Norway 1964

The weeks of tortuous arrangements involving the exchange of countless telegrams, telephone calls and letters between Monoux and the Norwegian educational authorities culminated in the departure of twenty three Monoux choristers, their conductor and his briefcase. From the latter (which seemed after a time to have developed it's own personality) issued forth a stream of most unlikely-looking tickets, passports and various currencies, positively guaranteed to take us safely to Oslo; so they did.

The journey was the first of many revelations. From the train, on which we lived for 27 hours, we saw a somewhat uninteresting Belgium, slept through Germany, and then experienced the gradual change from the modelled, pastel-shaded landscape of Denmarkand part of Sweden to the darker-hued, pine-covered rolling slopes of Bergman's country that preludes Norway. Thus we arrived, so we are told, to the midnight rain of Oslo.