50 year old now.
The tears were happy tears. I had been happy living in Norway, and to me it was simply…home. But could I live there now? Absolutely not. Three and a half decades stand between me and that version of myself; years filled with marriage, motherhood, divorce, the life of a working single parent, triumphs and disasters in both career and personal life. I am not the same. And that was exactly what Thomas Wolfe meant. I could go back to the house where I lived as a child, but I could never return to the home of my idyllic childhood.
Beautifully written. A picture made with words
Gosh, I am so envious. From the ages of 9 until 13 I was being continually chastised by nuns for forgetting to wear my beret/talking in the line for Confession/God only knows (He probably does).
Beautifully written post. There was a stunning girl at St Andrews, called Inez, who tempted me and then DH did a stint with 4/5 Commando and raved about the skiing. I’m still in Scotland… one day.
Heartbreakingly true as I raise 3 girls. A poignant, piercing post.
L. P. Hartley wrote: “The Past is a different country; they do things differently there”. Your poignant and interesting blog proves this axiom. Yet one is almost doomed to ignore the message in Hartley’s words. The desire to physically return remains so strong, that sooner or later, the trip must be made. No matter how many homilies are delivered on leaving the past in the past, we are almost inevitably drawn to it. For good or bad, that reunion awaits. How many times have we rehearsed it in our heads, dreamt about it, and looked forward to that moment? Pain and pleasure can become almost inseparable as we re-discover old haunts and memories become actuality. My experience was far less emotional, but no less instructional.
Not long before my father’s sudden death in the early summer of 1997, we planned to drive to a Suffolk coastal town for a special holiday. Special in that it might be the last holiday he ever had, and special in that it had been the scene of many happy family holidays during the 1970s. There were other coastal holidays after 1977, but here we had owned a small holiday house. My parents separated and divorced in the late 1980s, my ailing father living alone. His sudden death in May of 1997 meant that the planned break was cancelled. I was living and working in London at the time, and soon the whole idea was abandoned; maybe forever. As the years went by, I often wondered about the town, if the house was still there and intact; how I would feel walking along the same promenade, beach, dunes, common-land, and coastal footpaths. Each year, the curiosity grew, as the sadness and frustration of my father’s death lessened.
Finally, this April, almost on a whim, I decided to go. It was the work of a few moments to book a hotel on-line, although initially I could only find one deep inland. This would break the journey at 150 miles, if nothing else. I don’t normally sleep well in hotels, but this one was wonderfully quiet, being away from the main road. However, all that was yet to come, as I drove from my Cotswold base via the Oxfordshire villages of my youth. The heavy snows were now a distant memory, as the fresh green of spring brought life to the countryside. Each village reminded me of something: the one my parents nearly moved to; the one my rebellious friend lived in, the one in which I did my voluntary service, the one with the famous brewery. Finally I drove past the school, so familiar, yet now filled-out with new buildings and facilities.
I drove down the village high street, past the passageway where I saw the first great love of my life walk away forever. A girl I literally dreamt for years about finding again: her hugs and kisses, special friendship and happy-go-lucky spirit. Now she is married in a Midlands town, and probably a different person altogether. So much for ‘Friends Reunited’, I thought. The cricket pitch and pavilion remained the same, but the pupils would not have been even a twinkle in their parents’ eyes when I left in 1986. Bemused, I drove on, and thus began a long ‘A’ road journey via Banbury, Buckingham, Bedford, Cambridge, and Newmarket. I recognized little of the route, even though I knew it was basically the same one that my parents had driven in the ‘70s. Refreshed by the amazingly quiet stay in Bury St. Edmunds, I began the final leg of the journey next morning.
Nothing seemed familiar, but finally I recognized the same tidal river which had excited me as a child. Spotting the famous Southwold lighthouse on the horizon, my anticipation grew. Entering the town from the north end, the grey-green mass of sea stretched out before me to the cloudy sky. The road wound round, every parking space taken, leading me into the town itself. And there was the old market-place, Georgian hotels, pubs and compact shops. The town was even smaller than memory served, with a few new houses in sight. Very little had changed, beyond the modern shop fittings and cash-points. By a strange coincidence, the only parking space was opposite a hotel we’d known well during the ‘70s. On enquiry in person, a room was available. The old building had lost none of its charm, the accommodation being light and gracious. I lost no time in exploring the town and medieval church; and as the tide slowly slid out, the long beach. At this stage of the year, it was almost deserted. My memories tried to fill the space, but remained trapped within photo albums. I was back after 32 years, but could make no tangible connection. Even the long-remembered rows of ridiculously priced beach huts seemed almost unreal. The sea swelled and sighed, hazy sunshine filtered through the clouds; but the terns and snipes were absent. Only touching the 18th century cannons on ‘Gun Hill’ briefly broke my weird sense of disconnection. And yet, the strangest part was visiting the former family holiday home.
The newsagent at the end had become part of a house again, and the butchers next-door an estate agent. I turned around to look past Georgian cottages towards the back of the close. The once black driveway had become pale grey and was almost gravel on top. The ‘cottage’ is a neat, semi-detached house built in about 1971. Creeper covered the wall next to our garage, white paint flaking off below the roofline. A trellis fence hid the lower half of the identical house next door, the original occupant probably being deceased now. A notice next to our garage door informed me that this holiday cottage was now for let, just like its neighbour. Looking over the still familiar white gate, the terrace and porch brought back fleeting memories. The house doors and windows had been replaced, as had the roof tiles; but no curtains framed the glass. I remembered standing on the small veranda as a child, fascinated by the view across the older houses. A row of ‘wheelie’ bins and stack of plastic chairs announced the now utilitarian mode of the terrace. I could remember climbing into the family car that August day, not knowing that it was the last time we would be there. Now I was back, but it was 2010 and I felt little nostalgia. Nobody really lived in these houses anymore, except a seasonal stream of holiday-makers from all over the British Isles. Maybe Gordon Brown had been one of them? It was a sobering thought.
After returning to my hotel for tea and a rest, I went for the first of a series of beach walks. The sand was fine and pale-gold, contrasting with the huge numbers of pebbles which covered the beach in the 1970s. Mercifully, no military jets screamed over as they had done (sometimes daily) back then. In the far distance, a nuclear power station sat like a giant golf ball, but I turned off through the dunes and across the common. The municipal water-tower still stood in the centre, over-looking groups of gorse bushes and a golf course. The sun had broken through now, making the bright yellow gorse flowers shine. Vague memories stirred, but I felt almost on another planet. Maybe I should have planted a flag: “Confused 42 year-old landed here for all too brief stay, April 2010 A.D.”. In the evening, I walked northwards, beyond the now renovated pier, until the tide made me turn back. Again, I slept soundly that night.
It was gloriously sunny next morning, and I walked along the centre of the beach again. The freshness of the scene did remind me of walking down as a child with my brother. But already my mind was filling with map-routes, and I said goodbye to Southwold before mid-day. What was missing were people: parents with children, dogs with their owners, retired folk, couples, parties, friends enjoying the beach. Only they can give real life to a place, and to holiday memories. I will return.