BETWEEN TWO COUNTRIES

Belonged to the seamen who also travelled upstairs….from the steering-wheel of the ship I had good sight over the action, in nights exciting, ...when every command was to be exactly executed, ...when we were only meters from another ship. The icebreaker was able to “cut” loose civilian ships in the ice, by leaning action. The only light we had was from the ships, if the weather was bad.

Sometimes we “parked” in the ice, waiting for civilians, only visible on radar. If the weather was good and calm, moonlight and stars, ...it was like we had landed on another planet. In every direction the landscape was like “on the moon”,... iceblocks so far the eye could see. This could be in the middle, between Sweden and Finland.

Sometimes we had to tow another ship,… if the wire got cut, it was not the “normally” little snap…., it happened with blue lightning.

......Already the years before, while playing in dancehalls, I had decided to take up some more guitar study, classical guitar, play “with fingers”, be better on sight-reading and so on. The reading was no attitude problem for me, because I always wanted that, to know how the structures, signs and systems worked together.
At earlier age I thought that all the secrets how the music may sound were in the text…., my first books I bought as a kid with own money, was two Chuck Berry books…..,(pianoarrangements mainly)
I thought if I exercise hard from the books,... I shall sound like on the records….., tunes like “Sweet Little Rock and Roller”, “Little Queenie”, “Carol”, “Bye Bye Johnny” and many more.
I found at the age of thirteen my own method; how to “read faster”,… by giving the notes some special signs…., like triangles…. Sometimes I see the same behaviour among young pupils today, it´s inventive, what could I say...

When spring came, normally but finally, the ship went back to Stockholm. During the last period and the years after to come I was several times also in Helsinki. The last picture may symbolize these tours, it´s innocent, just friendly.

In the mid-seventies I was not really sure of which country was for my future and I still wanted to develop in music.