Newsletter – September 2014
September 4th, 2014The wave of emotion hit me and for a moment I held back. Then I let the tears fall. “Pappa’s shoes”, I whispered.
The shoes in question were those of Sven Sømme a Norwegian agent. They were the shoes that he was wearing when the German commandant said “You’ll be shot for this, you know that don’t you” and was still wearing when he walked past the armed German guards with a friendly wave in June 1944 at the start of an epic escape through the snow and mountains of Norway.
This escape was the theme of our speaker this month, Ellie Targett, daughter of Sven, and enigmatically entitled “Another Man’s Shoes”. She described the subversive activities of her father in Norway against the Germans during the Second World War which led to his arrest and his epic and exhausting 300 mile escape to freedom in Sweden. It was during this escape that he was offered a pair of rugged mountain boots by a patriotic family to replace the unsuitable town shoes he had escaped in.
The twist to the story was that Ellie and her sister retraced the steps of their father’s escape in 2004 and had an emotional reunion with the family who had kept these shoes for 70 years and presented them to her.
Our meeting on Tuesday 4th November at 8pm sees Andrew Crabtree presenting ‘The Story of the Piano’. Visitors are most welcome at all our events – see hhfs.org.uk for details and contacts.