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In my first story, I gave a short description of where my grandparents' villa was situated.

When I went to Brussels in 1973, my cousin was the owner of the farm that my grandfather had bought in the year 1900, and my uncle and aunt now lived in that villa.

Until my parents both died in 1991, I went to Denmark at least once a year, each time spending an afternoon visiting also my uncle and aunt , and when my cousin had finished his working day, we usually had dinner at the farm and all of us spent the evening together.

This 'tradition' continued for a few years after 1991. Instead of going to Denmark to visit my parents, I now went there in order to show my country to my wife. - And today, she has been to see practically everything there is to 'see' in Denmark. Which is more than can be said of ANY member of my family!

My uncle had died several years before my parents, and for my aunt it became more and more important that my wife and I didn't 'forget' her when we were in Denmark, but continued to see her an afternoon, and usually - because she insisted, I think - we also continued to be invited to spend an evening with my cousin and his family.

When my wife and I had met in 1978, five years after my arrival in Brussels, she wanted to learn Danish - even though I'd told her that Danish was very difficult for foreigners to learn to pronounce correctly. I also told her that as all my colleagues spoke English and most of them at least a little French also, it wasn't worth her while to spend all the time needed to learn my language. But for once, she was the optimistic one, and I really felt sorry for her later when she was 'forced' to admit that I'd been right about this!

As my colleagues in Brussels conversed with her mostly in French, the only place for her to 'practise' what she'd so assiduously learned was with my family when we were in Denmark. But, unfortunately for her, I was a peasant boy from West Jutland. Which meant that all members of my family spoke a dialect rather different from what she'd tried to learn - and occasionally heard spoken among my colleagues when being to a Danish party here in Brussels. De mortuis nil nisi bene. Yet, I have to say that my parents didn't even try to understand her! And of course, she didn't understand a single word when my parents or my brother were talking to me! Very, very often, when we were alone afterwards, she asked me if what she'd tried to say wasn't correct - and she told me that she'd often been able to grasp the gist of the conversation I'd had with my family, because she understood much of what I'd said!

My wife was in much better contact with my aunt than had ever been the case with my parents. In spite of the linguistic barrier, my wife understood much of what my aunt explained when proudly showing off the needlework that she'd made since our last visit. Maybe because of this feeling of intimacy when being with my aunt, my wife again tried to 'practise' what was still left of what she'd learnt to say in Danish - with the tragicomic result that, one day, my aunt proudly declared that because of her contact with my wife she was now beginning to understand French!!!

In case you've been wondering what the title of my third story has got to do with all this, you'll soon find out. During the last conversation I had with my cousin - more than ten years ago, now - he once again began to talk about the memories we shared from having spent much of our childhood together. My parents sold our small farm when I was ten years old and bought a house in the nearest town, only eight kilometers away. The school where I had spent just a few years was the only school that my cousin had ever been to. And the school mistress who'd been the first one to care about my health had been the only one that my cousin had ever had, and she and the headmaster of the school were the only two teachers that he'd ever known! - Now, after that the episode that 'saved my health' had been reminisced once again, he told me something about our 'old' school mistress that I didn't know, and that had happened less than a year after I'd gone to Brussels. When you've read that, I hope that you agree with me about the title for this story!

At the European Union, it's a matter of principle that practically everything is translated into all official languages. When Denmark joined what's now called the EU, there were only six member countries and only four official languages. Denmark joined in 1973, together with Great Britain and Ireland. This again meant three new member countries, but - you may think - only two new languages! Wrong!!! How come, you may ask: Danish and English are two new languages. In spite of the many oddities in the EU, 4 + 2 still equals six and not seven ? Wrong again! - Before Ireland joined, all treaties, all legally binding documents and much else which doesn't interest anybody today - not even the Irish - had to be translated not only into Danish and English, but also into Gaelic!!! - As you probably know already, today there are 27 member countries in the European Union - and the effect of this linguistic principle, together with the almost mad CAP - Common Agricultural Policy - constitute by far the largest economic 'burdens' inside the EU!

In 1973, the principle still sounded 'reasonable' - but Denmark probably would have agreed to making only English, French and German the official 'working languages' at meetings, etc. - provided that everybody else agreed to such a praxis. Which was NOT the case - and today the consequences of this become more and more cumbersome with every new member country joining 'the circus', as especially the politicians - much more than the populations - insist on their 'right' to have everything translated into their own language - just like the politicians from all the 'older' member countries!

Anyhow, yours truly went to Brussels in 1973 because of this, and as I've said elsewhere, for me it became a chance of a lifetime: I now made enough to go see the rest of the world as I'd always wanted to, and I also had the time to do it! During my 23 years at the EU Commission, I could go to Tibet or visit the Amazon Indians, the Aborigines in Australia or the Head Hunters on Borneo: the 'genuine' head hunters, or at least their descendants, and not the 'business kind' that you may have in mind when hearing this expression(!) - exactly when I felt like doing so. I think you all agree with me that not many employers are that 'flexible' when an employee wants to spend his vacation when and where it suits him, and not when it suits the boss.

Today, there are 70+ Danish translators at the Commission. But when I arrived in November 1973, there were around 25, and we were 'pioneers' and just like one big family.

Today, the 70+ translators are in six groups: Agriculture, Jura and Economy, Science and Technique, etc. When I arrived, there were just two groups: Scientific and technical papers were translated in my group - and all non-technical texts in the other group!

As I said, we were like one big family at the time and often went out eating together after work. For a person coming directly from Denmark, it was almost incredible that everything in the center of Brussels was open so late in the evening. - And during week-ends I often was invited by colleagues who took care of newcomers and felt responsible for them also outside working hours. One colleague in the non-technical group took me under his wing right from the start, and during my first years in Brussels I spent a lot of week-ends together with the leader of the technical group, and with his family.

So, when this colleague from the non-technical group told me that his girl friend was a freelance journalist who had been asked to write a story for a Danish weekly about the 'pioneers' in Brussels and had charged him to find some 'victims' for her to interview when she arrived in Brussels, I couldn't very well decline - especially after being told that my boss - the leader of the technical group - had already accepted to be the 'victim' representative for a 'pioneer' with his family in Brussels, and that one of the best looking secretaries had also accepted to be photographed in front of the Berlaymont building (now THE EU BUILDING in any TV emission the world over) together with the two male 'victims'! The 'victim' still missing was to be representative for an unmarried male Danish 'pioneer' in Brussels. Today, I no longer remember whether my boss or the secretary was the decisive factor that made me timidly accept to be the third member of this triumvirat! In addition to the photo in front of the Berlaymont building , each of us was photographed separately, also: My boss in his home together with his family, and the secretary and I in our respective offices. I had to take the telephone and try to look as if I was having a very important conversation with somebody 'higher up' in the Commission - but instead looked more like a prisoner just out of jail!

And now back to what my cousin told me at our last evening together, more than ten years ago: When the Danish weekly in question was published in September 1974, my 'old' school mistress - who at that time had been retired for years - had gone to not only one but to two Danish towns and purchased all the copies of the issue in question that she could lay her hands on - in order to give them to friends and family! I end this story with the remark that I made when telling my colleagues in Brussels about this, just before retiring: That's how one becomes world famous - at least in West Jutland!

As told in my first short story, I began school in April 1943. Denmark had been occupied by the Nazis since April 1940, and during my first year at school the war entered my little world.

The very first 'public' memory of mine is the day Denmark was invaded: April 9, 1940. I have some 'private' memories of my two year younger brother with his feeding-bottle, but April 1940 was the first time in my life that the world outside my family affected me directly to a degree that I still remember every detail - as if it happened yesterday!

Early in the morning, the German war planes on their way to Norway began passing so low over the dwelling-house of my uncle's farm, that not only the three children but also the adults seriously feared that the landing wheels might collide with one of the chimneys. Apart from that episode where all members of my family were standing in the courtyard of my uncle's farm watching this together, I have no memories of the war until it began affecting me directly after I'd started school.

After Stalingrad, 'luck' had turned against Hitler and his henchmen, and bombs were now 'raining' over German cities almost every night. After Dresden, Hamburg was one of the German cities hardest hit by the British at night. So, old people and children were sent to Denmark and installed in schools and other public buildings found suitable for this purpose.

For me, this meant that I now had 2 km to school instead of one, as our school had become the home of refugees from Hamburg. However, to begin with, that was about all the difference. Then, old German women began to 'visit' the farms around my 'old' school, and as my mother spoke a little German, they came more and more often to visit my home. My father didn't like this at all. Being known in the entire region as "German-friendly" wasn't exactly among his priorities, if you see what I mean?

Even as a child I understood that those old women visiting our farm were beginning to constitute a real marital problem for my parents! As always throughout history, politics and in extreme cases war have been a male affair, whereas dealing with human suffering and help healing wounds was left to the females - within the limits set by the males, that is!

My mother surely was no Florence Nightingale, but when the effects of the war began to affect her directly and offered her the possibility of 'doing something' about it - she reacted as a female and chose to help those women - in spite of the risk to her own reputation, that of her husband and even the harmony of her marriage!

But, as I said: old people and children were sent to Denmark. With the old 'ladies' visiting my mother I didn't have more sympathy than my father, I'm afraid. All I remember is that some of them tried to talk to me, also, always talking about 'papa' and 'mama' - which I didn't understand as those words are NOT used in Danish - although that I, today, of course know that those same words are used in much of Europe!

With the children now 'occupying my old school' I didn't have any contact either, but my brother and cousin saw some of them from time to time while I was at school. As far as I know, those children were just doing some 'sightseeing' without daring to visit any of the farms. The only time I had any contact with them remains all the more unforgettable. As I was together with my brother and cousin that afternoon, I suppose that the event took place on a Sunday, but that's not something I remember.

As already told in my first story, my grandfather made both wind- and watermills for us - among many other things. One of those other things was a dummy made of wood, that in profile looked like a 'real' gun. And now I must appeal to my reader not to 'condemn' my grandfather, based on the attitude that almost all Europeans - except maybe some Serbs - have today towards war toys of any kind. This was when WW-II was turning into a nightmare for the German population instead of a third Reich lasting a thousand years, and all over the world little boys our age were doing exactly the same thing as we had been doing since receiving our three 'guns': Imitating what was going on among the 'grown ups' in the world we were a part of ! So far, we had been doing that among ourselves. There is absolutely NO excuse for what we did that afternoon, but it's immensely important that the reader realise that the world situation in general and the attitude towards war in particular has changed fundamentally - at least among Europeans - and that the European Union and what it stands for is - in spite of all it's oddities - highly preferable to the world as it was when I was a child!

It may have been my idea to do what we did that afternoon. Anyhow, I was responsible for what we did, being two years older. And the younger you are or the older you are, an age difference of two years can be highly significant.

We had been playing with those dummies among ourselves when we saw two or three German boys our own age at some distance, approaching but not yet having sighted those three Danish 'soldiers'! Like real soldiers in a similar situation - we imagined - we quickly hid as best we could in the ditch running along the road on which the German boys were aproaching. And when the three - just peacefully enjoying an afternoon walk - were sufficiently close for a 'surprise attack' we jumped up in front of them with our 'guns' and 'attacked the enemy' : ra-ta-ta, ra-ta-ta, ra-ta-ta!!!

We were boys, we were playing, and we thought that we were just surprising some other boys our own age. That really, really is what we thought - and we expected a reaction similar to what would have been the case, had the other boys been Danish also. But they were NOT Danish boys. They were German boys coming from Hamburg. Their background and life experience was totally different from ours.We didn't realise that. That's the only excuse I can think of. For, even at our age, we - almost immediately - realised ourselves that this was no longer play but almost a crime: Those three German boys were not surprised but literally scared to death - and their cries still sound in my ears whenever I think of this episode from my childhood in West Jutland on a sunny and peaceful Sunday afternoon.