No going back - 27. Vikings ships & nude beach

The Viking Ship Museum was stunning, or rather its contents were. If the Opera House had been something of a disappointment in that Colin's reaction had been cool, here he was the opposite and was entranced by the detailed wood carving in the boats, the craftsmanship and the fact that it survived. For the first half hour he kept exclaiming and would read out every single date.

Colin was a reader, he read everything and as soon as he realised that I didn't he would keep giving me the best bits of the information, tasty snippets. It was rather sweet and made for my own personal guide. We hadn't started from the hotel early, there had been breakfast to negotiate. This was included in the price, so we both had a load up and there was plenty to tempt each of us. Plus the coffee was decent. So, by the time we'd changed buses to get to the museum, it was mid-morning, and it was lunch-time when we finally emerged from the museum.

Colin had paid far more attention than I, but I wouldn't have missed the museum for the world. The moment when you walked in and saw those three ships, 1000 years old a-piece and the way the smooth curve of building framed them, pure 1930s style.

There was a café, but its prices were pretty steep, and we had a bit of a walk to the beach, and I thought it would be nice to wander rather than route-march. By dint of Googling, we found a SPAR supermarket (who knew) and bought some stuff for lunch which we ate near the beach.

There was an ordinary one, and a nude one. There were no facilities, bar a toilet. But it was pleasantly situated, a park-like wooded area and a lovely view of the bay. If it wasn’t for the lack of clothes, it could have been anywhere. We sat under the trees and watched folk coming and going, as we ate our sausage rolls and drank the fizzy water. Colin had also insisted on us having fruit as well, which was probably a good idea.

"You reckon that there's no cruising going on?"

I looked around at the mixed groups of people and shrugged, "Almost certainly, there is some. There'll be gay guys here, and there are naked willies galore, there's bound to be a bit of discreet choosing. But what I've noticed, so far, is that there isn't a steady traffic of people to a nice dark wooded corner."

Colin looked round, "There isn't one, is there?"

"Not so far as I can see. The best you could do was pick someone up to take home. At least you know what the goods look like before you try them."

Colin stared at me and chuckled, "Like a cruising supermarket."

"Something like that. But plenty of folk are just here to have fun. Are you planning on swimming?"

"Swimming?"

I shrugged and smiled, "Well it is a beach, and that is water and there are people in it."

"Won't it be cold?"

"Probably. But I want to at least try."

He was thoughtful, "I think this is the first beach I've been to since Mum and Dad took us to Scarborough when we were kids."

"Well, I'm just the opposite, my first beach was a when I was just out of Uni. A mate and I went for what was planned as a dirty weekend in Sitges."

"Where's that?"

"Resort near Barcelona, used to have quite a reputation with gay men. And it has a gay nude beach that is very cruisy, or at least it used to be, complete with a nice, wooded area for disappearing into", I wiggled my eyebrows. "Let's say that my mate and I didn't see much of each other during the day. So, are we doing this?"

I had noted that whilst the people on the beach were largely young, there were a few older folk, and whilst there were a few beautiful people, including a couple of stunning Viking-like guys, all blond hair and big beards, there was a sufficient sprinkling of big guys for Colin not to feel too much the focus of attention. Then two guys walked past us, both bearded, both big, one with tit rings and one positively huge with a belly that made Colin look tiny.

He blinked and smiled, "I reckon I can give it a go."

"All the way?"

I gave a little shrug, "You don't achieve anything without trying and I reckon if that bloke can do it.", then he stood up, unfastened his trousers and pushed everything down in one quick manoeuvre. In fact, with his shirt still hanging down, he didn't reveal much but it was a brave gesture. I followed suit and soon, carrying our clothes and the bag with the towel in, 'borrowed' from the hotel, we went to find a space on the beach.

It was tiny but not that busy. It seemed people were mainly social, there in groups or there to meet people. Colin was nervous at first, looking as if he might bolt and I wondered if this had been a mistake. He'd confided to me that the first time he'd been naked in front of me was the first time anyone had seen him like that since school. I wanted to change that but didn't want to freak him out. I'd rather a shy Colin than no Colin.

Then he stood up, "Come on, let's swim."

"You don't have to, you know", he looked determined rather than delighted.

"I figured that if I've taken me kecks off, then I need to follow through", he gave me a wry smile, "and, besides, no-one’s run off screaming yet. And those blokes over there", he nodded towards a group of guys, mixed ages and mixed sizes. "Reckon that this is a good place to start. And you know what", he looked a bit bashful, "I thought that next time we go to Ten Tons of Fun…"

"Are we going again?"

"Yeah, I thought about it and you're right, if we do it OK and make sure we don't stay too long then you can enjoy yourself. Go careful like. So, I thought we'd make the next one a bit special."

I smiled, "How?"

"I'll wear me jock-strap."

I grinned, "So this is a dummy run, if you can cope with being bollock naked in public then a jock-strap at Ten Tons of Fun should be dead easy."

"Something like that", he looked bashful but determined.

"Come on then"

We jogged to the water and fuck; it was cold. Colin laughed delightedly and seemed to find the water temperature more acceptable, insisting on wrestling with me and dunking me firmly. The locals all thought we were mad, clearly some were thinking the Norwegian equivalent of Ils sont fous, ces Anglais, perhaps they were right.

We didn't spend that long in the water, really. And once out, both of us were a bit nervous of getting our bits burned and frankly, once you got over the novelty of taking your clothes off on the beach and swimming, then that was it. Remarkably, Colin agreed. We both fancied a cuppa or something, and one of the cafes on the main drag seemed a good idea.

--

"What are you reading?"

Colin plonked himself beside me and looked at the A4 sheets I had on the table. By the time we'd got back to the centre from the nude beach, Colin had decided he wanted to walk a bit more, so I had placed myself in a café in Karl Johans Gat, sitting outside and enjoying the sun whilst being sheltered and covered. He had gone for a walk to look at the parliament building at one end of the street and the Royal Palace at the other. Needless to say, he was gone for quite a bit, around an hour. But the café seemed happy for me to linger, and I had Joe's essay.

I think that, left to ourselves, Mhairi and I would have never bothered to explore the background to the family firm, to find out more. That there was plenty to find out, seemed abundantly clear, from the decline in the 1950s back to the war effort and possible arms manufacture back to the firm's heyday in the 1920s and 1930s. But something of Dad's attitude perhaps had rubbed off on us. We might welcome the money, but we weren't keen to dredge up other things.

However, Jo's partner Sandra had been digging away and we were going to meet her and Jo for a drink when we got back. But the bigger surprise was Joe; he had had to do a local history project at school which had to include doing some research and writing an essay about it. For reasons best known to himself, he had chosen our family, or more precisely, the firm, Glennisters, as the subject. He had been to the library and dug up newspaper articles and pictures (including the one I'd seen on the display board in the business park). He had admitted to me and his Mum that he had struggled to make it interesting. The first version of his essay had evidently been more of a list, and his teacher had suggested taking the personal angle and starting from the end of the story.

So the essay began with his Grandfather's death and finding out about the Will, how his Grandfather had never mentioned the firm, his Mum's memories of being taken to see the old paper mill, back to the 1950s and 1960s which seemed to be one long litany of labour disputes and selling off parts of the business, then the 1940s and the boom as the firm's industrial plants were given over to arms and war effort, and the beginning in the interwar period.

"It's Joe's essay about Glennisters, the family firm."

"Oh aye, any good?"

"Well, I can't tell if its prime essay material, but he's made a nice job of it, linking it to his memories of his Grandfather and what little his Mum knew and working back. But it’s a grim story, bit of a salutary tale." Colin ordered himself tea and cake and I had a top up, then I continued. "My grandfather, Donald Hargreaves, had worked his way up the company, becoming Olwen Glennister's Father's right-hand man, marrying the boss' daughter and taking over the company. But you can't help thinking that he was a rubbish manager. Under him the company declined to nothing. It's a shock, finding out quite how extensive the holdings had been with a number of large-scale manufacturing plants in Manchester."

"So, it were a big firm"

"At one point. Olwen's father built it up and in 1940 they had various factories mainly in Manchester where they were well placed to manufacture stuff for the war effort."

"You mean guns and things?"

"Not sure. It's all a bit vague. Articles at the time are deliberately unspecific, but definitely war related. Joe was relying mainly on newspaper articles that he found."

Colin had been leafing through it, looking at the pictures and such, "He's done a hell of a lot of work."

"As you said, he gets engaged and loves it."

"I was meaning to ask you; do you think Mhairi would be up for me offering him a job?"

"A job? As in work for you permanently?"

"Nah. Just a part-time one. Saturday mornings and an hour or so some evenings."

"He's got the course coming up during the Summer."

"I figured we might be able to fit a few things in, and then he'd be nicely set for next term."

"Are you doing this because he's my sister's son?"

Colin pulled a face, "Well, I wouldn't have come across him otherwise. But no. Joe is a good learner and the stuff he did on your house, I'd be happy for him to do again, under supervision. Both Jimmie and Bruno said that all you had to do was explain and he was away."

"This is painting and decorating, rather than building work."

Colin now had his bashful look on, "Yeah. I told you that I put some pictures of your house on the website", I nodded, he'd asked me permission, but I hadn't thought much about it, "well, I included shots of the bits we'd gussied up".

Gussy up was Colin's shorthand for interior decoration. We'd had a laugh about it, and I had suggested that he add it to his website - we not only do the building work, we can gussy up the interior afterwards. Well it seemed he'd done so, without the term ‘gussy up’ however, and had a couple of people interested. Just paint jobs, but it was a start.

"I think Mhairi would love it."

"The idea of Joe working and learning to earn a living."

"Yes. Best thing to do is ask her."

"Me?"

"Sure. You're the one offering the job, after all. Have a quick word, clear it with her."

"You don't want…"

"You know her well enough, after all you are doing up her house. So no, you do it. If that's OK?" He nodded, surprised. As we ate and drank, he continued leafing through the essay, making comments.

"Jo's partner, Sandra, reckons that she has enough source material for a decent article or a display at the library."

"More than this?"

"Yeah, she has access to archives that Joe doesn't. But it's not so much the firm as the people, seems that both Grandfather Donald and old man Glennister were strong characters. In different ways, according to Jo, they add a bit of personal interest, bringing it to life." I shrugged, "We'll see next week. Now, less of my family. What did you get up to?"

There were photos, of course, and as we walked back to the bus stop, he pointed out some of the details he'd noticed. We had to stop at one point, as he wanted to point out some rather fancy brickwork, done in an unusual style. He was part-way through explaining when he stopped, looked embarrassed and apologised, saying that I hadn't the slightest idea what he was talking about.

I laughed and managed to give him a neat precis of what he had been saying. He was surprised, and as we returned to the hotel, I explained that my job required me to learn about businesses fast, and to be able to summarise. This was no different, and if he was interested, I wanted to be.

The next day, we did go to the Open Air museum; it turned out that Colin would much rather do that than visit an art gallery and I was fine with that. I walked more than I intended but would sit and read by each group of buildings and he'd tell me what I was missing. Sometimes I even went to see. It was restful and relaxing, and made me realise that things could fit. And we both agreed that the stave church was spectacular.

And there was a café too!

"I was thinking, you should keep some stuff at my house so that you can stay over without planning it, just work clothes, underwear", this got a snigger as we remembered the occasions when he'd not bothered, "perhaps a couple of decent shirts and jeans, toothbrush."

"You mean that?"

"Yes. I think being able to have you stop over if we fancy it, is nice. We're both going to be busy, but you have to eat and sleep, so coming over to my house during the week makes sense."

"What about my washing?"

"Pardon?"

"Well, if I wear something, then it'll need washing, so I'd be shuttling it back and forth."

I smiled at him, "I think I could manage to do your washing, I'm sure your knickers aren't too gross." We both giggled. "Besides, I know someone who organised for me to have a big fuck-off washer, so it makes sense to use it."

"But…"

"Me washing your knickers isn't you moving in. It's just being sensible, besides, you could bring your washing over when you stay at the weekend, like you used to do with your Mum."

I must admit to some creative licence in the story when it comes to my descriptions of Oslo. Whilst I have visited Oslo relatively recently, the Viking Ship Museum and the nude beach in the story are based on memories from some 40 years ago, and I gather the the Viking Ship Museum is now closed and they are redeveloping a new museum, so here's an image of the old one.