Naughty in Norway: A Saucy Saga of the North [Paperback]

From Barbara's pen comes an immensely readable account of two British girls with a sense of adventure which led them in 1953 to embark on short-term careers as housemaids in a sympathetic Norwegian household near Oslo.

The book chronicles their often hilarious adventures in this staunchly pro-British country where the girls noted approvingly that the men "dallied with charming insouciance". More seriously, the author provides interesting glimpses of Nordic customs and everyday life in a nation then still recovering from the ravages of a savage Nazi Occupation. There are graphic descriptions of the beautiful Norwegian countryside and interesting comments on Norwegian domestic life.

We congratulate Barbara on giving us such an exhilarating read. Aptly subtitled "A Saucy Saga of the North", it is difficult to put the book aside once opened - surely the hallmark of a successful work.

A hilarious account of the adventures of two English au pairs in 1950s Norway.

A light-hearted tale of the hilarious escapades of two British girls who took jobs as housemaids near Oslo in 1953. Packed with fascinating information about Norway past and present.

An irreverent but affectionate look at life in post-war Norway, where foreigners were still a novelty and the British were held in esteem for their part in liberating Norway from the Nazi Occupation.

A Saucy Saga of the North . . .

The captain fell about laughing when quizzed over the ominous sign on the bridge announcing "Full Fart". He guffawed: "It has nothing to do with tailwinds. It means full steam ahead." And full steam ahead it proved to be for the two English au pairs setting off on their madcap adventures in a post-war Norway enchanted with the British and teeming with frisky blond men smitten with the dark-haired, brown-eyed girls. Their "conquests" included a one-eyed, one-armed reporter during a disastrous assignment on a local paper; a Gregory Peck lookalike who wanted a blanket embroidered for his moose; twins Odd and Ole, keen to bath the girls in a tin tub; and a suave store salesman bent on demonstrating the "snog rating" of duvets in a large cardboard box in the stock room. Then there was the fragrant dentist who made earrings from baby teeth; the night the girls shared a bed with a steaming giant; and their farcical escapades with the strange northern folk in the Land of the Midnight Sun. All this, and more, in a fascinating country in joyous mood over the coronation in London of Queen Elizabeth II, great-niece of their beloved King Haakon.

A Saucy Saga of the North.

The captain fell about laughing when quizzed over the ominous sign on the bridge announcing "Full Fart". He guffawed: "It has nothing to do with tailwinds. It means full steam ahead."

And full steam ahead it proved to be for the two English au pairs setting off on their madcap adventures in a post-war Norway enchanted with the British and teeming with frisky blond men smitten with the dark-haired, brown-eyed girls. Their "conquests" included a one-eyed, one-armed reporter during a disastrous assignment on a local paper; a Gregory Peck lookalike who wanted a blanket embroidered for his moose; twins Odd and Ole, keen to bath the girls in a tin tub; and a suave store salesman bent on demonstrating the "snog rating" of duvets in a large cardboard box in the stock room.

Then there was the fragrant dentist who made earrings from baby teeth; the night the girls shared a bed with a steaming giant; and their farcical escapades with the strange northern folk in the Land of the Midnight Sun.

All this, and more, in a fascinating country in joyous mood over the coronation in London of Queen Elizabeth II, great-niece of their beloved King Haakon.

Barbara Godfrey made journalism her career after graduating at Oxford in Modern Languages. In 1953 she and a friend spent a year as au pairs in a large house near Oslo, where her knowledge of German helped in mastering the ­Norwegian language. Her eldest son Christopher is also a "Norwegiophile" and speaks the language fluently. After her spell "in service", which was the subject of a talk she gave on the BBC’s Woman’s Hour, she worked as a reporter on several Surrey newspapers. She then helped her late husband Robert, a former Fleet Street journalist, to launch the Hayling Islander newspaper, which won an award for editorial excellence and which is now owned by the Portsmouth News. After five years living on the edge of Dartmoor, the ­couple moved to the tiny Channel Island of Alderney, where they founded the Alderney Magazine. Barbara Godfrey, who still lives on Alderney, has also published short stories and a book of poetry, illustrated with her own hand-coloured drawings. Her watercolour and oil paintings of local scenes are on view in the island’s art gallery.

It was in Tromsø that I had my first real insight into the offbeat phenomenon that characterised North Norway. I had never before tried to visualise how it would feel to be blessed by a never-setting sun for weeks on end, only to be dragged into the deepest gloom by a never-rising sun in the winter.

Looking around at the faces of passers-by, I could now understand the comment by the Norwegian author Knut Hamsun in his novel Pan, set in North Norway, that the people were "strange and of a different nature to any he had met before". He wrote that one summer’s night was enough to change a child into a mature adult. But as winter closed in a "secretive stillness" came over the people – "they brooded silently, their eyes waited for winter".

As this was summer I was not able to witness this singular transformation, but I learnt more about it from an impetuous young farmer who accosted me while I was watching the football.

"Hi, there!" he shouted as he clambered over a fence from his field and sat beside me. He was determined to prove that he had plenty of summer vigour, and the moment the footballers dispersed he inveigled me into helping him stack the last of his hay – "and then, my love, I’ll teach you about our mysterious northern yearnings".

My educational session in the hayloft was largely verbal, punctuated by short, lively exercises of a practical nature. My mentor told me his name was Peter – "it’s usually shortened to Per" – and he had lived in Tromsø all his life.

"You see, we have to work all the hours there are in summer – and that’s when we do our loving, too," he added with an affectionate squeeze. "In the winter darkness we get too tired. Some of us can’t sleep, others of us sleep so long we don’t know whether it’s morning or evening when we wake. We get disoriented because our body clocks run amok."

I said: "It sounds as though Hamlet must have been to the Arctic, the way he spoke of time being out of joint. Perhaps he wasn’t a Dane after all."