Nyhavn (Anna Smith)

What do we do given life?

We move, we move around.

(Stephen Stills)

What must a Martian observer think as he looks down from his red planet and surveys the annual Völkerwanderung which is the European summer holiday? Perhaps he would see some biological necessity in what must look like some vast, mechanised transhumance; he might conclude that, like sharks, humankind must be in a state of perpetual movement in order to maintain basic life-functions; he might conceivably interpret the whole phenomenon as some sort of socio-religious ritual. Could he possibly deduce from all this apparently unmotivated agitation that whole societies are in fact engaged in mass escapism? An escape from "real" life into ... what exactly? A fantasy of what life could be if it were not for the inconvenient fact of having to make a living? The heart sinks. There is something deeply depressing about the idea of a few weeks vacation somehow compensating for an entire year of soul-destroying drudgery. This is asking an awful lot of a holiday. In fact, psychologists maintain that holidays can be the most stressful time of year. Impossible expectations, unfamiliar circumstances, nagging inconvenience - all conspire to create unbearable disappointment.

So what is it that we are really doing when we go on holiday? More specifically, if I were tractor-beamed up to a Martian space-ship and experimented upon, what would would the little green men discover? Here are the provisional test-results:

The test-subject's motives are confused and contradictory. Two principle impulses, however, have been identified:

1. A compulsive need to acquire experience-modules to include in his autobiographical C.V.

2. A semi-conscious aspiration to be shocked into a new intensity of being through the "newness" of his impressions.

It is immediately obvious that these two ambitions collide. It is specifically this life-story that we tell ourselves, the self-fable, constantly rehearsed, continually trimmed and adapted , which stands in the way of that unmediated apperception of the Now which is our existential birth-right, sold for a mess of self-congratulatory pottage. Of course, requiring that a holiday be an epiphany really is asking an awful lot, but, it should, by releasing us into a world of different influences, at least offer us a temporary escape from our habitual selves and the deadening anaesthetic of our autobiographies.

The influences we chose to expose ourselves to for our summer holiday were Danish and Swedish. It was Anna's decision - the last holiday with her parents before going away to University. It was a revealing choice, confirming our feeling that Anna is the most Scandinavian of our children. In herself she combines a number of typically Scandinavian qualities: an uncomplicated practical intelligence, an innate respect for the material, a balanced equanimity of temper, a well-developed sense of the aesthetic. She must be carrying on my mother's Danish genes. Yes, Denmark for me is family and for that reason it speaks to me in a particularly intimate way. Everything about it, however superficially banal, is informed with an inner significance which is incommunicable except to those, like Anna, who already understand intuitively. It is like a childhood bedroom with all the objects and furnishings intact; an old toy which one rediscovers with a magical thrill, every colour, every facet a secret source of wonder. Just walking about the streets of Copenhagen induces an inner excitement, a sort of intensity of familiarity, which is both reassuring and liberating; liberating, I think, because what is vibrating in sympathy with these old-new impressions, is an unpoilt essential self, which predates the encrusted carapace of pretence and affectation with which we ordinarily confront the world. The Danish language itself sounds a deep, warm inner chord, evoking the profound security of childhood - an essence language, which, because it isn't English, remains uncorrupted by the coaching in self-serving hypocrisy and anxious snobbery purveyed by my profoundly English education. I am talking about my subjective experience of these languages. I am not saying that Danish is a language of innocence and English a language of corruption. They are, however, the languages of my innocence and my corruption. The fact is that modern Danish is an idiom of impertinent sophistication, but, as that is a register of language I learned only much later, I view it from outside, in a way that can no longer contaminate my inner essence.

All of this leads us into the dense thickets of the role of language and of education in our society. I can't help thinking that the gift of language is much abused. Surely language should be more than a mere vehicule for schoolboy cleverness, a medium for the trivial display of quiz-show factoids: to name something is not the same thing as to understand it. Language should grow out of a substantial, material, essential comprehension, rather than be a sort of freeze-dried convenient alternative to the real thing. This is asking an awful lot of language - and of our own sincerity.

Tivoli (Anna Smith)








We spent four days taking in Copenhagen, based at our favourite pension on Amagerstrandvej, now just a quick subway-ride from the centre of town. Victoria arrived from Glasgow to join us. We did all the usual things: up and down Ströget, Nyhavn, the boat-trip round the harbour, Tivoli (of course). Carol and I visited Kommunehospitalet where we first met in April 1973 (Carol was nursing there). The stairway of the nurses' home where I used to visit her still smelt the same! We went out to Nörrebro to check out some trendy boutiques Anna had her eye on. I ducked out of shopping sprees, and in and out of rain showers, to revisit my old haunts, the second-hand bookshops and the city library. The characteristic smell of books of different nationality - impossible to describe, but a vital ingredient of the "suchness" of things, the ordinary miracle to which we are habitually blind.




A vision of loveliness in Copenhagen (Anna Smith)

We spent four days wandering the streets of Copenhagen before taking the train to Stockholm for the second four days of our short holiday. Comparisons are odious but inevitable: Copenhagen is urban and alive, Stockholm dignified and poised; Copenhagen is witty and ironic, Stockholm elegant and sophisticated; Copenhagen is the big capital of a small country, Stockholm is the less big capital of a vast, but thinly populated country; Copenhagen is coquettish, garrulous, self-absorbed, trendy, Stockholm beautiful, sublime, timeless, open to the sea and sky. I could almost be describing the difference between Danish and Swedish. I cannot lay claim to the same intimate symbiosis with Swedish as I feel with Danish, but it is a language I hold in great affection. It has a sort of formal, poetic dignity which Danish only rarely achieves, but it lends itself less to the voluble good humour which is somehow the dominant characteristic of Danish.

We checked into our fabulously dinky little flat just off Stora Torget. From there we set off on mini-expeditions around the superb Gamla Stan and beyond. Stockholm must surely be one of the world's most beautiful capitals: sea, sky and architecture conjoined in perfect harmony. Apart from the simple pleasures of walking the streets, exploring the shops and stopping off for coffees, we visited the city museum (brilliant models of old Stockholm) and the Palace arsenal (Gustavus Adolphus' tunic in which he was killed at Lützen - complete with bullet-hole).

[Sweden's history of militarism is something which tends to escape the popular consciousness, camouflaged as it now is by the "Swedish Model", the Nobel prizes and Sweden's modern humanitarian tradition. In fact, having escaped Danish domination in the 16th century, Sweden then rose by sheer force of arms to become the most powerful force in 17th century Northern Europe. This was an extraordinary achievement for what was essentially a poor and sparsely populated country. The Swedes' success was largely due to superior organisation and the efficiency of their bureaucracy. They led the way, for example, in the standardised manufacture of military equipment which contributed greatly to the performance of their armies in the Thirty Years' War. Expansionist ambition culminated in the megalomaniac excesses of Charles XII. It was his defeat in the Great Nordic War which ushered in the end of Sweden's imperialistic fantasies and the beginnings of a parliamentary system of government.]

Archipelago Sky (Anna Smith)






The highspot of the trip was our Skjärgardsresa - a cruise around the Stockholm Archipelago. It was a sort of quintessence of holiday. Under the bright sky, high and wide, dotted with complex patterns of cloud, a Waxholmbolag-steamer nosing through the blue waters, out on deck, the wind in our faces, friendly sailing boats tacking freely about. The countless small rocky islands with their smooth rocks, sandy beaches and little clumps of pines. The numerous stop-offs, with their jolly embarcations. The landing at Sandhamn in the outer archipelago, all red or yellow-painted timber construction with Swedish flags, Swedish voices, kiosks with ice-creams and liquorice. We walked for a bit to find our own beach of white sand flanked by smooth grey rocks. The giggling change into swimming costumes, the cold shock of the water, splashing in and out as our bodies grew accustomed. Then back to the harbour for coffee and home-made Kanelbullar (cinnamon buns), back up the gangplank and the deliciously relaxed return to Stockholm with spectacular views of the city from the water.







Arcipelago Harbour (Anna Smith)

I remember years ago reading one of Colin Wilson's books, I think it was "The Occult", in which he speaks of what he calls "Faculty X" - the heightened capacity to actually experience experience. He equated this faculty to "holiday consciousness", as he put it, in other words, a more intense awareness of being alive in a world which is pregnant with an innate significance. This is why we go on holiday - to be alive. What would it take to be alive for the rest of the year?