My Early years (1943 – 1956)

Wartime hardship – the general strike in Copenhagen 1944 Pictures from Kastrupvej where we lived. My father was drafted as help police after the German occupation in 1940.

My mother and father before I arrived. My oldest relatives I knew was my Grand-Grand father and mother!

I was born on April 29, 1943

My first recollection of being ME was when we rented a small farm in the summer of 1945.(since then I remember most events). My grandfather had a car – very unusual in the late fourties in Denmark. Due to recession in Denmark my father was always away working first in the Faro Islands and later on Greenland.

Time to go to school (1950). I was a keen student and had learned to read before I joined. Consequently I was much ahead of the class and was a kind of loner, my teachers accepted that. At that time I started painting oil paintings driving around Copenhagen on my bicycle. 

My only trouble during my childhood was my father’s excessive drinking. It in many ways ruined both my mother’s and my life. I became very grown up at an early date.

After 5^th grade we went to Turkey in the summer of 1955, my father working for a Danish construction company, Christiani & Nielsen.

My years in Turkey 1955-1961 - Konya and Mersin

My first ever flight: Copenhagen- Munich-Vienna-Istanbul in 1955

Konya my home until 1957. Mustafa and I roamed the city and were allowed everywhere even up into the minarets. We lived on the top floor of this house and Mustafa was the son of the landlord! He taught me Turkish.

My family in 1956

I went to the “Atatürk Lise Okulu” in Konya together with my best friend Mustafa. In between I made a small foodstall selling lemonade cookies all self made. After some time I had an English private teacher and thus learned English.

A was a frequent visitor to my fathers workplace. He even let me help him with dynamite blasting (the picture is of my first OWN blasting) and taking photographs when the President of Turkey Adnan Menderes laid down the ground stone.

My interest in aviation was triggered on August 28, 1956 when I sat on the grandstand in Konya’s main square to watch the “foundation the the republic day” military parade. A whole squadron of F-84G fighters from the nearby air base flew over and then descended to rooftop level. Some aircraft seemed to fly down through the streets! I then decided I wanted to be a pilot.

After I in 1957 went to boarding school my family went to our second home in Turkey – Mersin, here my father participated in constructing the then largest silo in the world.

We lived in a newly constructed housing area right on the beach.

I loved the beaches and sea at Mersin and came on vacation until 1961 when the silo was completed. From Mersin we went on holidays to both Syria and Lebanon.