Sven Nielsen Biography
This is a picture of me when I was 16, yes I did have hair then, but somehow most of it disappeared later in life, it all started when I was born, which was a mistake, although my farther never admitted it, he had 10 children, and he couldn’t even afford one, he was very clever, and an extremely good craftsman, he could made anything with his hands, but he had no ideas how to convert it into money, and the result was, that we were extremely poor.
Our house had no indoor toilet, you had to go outside and use a privy, one of those things with a heart cut out in the door, for paper it had an old telephone book cut in half, conveniently hanging on a rusty nail, it was not a place you would look forward to visit, full of flies in the summer, and freezing cool in the winter, not to mention the aroma, so when you were sleeping comfortable under the blanket during a snowstorm, it would have to be quite an emergency, before you would light a candle, and venture out there.
The kitchen had a sink with cool running water, it was the only place to wash in the morning, no easy task with 12 persons getting up at the same time, we all shared the same towel, it was wet, when it reached the last person, we had no hot water at all in the house, but once a week, we would go to the community bath house for a hot shower, here a lady wearing a white smog, would wash us, wearing nothing, on the back with harsh wood chippings and soap then hand us a white dry towel, what a luxury.
Breakfast made on an old wood burning stove, consisted of hot oatmeal with milk and coffee, we never had orange juice, in the garden there was a fenced in area with a few chicken and a roster, that woke us up at dawn every morning, they produced an average of five eggs a day, which were traded at the local grocer, to help paying for food, once in a while my farther would catch one of the chicken, and chop the head off with an axe, I remember on one occasion, a chicken would run around the pen twice, headless, before it collapsed, my mother would then pluck the feathers by hand, it was an unpleasant job, but she never complained, with 12 persons sharing the poor chicken, I would be lucky to get a wing or half of the neck, my brother Erhard had some rabbit in the yard as pets, and occasionally one of them would end up on the dining table.
It was so cool where I slept up stairs, that on some mornings there would be a thick layer of ice on top of the blanket from my breathing, the temperature in the room at times would go well below zero degree Celsius, we would then heat up a large stone on the stove, wrap it in newspapers, and put it in bed an hour before retiring.
When we turned 6 we had to enrol in public school, and since we lived in the outskirt of town, that was a two km, walk, the hours were from 8 to 12, then home for lunch and back again from 2 to 5, it added up to 8 km. a day, no school bus or crossing guards in those days, the reason for the two hour lunch is that in Denmark it is custom to have the largest meal in the middle of the day, and a lighter one at dinner time, for lunch my mother would cook 10 pounds of potatoes, a piece of pork with mostly fat, and some gravy.
I had 7 brothers and 2 sisters, there was never any money for clothes, at school we were ridiculed by the other kids, for our poor appearance I had long black stockings with holes from wear, and worn out shorts, we were the only ones in the whole school, who didn’t have long trousers in the winter, I didn’t get my first pair before I was 14, and that was a pair my brother Villy had worn for years, soles on my shoes had big holes, so water and snow would leak in to what was left of my stockings, I newer had a jacket or wind breaker before I reached 16, only a worn out sweater with holes to keep me warm.
As kids we never got any alowrence, like they do nowadays, so one day I figure out how to make money, I would go up to a stranger in my wooden shoes and look at him with sad eyes and say could you please give me some money for food? I am hungry! how can any one refuse a five year old child begging for food?, it worked very well until one of them asked who I was, and subsequently phoned and told my farther, who got mad and told me “how can you put the family to shame like that, don’t ever do that again” that was the end of my first business adventure.
The teachers in school were very strict, once we got a new teacher, he spent the whole first hour, telling us how cruel he was, he showed us an ear he claimed to have pulled off a misbehaving boy, and he smashed a thin bamboo rod on his desk, and screamed in a loud voice, promising he would use it on anyone who got out off line, we all sat very still and frightening, he got the respect he was looking for.
Out in the garden we had an old worn out Ford T, the motor was taken up to our summer cottage at the North Sea, it was used to charge a battery, so we could have electric light there, the rear axle was buried in the garden, with one wheel sticking up, and my brother Erhard had mounted a heavy board on it with a chair in each end, it served as a homemade carrousel, much to the delight of the kids in the neighbourhood, the cabin from the car complete with seats and curtains was used as a romantic getaway, and provided delightful privacy.
Also in the garden was a trapeze, on which we would spend many hours doing acrobatic exercises, and some of us became quite proficient at it, the radiator from the car was buried 6 feet down with a cable attached to it, I used that for ground wire for my homemade crystal radio set, the garbage was buried in the garden, but we didn’t have much of that, since any paper or cardboard would be burned in the stove, and organic mater would be feed to the chickens, my mother would keep the old used coffee ground, dry it, then roast in a hot pan, and use it again. As a child we could do just about anything we wanted, there was nobody to discipline us, with the result that we could stay out as long as we wanted, and we did, my father said “they will come home when they get hungry”, he was right, so we learned to set our own limits, occasionally we would go too far though, like when we used a long thin stick, put clay beat on the end, then swing it like a whip and sent the clay towards anything that moved, with high speed, one day we hit a conductor on the train, and shortly after two huge policemen came to our house, and told us in no uncertain terms, we were not to do that again, the railroad was passing just next to our house, we had fun putting small object on the track, like a penny or a small stone, then watch the train ran over them, we were careful though not to send the train off the tracks, one winter morning we decided to go skiing, but were late getting to the station, so we flagged down the train just outside the house, and to our surprise they stopped and let us on.
One day at the age of 5, I vent into town and walked around, in the window of a jeweller store I saw a lady’s gold watch with a price attached that read 25. - I vent in and said I would like to buy that watch in the window, the saleslady said ok but did I have the money? I said yes and handed her a quarter, she looked at me with a smile and said that it was 25 dollars, no 25 cents; the owner came over and asked what do you want the watch for? I said “my mother” he then said you can’t buy it for 25 cents, I started to cry and they looked at each other, I could see they were touched, but I didn’t get the watch.
In Denmark there is one day a year “Halloween” where people customary do funny pranks, and one night we took the neighbours latrine pail and hoisted it up to the top of his flagpole, then watched him taken it down the next morning, before he put the flag up, we all had a good laugh, as we were hiding behind the bushes. At night a man would walk along our street, with a long fishing pole with a hock at the end, and reach up to turn on the gas light on each pole, and then come back in the morning to turn it off again.
At home we had a huge table in the dining room, where all sort of activities would go on in between meal times, one person would be cutting wood with a cooping saw, another sewing, one painting a picture, one making a model airplane, Carl Henry was into explosive, he would be grinding carbon powder, and sulphur, I would be working building a radio, and someone else would be writing a letter, so if a visitor was dropping in he would be fascinated with all the enterprising going on, once the carbon and sulphur exploded at the table, and my brother burned all the skin of his right hand.
We had gas installed in the house in 1925, the installer asked, my mother if she wanted to pay by monthly bill, or have a coin box, where every time she put a quarter in, the gas would run for a certain time, she choose the coin box, and one day when the gas stopped running, my brother Erhard figured a way he could empty the box, and use the quarters all over again, that worked very well, until one Christmas month where we had hardly used any gas, an inspector came out to check, but we told him that we had been away, so he excepted that, and subsequently we made sure we had used a reasonable amount of gas each month, also we had partly free water and electricity, Erhard knew how to bypass the meters.
With so many people living together there wasn’t much privacy, one day when I put a speaker on the telephone, so everybody could hear what was said, there were a lot of complaint, so I had to remove it, another time I installed the horn from the old Ford on the front door, so when anybody rang the bell they would get a blast right in their face, it was lots of fun but my farther disagreed after a visitor got frightened, and fell of the steps, so I had to dismantle it.
In 1915 my farther built a windmill in the garden, he made a generator from scratch, made a wood model for the magnet and had it cast in iron, made an armature, the mill would turn, to produce electricity, which in turn would charge a lead acid battery, and supply light in the house, 10 years before the town got hydro, he was extremely good at shooting, was number one in a local riffle shooting club, when there was a carnival in town, he would go to the shooting gallery, and shoot, the first shot he would see how much the gun was off target, then compensate and consistently hit bulls eye, collect all the first prizes with lots of applause from the crow around, until he was refused to enter, In 1921 he build radios to order, that was before they were available in stores, he would make most of the parts him self, and put it together in a fancy mahogany case, he would make in his cabinet shop,
My farther wanted to have a cottage, he got a piece of land from a farmer at the north sea, it was not of any value as farmland, so he acquired it for next to nothing, it was before summer cottages became popular, he then collected sand from the beach, and in some spots gravel was available for free, loaded up his old Ford T, then mix the sand and gravel with a little cement for the foundation, the doors and windows would be made up in his shop so it hardly cost him anything, the cottage was finished in 1922, and became very popular with the family, they would come all the way from Copenhagen, so at times it would be crowded to say the least, I remember one night the 3 smallest of us would sleep in a dresser, one in each drawer pulled out slightly so we could breathe, some were put up in the attic, and others in a tent outside, but we had fun, every morning we would go for a long trips along the beach, looking for things the wind would blow in like pieces of amber or coloured glass bolls from fishing nets, we had 2 months vacation every year from school, but we always took an additional month off, enjoying the summer, it was a very healthy life, to go around barefooted in the sand, and indeed we never did get sick.
Towards the end of my school year at age 13, I was invited to a home party with one of my classmates, the whole class was there, first we had hot chocolate with cake, then each boy had to go into another room with a girl, the room was totally dark, I asked the girl, when it was my turn, what are we supposed to do? She answered, you have to kiss me you dummy, and I said why? She said that is the rule, so I kissed her, but it didn’t do much for me, it was a new experience though, there was another girl “Irma” she was a younger, sister to the one holding the party, and we got along fine, we started to date on a regular base, until she ran away from home and joined a traveling circus.
When I got out of school at age 13, I had to start working for my farther in his workshop, my salary was 7 cents a week, from that I had to clothe my self, no money for movies or any luxury whatsoever, the first thing I bought was one of those toy trains with a spring you wind up; which would make it run for about a minute on a track in a circle, I had wanted that for years, and now I finally got it; after putting it together, and watched it run a short while, I realized it was too late, I had grown too old, brought it back to the store and got a refund, but it thought me a valuable lesson, don’t wait too long when you want to do something, do it now!
I had to work 48 hours a week, mostly delivering furniture on a heavy push cart, it was slow pushing and not very popular with the cars who had to slow down to 4 km. an hour, one day when it was really cool, Harry and I pushed the cart out on the frozen salt water fjord, and all the way out under the bridge, it was absolute crazy of us, we could have lost the cart, not to mention drowned, but we were young, and it seemed to be the right thing to do at the time.
In the shop it was very dusty, I was allergic to mahogany dust, it bothered me a lot, I disliked the work, my interest was in electronics, but I had no way to escape, once I was to deliver 2 antic chairs to a customer, I had them on my shoulder, riding a bike, when I lost my balance and they hit the pavement scattering to pieces, I was afraid my farther would kill me, so I took the chairs to a furniture shop and asked them to fix them, but the manager said no and told me to take them back, when I got back my farther didn’t say a word, apparently the manager had phoned him, and told him off, that they were too heavy for me to deliver on a bike.
I joined a boy scout group at age 14, it was new to me, I wasn’t use to socialite with anybody, the first trip was to a town a 100 km. Away, we went by train, about 20 boys and we assembled on the town square, here we stood in a line, and local parents would come to look at us discussing loudly what they thought, if they saw one they liked they would take him home for the weekend, after half an hour we were only 3 left, with sour faces for have been rejected, fortunately they had arranged a solution for that, the minister of a church bailed us out and took us to his residence, next to the church, with a hot fireplace going, we were served a delicious turkey dinner, played games and, enjoyed the weekend
On Sundays we would go fishing, get up at 4 am, and bike 40 km. then fish for hours, we would usually get a few pounds of pike, which we would sell to a local delicates store for a few pennies, my brother Villy had a special talent for catching salmons, he would walk into the river and catch them with his bare hands, by gently tickling them on the belly, slowly moving his hands towards the gels, and then grasp them, the butcher shops at that time had sawdust on the floor, to prevent the customers from falling, but that was outlawed in 1930, by the health department.
We all made our own skies and bindings, to bend the wood we steamed it, and put it in a press until it cooled off, Harry also made a sled with the steering wheel from the old ford, 50 years later some thing similar came on the market, Carl Henry made a motor scooter on a wooden board with an old Harley Davidson motor, another hobby we had was to make model airplanes, they always caught a lot of attention, once we were flying them a few cars had parked to watch and my plane flew into the front side window of one and smashed it, another time when everybody was watching except one person who was looking the other way, my plane hit him in the back of his head, he stumbled around in a daze, not knowing what hit him.