Denna del är bara tillgänglig på engelska.
Previous Farm stories
Farm story 19: Youth and childhood
Back in 1952 Olle’s teacher set her class of thirteen-year-olds a homework – to draw their family tree. She must have known that the majority would co...
Farm story 18: The power and the glory
When I came to Sweden in the 1980’s it came as a surprise when I discovered that established religion in the form of the Lutheran Church of Sweden wa...
Farm story 17: The blockade runners and other heroes.
Unlike the UK, Swedish towns and cities have no war memorials to fallen servicemen . Sweden adopted a position of neutrality in 1815 at the end of the...
Farm story 16: Watching the clock
Olof Johansson, Olle’s paternal grandfather, was born in 1844 and died in 1925 and so lived at a time of enormous social change and economic expansio...
Farm story 15: Women's work
When I arrived on the farm in the 1980’s I remember my surprise when I opened a large wooden chest to find no fewer than 58 linen handtowels! All were...
Farm story 14: Adolf, Gustav, Edward and George
On one of the bookshelves upstairs is a little little brown clip file, a stamp album, 20 by 22 cm, 3 cm thick, with about 40 loose leaves on which sta...
Farm story 13: A death and a disappearance
It was passionate anger which lay behind a well-known 18th century crime, where the victim of an attack, Per Willomsson Brems of Toftenäs on Tjörn, lo...
Farm story 12: Sleeping Beauty
I cannot imagine how life would have been for me if I’d been born on Tjörn at a time when the worth of a woman was judged according to the neatness o...
Farm story 11: Maps, Mesolithic remains and a holly tree
My husband Olle owned not only the couple of fertile fields near the farmhouse but also several small pockets of land scattered over a largish area. C...
Farm story 10: For housewives unused to cooking.
Despite our shared love of junk food and international cuisine, there are still differences between the Swedish and the British diets. Swedes eat more...
Farm story 9: Public signs of private grief
Even the most unlikely places can be settings for terrible events. When people come out to our farm on Tjörn from the city they often remark on its qu...
Farm story 8: The sea chest, the princess and Bruce Springsteen
As proof of the family’s maritime connections, there are two seamen’s chests in the farmhouse. Both chests show signs of age and are more likely to be...
Farm story 7: Who was BRD?
On Tjörn in the 19th century and before, getting around the island was difficult. Fishermen and seamen would venture long distances when they had to a...
Farm story 6: Death in the fog
When I drive out to the farm from my flat on the outskirts of Gothenburg I head north. After 21 kilometres, and nearing the ancient town of Kungälv, I...
Farm story 5: Law book> autograph album > sketch book
When I first came to the farm, the only book I found which wasn’t a bible or book of psalms was, Laws of the Kingdom of Sweden with Punishments in For...
Farm story 4: Vases, Vikings and viragoes
Two years after I discovered the history of my Baltasound vases (Farm Story 3), I acquired another pair. I inherited them from my sister-in-law Anna w...
Farm story 3: The Mystery of Baltasound
When I married Olle in the 1980’s I came across all sorts of items on the farm on Tjörn that I wasn’t used to in England – an electric coffee maker, w...
Farm story 2. The family
In 1937 Olle’s father Johan paid a professional photographer to take a photo of him and his family, standing proudly in front of the new farmhouse he ...
Farm story 1: the farmhouse
The island of Tjörn is part of the province of Bohuslän, which extends from Norway in the north to the old town of Kungälv around 150 km to the south....
