Back To Shore

This was originally posted on my previous (now defunct) blog in August 2019.

Around the release of Frank’s new album, two wonderful fans – Sarah and Valerie – had the idea to honour the idea, the songs and the man behind it all, with a fan-project: find many more interesting, important, inspirational womxn or non-cis persons from history and share those stories. All essays can be found on the project’s website

Tales from Wo-Fan’s Land 

and you should definitely check them out, they are amazing. I contributed with an essay about Astrid Lindgren. I can’t really say what made me think of her, but it was such an interesting biography to delve into, so I thought I’d share what I wrote here as well and some of my German readers might learn something new about her too. There were so many more interesting details, but there also was a word limit for the essays 🙂

Astrid Lindgren (1907 – 2002)

Most people who have heard of ‘Pippi Longstocking’ – a red-haired, freckled, fiercely independent and anti-authoritarian girl – might also be familiar with the name of her creator: the children’s book author Astrid Lindgren. As long as I can remember I thought of Astrid Lindgren as a kind and gentle looking, elderly lady. I never really wondered what her life – which spanned almost the complete 20th century – might have been like until I recently read Jens Andersen’s biography „Astrid Lindgren – The Woman Behind Pippi Longstocking“. From which I learned that from an early age on Astrid had been a spirited, headstrong, fiercely independent woman. I learned that in the 1920s she became a young, unwed mother. During WWII she worked for the Swedish Secret Service. And in 1976 her satirical story „Pomperipossa in Monismania” brought down the long reigning Swedish government. For most of her long life Astrid Lindgren had been a female force to be reckoned with.

Astrid was born in November 1907 in the small town of Vimmerby in Southern Sweden.With 16 she started a small revolution, when – inspired by Margueritte’s revolutionary novel „La Garçonne“ – she was the first girl in town to cut her hair and to experiment with wearing men’s clothes. Already in school Astrid had shown a talent for writing and in 1924 she started as trainee with the local newspaper. She was on her way to a promising journalistic career when she got pregnant by her 50 year old, married boss Reinhold Blomberg in March 1926. To avoid harming Blomberg’s ongoing divorce case and to leave the small town gossip behind Astrid on her own accord moved to Stockholm to attend secretary school. When the divorce proceedings kept stalling, 19 year old Astrid had no other choice than to give birth abroad in Copenhagen (Denmark), which at that time was the only place she could do so anonymously. As long as her own future was uncertain she had to leave her son Lasse with a foster family in Copenhagen. By the time Blomberg’s divorce was finally settled Astrid had decided to end the relationship, because as she later in life stated „I knew what I wanted and didn’t want. I had wanted the child, but not the child’s father.“ For the next few years Astrid struggled to make ends meet as a young, single, working woman in Stockholm while also trying to save enough money to keep visiting her son in Copenhagen several times a year. Only after she married Sture Lindgren in 1931 she could finally bring Lasse back home with her, but the theme of abandonment and isolation can be found in many of the children’s stories she wrote throughout her career.

Astrid was a mostly stay-at-home mum until 1940, when she started working at the Swedish Secret Service. She couldn’t go into details about her „dirty job“ – as she called it – in the mail censorship department, but still included some information she gained in her diaries. Those were published under the title „A World Gone Mad“ for the first time in 2016 and are a fascinating account about the horrors of war as they could be experienced in neutral Sweden. It was around that time when Astrid started telling her daughter Karin (born in 1934) the story of Pippi Longstocking. In November 1945 the first Pippi Longstocking book was published and it was an instant success. Astrid quickly became one of the most successful Swedish authors, publishing several books and plays in quick succession and maintaining a strong media presence for decades. By the end of her career she had written 34 original books, which were translated in over 100 languages, had sold over 165 million copies and she was considered one of the most successful children book authors of all times.

Even in her late 60s, she kept writing children’s books, but then also became more outspoken about social or political issues. Due to some weird Swedish tax laws Astrid in 1976 incurred a marginal tax rate of 102% (!). She reacted by publishing the satirical story “Pomperipossa in Monismania” on the day of an important economics debate in parliament. The ensuing public uproar led to the Social-Democrats losing a crucial amount of votes in the general election later that year and thus ending their government after more than 40 years in power.

In 1978 Astrid Lindgren was awarded the German’s Booksellers Peace Price, where she held a wildly acclaimed speech – „Never Violence“ – condemning corporal punishment and any kind of oppressive method in child rearing. With this speech she once again influenced the public debate in her home country and in 1979 Sweden was the first state worldwide to prohibit any kind of violence towards children. Up until the 1990s, she kept making her voice heard for children, the environment and many more issues dear to her heart.

Astrid Lindgren died on 28th of January 2002. Her funeral on Women’s Day (8th March) was attended by the Royal Family, Government Officials and had hundred of thousands of people lining the Stockholm streets for her final journey and even more people watching on TV to say goodbye to the beloved author and one of the fiercest Swedish opinion-makers in the 20th century.

Sources:

„Astrid Lindgren – The Woman Behind Pippi Longstocking“ (Jens Andersen, published in English in 2018)
“A World Gone Mad – The Wartime Diaries of Astrid Lindgren“ (published in English in 2016) 
Astrid Lindgren Company Website 

Lyrics “One Foot Before the Other” – Frank Turner, 2011

While thinking about how to start this post I encountered a rare (for me) non-native English speaker dilemma. My first impulse is to call the activity I’m planning to write about “hiking”. That’s the verb I learned in school. When I started to travel to the UK for vacations as an adult I’ve realized in the UK they like to call the same activity “walking”. Which felt and to be honest still feels a bit weird. I walk to the bus stop. Or the shops. If I put on heavy boots, carry a backpack and take my trekking poles, I’m not going for a walk, am I? I’m going on a hike!

I got interested in hiking as activity a few years ago, when I started to be more mindful about being active, working out, fitness and such. I trekked up Ben Lomond in 2017 for crying out loud.

I’ve never been consistent with any fitness / being active routine though and I admit working out / running / hiking have been an on-off activity for me over the years. I’ve slowly come to just accept that and not beat myself up for every time I’ve fallen off the wagon. But instead applaud myself for every time I get back on.

Every once in a while, I have considered a proper hiking holiday on one of the many long-distance routes here or in the UK, even though I’m drawing the line at carrying my clothes and all my stuff in a backpack. I’m too high-maintenance for that and luggage transfer is expensive.

I did sort of start with the London Capital Ring Walk (126 km), because getting to the start and end point of a chosen stage is doable by public transport.

“Started” in the way that I did a first stage in June 2022. But even though I haven’t done another one the several times I have been to London since, I still haven’t given up on the idea of completing it. Bit by bit over the next few years.

A similar idea got stuck in my mind quite a while ago. I doubt I’d ever consider hiking the actual “Camino de Santiago” (Way of St. James) – the legendary hiking pilgrimage through northern Spain – to the tomb of St James in Cathedral in Santiago de Compostela. But over the last decades all over Europe historical pilgrimage routes which feed into the Camino have been re-established, with digital maps, proper way markers and all. One of them – the Westphalian route of “Jakobsweg” (Way of St. James in German) is passing through my federal state. 200 km from Osnabrück to Cologne. All these re-established pilgrim hiking routes come with recommended stages to do in one go. This one is supposed to take 11 days with an average daily hiking distance of ~ 18 km.

I won’t be doing that. I plan to do it bit by bit. Hopefully more consistently than the Capital Ring Walk in London. But in a similar way that I plan to mostly use public transport to get to a starting point and back home from an end point. Last weekend I’ve mapped out the first half of the stages: which train station to start and end by and how long it will take me to get there.

Even when I say public transport most of the first few trips will include a bit of a drive to a bigger train station. Because that means I’ll only have to switch trains once and not twice and thus lessen the risk of missing a train or a connection because the first train is late or cancelled or something.

Part 01: Osnabrück – Natrup-Hagen (~ 17 km)
Saturday, 14 September 2024

Time spent on the actual ‘Way’: ~ 6h 20 min
Complete distance walked that day: ~ 21 km

Even though I’m in well enough physical shape to walk 15 – 20 km a day, I had no idea how this first day would go. No idea how quick or slow I would be. Spoiler alert: I was / am slower than the “average” walking time I found on various website about this walk. Which was bothering me for a moment until I realized that I don’t have to give fuck about average. I will do this my way. And if that’s slower than others, so what? Others probably won’t take as many photos as me either.

In Osnabrück where this section of the “Way” stars it was a lovely walk (another 1.5 km to add to my tally) along the river and through mostly empty city centre streets – it was early Saturday morning!

Until I arrived at St. Peter’s Cathedral, which can be considered the official starting point of this pilgrimage route.

I guess back in the day, pilgrims started the walk / pilgrimage with attending mass inside. I did not. From now on I’d be looking for the sign of the yellow scallop shell on blue background. (There was one earlier, closer to the cathedral, but the marker didn’t look as nice).

All in all, the trail was well marked, even though I sometimes was overly cautious and impatient and instead of trusting that I was on the right way checked the digital track on my map way too often.

The path leads through the old city centre…

…and from then on for quite a bit through the city. Residential areas, the occasional park, but all in all not so photo-worthy to be honest. That only changed about half way through, when the suburbs finally turned into a more rural scenery.

I had started a bit too brisk in the city, but then managed to get into a good pace. Not too fast and the walk wasn’t too strenuous. Even after the half-way point I was still considering to walk further than originally planned and get to the next alternative train stop. Yes I had that alternative planned out as well. I’m a plan-for-all-contingencies kind of person. Especially when it became clear that I would reach the planned for train stop in the long afternoon lull between departures and might have to wait there for about an hour.

But between km 12 – 14 I realized pushing on would be a stupid idea, because my feet were getting tired. I also knew there’d be another 0.75 km back to my car at the end of the day and also some steeper sections after my originally planned final stop for the day. I did not trust my tired feet anymore to manage those without stumbling or worse.

At km 16 I was very glad that I had given up the plan to push on.

In the end I only spent about 30 minutes waiting for the next train and the rides home went mostly fine. The 2nd train managed to accumulate a delay of 17 minutes on a 53-minute ride though As if the German rail gods (demons? gnomes? Whoever is in charge of this mess these days) wanted to bring the day full circle.

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I did not really set out to do this as some kind of spiritual experience, though I did set out trying to be more mindful about what I was doing and most of all what I was thinking while I was on my way. Which might be a first step to a spiritual experience? I don’t know. I caught my mind quite often not being in the present moment, but rather ruminating about things past or daydreaming about stuff in the future. We all do that, I know. I sometimes feel / am afraid I do that more than is good for me. I don’t know. I’m working on it.

At least I managed to stay off all the socials / mails / anything digitally distracting – except WhatsApp – the whole day and even till this morning, so that’s a step in the right direction. Turns out: I did not really miss a thing. Go figure!

Now let’s plan when to go out next and what to pack that I had forgotten this first time: sunglasses, gloves, something to sit on…, that kind of things.

The following post was published on the predecessor of this blog on 12th September 2013 and was my long recap of my first ever Frank Turner gig, which took place a few days prior on Friday, 6th September 2013. To the day 11 (ELEVEN !!) years ago today. I did a proper appreciative, fangirl-y post on my 10th anniversary, last year.

The show on 6th September 2013 at the Aladin in Bremen was show #1447. Considering that show #3000 is already scheduled (and sold out!), means, that when February 2025 (show #3000) comes around, I will have been along for over half of the ride!! Not in gigs as such (obviously), but year wise. Blows my mind!

But credit where credit is due: I had already been pretty hooked on Frank’s music over the summer of 2013, but this first live experience was something to behold. Mind-blowing, Life-changing. Life-affirming. And a bit addictive. Obviously.

In about 6 weeks I will attend my show #70 and I can’t wait…

My First Frank Turner Concert…
(first published in September 2013)

So, the Frank Turner gig I went to on Friday? One of the best concerts I’ve been to in a loooooooooong time. A really, really long time. And yes, that’s probably due to the fact, that I really love Frank’s music and have been listening to his music almost constantly for weeks now. But also because Frank and the Sleeping Souls definitely know how to rock a venue. Any venue. I’m typing this while watching (with the headphones on, so I could turn up the volume) the Wembley Live DVD which I bought at the gig and it’s amazing to see it on my TV and not just via youtube clips on my computer or phone.

Last Friday was an insanely hot day for early September around here (30 °C and more) and I already felt like I was melting in the waiting line outside. When the doors opened I went to the bar first to get some water (not enough probably) and checked out the merchandise where I bought the DVD and the sticker set, because I really wanted a FTHC sticker for my car. I’m not getting tattooed, so a bumper sticker has to do it *g*

I managed to get a decent spot close enough to the stage for my taste and more important it was at the wall, so I could lean against it while we had to wait for the supporting acts to come on stage. Waiting and sweating and melting. It was so hot inside already and I wasn’t even moving but just standing there leaning against the wall. By the end of the show I was soaked in sweat like I had never been before, not after a long bike ride or any other kind of exhausting workout. Seriously. But it was all so worth it.

John Allen was the first supporting act and I really liked him. Just a guy with his guitar. Simple but quite impressive and a really nice guy. I bought his CD afterwards, because singer/songerwriters like him need all the support they can get in the castingshow-times like these. I follow him on twitter and instagram now and found proof that the story how he came to support Frank on this tour is quite true. He went to the Frank Turner gig in Hamburg in the spring and while his friends and him were waiting in the line outside he sang some songs to entertain them. Turns out Frank Turner noticed it and liked it and asked him if he wanted to support him on the next tour. Incredible and awesome, isn’t it?

The second supporting act, Lucero from Nashville, didn’t do anything for me, so… I’ll jump to the main act right away. Frank Turner and the Sleeping Souls came on stage around 21:45 and rocked the venue for the next 90 minutes. It was just soooooo  awesome. He started with “Four Little Words” and followed with “Try This At Home”, “If Ever I Stray” and “Reasons Not To Be An Idiot”. Or maybe it was in different order, but these songs were right at the start and the dancing and singing and shouting I did (and everyone around me) was just incredible.
I’m not sure about which song he played in which order after that and I’m not sure the setlists I found online are really reliable. But his set included a lot of my favourite songs (“The Road”, “Losing Days”) and also a lot of songs I like listening to as well (“Dan’s Song”, “Plain Sailing Weather”). He also did “Broken Piano”, which probably is my least favourite song from the new album, so that was song during which I could catch my breath 😉

He also did “Glory Hallelujah”, which I expected him to, but wasn’t sure how I’d react to, because it’s a song I’m feeling really ambivalent about. On the one hand, I think it’s a masterpiece of songwriting, music and lyrics wise: it’s catchy and Frank gets his point across. And I can actually enjoy listening to it, because I can appreciate the song’s musical qualities. On the other hand it’s the only song I don’t sing along to, or at least only to very few lines and never to the chorus. Why? Well, Frank Turner is an atheist and this song is his gospel-like anthem about it. The point (and the chorus) being “There is no God”.
I don’t consider myself a overly religious person, but I’m a member of the Catholic Church and well, I DO believe there is a God. And I’m usually not bothered by someone stating there isn’t, because to each their own and all, unless the point of believing or not believing is forced on someone. Anyway, not singing along to the song when it’s on my iPod is my compromise.
It’s quite another thing though to be in the crowd at a Frank Turner gig and hear almost everyone around you singing with all their hearts “There is no God”. It honestly was disconcerting and I felt really out of place. Which surprised me a lot, because as stated above, I don’t consider myself a very religious person. But I guess it’s ingrained deeper than I think. No idea how I will handle it at the Cologne show next week.

“I Still Believe”, the song that started my immense love for Frank Turner was one of the many highlights for me. I was sooooo looking forward to sing this song with the crowd and I wasn’t disappointed. Another great song was the German version of “Eulogy” and of course “Photosynthesis” at the end, even though I was so exhausted and sitting/kneeling down for a while to then jump up was not easy. At all. I was so glad I had the wall at my back to support me *g*
He also did “The Ballad of Me And My Friends”, as the first encore and it was done beautifully, just accompanied by Matt on the piano and a bit slower than the original song. Frank dedicated it to a friend in the music business in the US, who passed away a few days before and it was a wonderful tribute.

So, the music was amazing, but so was the man himself. His energy on stage is impressive and I don’t know how he does it for like 200 nights a year. He’s a beast and I mean that in the best and nicest way possible. He has injured his back some time ago and his doctors actually advised him to cancel all shows for the rest of the year, but in the end there was the compromise of doing the shows with a lot of physiotherapy before and after every gig and with Frank not being allowed to play his guitar. I’ve seen enough concert footage online to know that Frank without his guitar is almost unfathomable, because he is a singer/songwriter who started out with just him and his guitar travelling around England. So, Frank without guitar? Really weird. But he still rocked it and put his energy into dancing and jumping and all that, to an extent that I was worried about his back again. A lot actually.
Anyway, to me it was obvious that he often didn’t quite know what to do with his hands, when he couldn’t grab his guitar. He sometimes looked adorably dorky. I also mean that in the nicest way ever. And he himself made fun about it as well. Somewhere in the middle he talked about James Hetfield, lead singer/guitarist in Metallica who broke his arm before a tour and couldn’t play guitar with his arm in a cast and obviously also didn’t know what to do with his hands all the time. Frank said something like “I saw him on stage and thought he looked like an idiot. But now I’m probably looking just as stupid.” 😉

The end of the Wembley Arena show (still got the DVD on) reminded me of another nice thing about Frank Turner on stage. Just like at the Wembley gig (and probably at every show he plays) at the show in Bremen he introduced and thanked his band and crew during the last song and ended it with (quoting fom the DVD) “And last, but never least, the most important members of the band, without whom no show would be worth a damn. On backing vocals the people of [insert concert city]”
It’s just nice to be appreciated as vital part of the whole night and not just as the folks who paid for the gig, if you know what I mean. I’ve seen enough big names who thanked the audience a lot less empathetically, if they thanked them at all.

Soooo, yeah, one of the best gigs I’ve ever been to and I can’t wait for my encore in Cologne next Friday.