My Dad’s Stories: A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

Langeland where I was born has been described by romantic women as the ‘Rose in the Sea’.

Editor/Daughter’s Note: When my dad was in his 80s he wrote up his memories of his life, which he illustrated with photos and paintings. His Journal of Memories starts in Langeland, Denmark, where he was born in 1921. Below is a portion of his ‘Author’s Note’.

Author’s Note.

Because I am not a very good typist or too good at English grammar I have chosen to heavily illustrate this book. As the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words. I figure each picture equals two pages of text so the text I did use is short and to the point.

Editor/Daughter’s Note: Unfortunately most of the photos he used with this story were photos of photos from his cousin Birgit’s photo album, and quite blurry.

When photos were not available I have painted watercolour scenes which I can do faster than I can type two pages of text which constitute about 1000 words.

Editor/Daughter’s Note: His first story is mostly illustrated with these blurry photos. Based on it I have made a list of images I would like to take if I should happen to go to Denmark; telling his story with photos.

‘Langeland where I was born has been described by romantic women as the ‘Rose in the Sea’.’
‘pikes in the ponds and also eels, considered a delicacy all throughout Denmark’
Ristinge Klint: ‘The klints (cliffs) had many kinds of flint in various colours, a big trade item in the stone age’
King Humble’s grave
‘the southern tip of Langeland is Bagenkop village where for miles the beaches are made up of perfectly rounded stones’
‘one thousand Hat Hills’

The painting at the beginning of this post is the only one he did for this particular story. I suppose that hill in the background is a ‘Hat Hill’. That’s dad upstairs in the loft of Rasmus and Matilda’s home reading their ‘treasure trove of books’ – he usually painted himself with a red hat on which is how I know that it’s him.