The barrack. I lived on the other side. There were 3 doors to the building.
Our house at Longridge when it was new, I had to sell it last spring.
Dad and I outside Johnshouse.
Systa and I at 8
I and Systa when we were 8
Grand dad making nets , talking to the fisherman "king". He is one of the people who are in the book and the father of the swimmer I recently talked about when I was at his funeral.
My father was a worker. He worked all his life for the Steamship Company of Iceland which has been called Iceland’s wish child. Sounds awkward in English. When I was born my father and mother had a little room in my grandparents house, named Johnshouse. Every house in the neighbourhood then had a name, like the farms in the old days. All houses, almost all had hens and you heard the cock crow all days.
There were meadows and the see was near. I thought that grand dad was a seaman. There were so many but he was a clerk.
He would make nets to increase his salary. Grandma would do it too and Gunni the youngest of my mother’s brothers told me lately that he did it too.
When I was six months my parents got a very small apartment in what we call a barrack. It was a big house that the American’s had left as a compensation to the Icelanders when they went after the war.
Many young people got apartments in Nissa huts because there was a lack of housing but we got an apartment in this big building. It was probably the only one of it’s kind in the land which was used for apartments.
It was a 5 minutes walk to grandma’s in Johnshouse and we were there everyday. I lived in two worlds. The world of the barrack and the one of Johnshous and environment.
A book and a movie has been made of the neighbourhood there. And the funny thing the only people that I really knew and remember are the people in that book.
I had that book in my hands, not expecting anything, I started reading and laughing. Everyone had a different name but I new my childhood neighbourhood at once.
In the barrack I had a friend named Systa. I found out that her name was not Systa. One day she said to me, Jórunn, my name is Lilja. What nonsense I said, your name is Systa. I did not believe her. Systa really means sister in baby talk and she was a sister.
Systa and I were together everyday and we did a lot of things together. Like when we threw our lacquered shoes away. There was a ration and mum had to wait in a big row to get me those shoes.
Systa and I were playing outside. She threw
her show and we could not find it. We were about 4 years old. She asked me to
throw mine too so that she would not get scolded. I did that. Her shoe was
found but mine never.
When we were 8 we went our separate ways but I would visit her for years. We are still in contact. She phones me and tells me about her family and her worries.
I moved to the new build house that my father build. The house I had to sell last spring.
I am going to put some pictures in and show you.
