THE RECENT BBC television series Coast, presented by arguably the best and most straightforward reporter working in telly these days, Neil Oliver, was remarkable and compulsory viewing. For me it was stunning for two programmes: one was the show they did on Ireland which had no sentimental Oirish nonsense, no silly over-lay of diddly music and was a superb look at the Irish coastline. If you have the facility to retrieve it on your TV, watch it, writes HENRY KELLY
The other was when they went further north and landed at the Lofoten Islands.With the 70th anniversary of the outbreak of the second World War getting attention this month, this programme reminded us of a crucial part the Lofotens played in that conflict. I had never even heard of these islands, but as I was presenting a classical music series they were one of the ports of call. On the morning we arrived at the islands I offered to help some of the passengers for our shore visit.
I was helping the elderly lady beside me struggle ashore from our cruise ship’s bobbing tender. It was nudging the quay-side at the islands when, to make conversation, I asked her if she’d been to this part of Norway before. “No, not me, but me husband were years ago”. Something told me not to make a smart remark about why he’d come to such a beautiful part of the world and left his wife behind. Just as well, because the husband in question was able seaman John Smedley and his visit to this extraordinary group of islands in northern Norway and lying entirely within the Arctic Circle was no holiday cruise. He had been part of an Allied assault on them during the second World War.
Back on board ship, over a cup of coffee, Marjorie Smedley told me what she had been told by John. “He couldn’t say very much because it was all top secret. But he told me it were worse than anything else he’d experienced in the war. He said it were horrible, dark, freezing cold and worse than D-Day, worse than Dieppe. He was on the second expedition because the first was a disaster. He stayed in the services to the end of the war, though he got leave for us to marry. We were married in Maltby near Rotherham and it was the first time in the village the church bells rang since 1938. We walked home seven miles for the wedding breakfast and then he went back to barracks”.
Lofoten is made up of five principal islands and other smaller islands, parcels of land and reefs.They have been continuously inhabited since about 1120 when King Oystein built a church and some lodgings for fishermen. Fishing still plays a huge part in the local economy but tourism – with daily calls from cruise ships and an airport that is increasingly busy is now greatly improving the standard, (and the cost!) of living. During the fishing season thousands of fishermen from all over Norway come to fish and process the cod catch.They also serve the cod-liver oil processing industry. Fertiliser is manufactured from fish parts.
Able seaman Smedley was lucky not to be on the first disastrous expedition by the Allies to the Lofoten islands in April 1940. Three conveys from Scapa Flow and the Scottish mainland set off, but preparations had been chaotic, no one seemed to know where they were going or why and they eventually came back having achieved nothing. The Germans, already in control of Norway, continued with their occupation of Lofoten and their deadly work there.
Things were better prepared by March 1941 and John was able to tell Marjorie about the hazardous journey from Britain. “He told me they were led by Brigadier Charles Haydon of the Irish Guards, there were 500 commandos, about 100 specialists and there were I think he said, five destroyers and a submarine. They had a job to do and they did it. But looking at these beautiful islands now it’s hard to believe, isn’t it, what was going on then?”
What exactly was going on, and what mercifully was totally destroyed by John Smedley and his colleagues, was a crucial German war activity. Irony of ironies: what aids the Lofoten economy these days was crucial to the German war effort. What the allies eventually destroyed in swift, successful operations were 18 factories producing fish oil. Fish oil was being made into glycerine – a basic ingredient of high explosives. At the same time the commandos destroyed 800,000 gallons of oil and petrol, 11 ships were sunk and 225 Germans and Norwegian collaborators taken prisoner.
Our trip to Lofoten was on a glorious day, the five-minute swaying journey in a gentle swell of sea to the mainland from our anchorage not eating into time ashore. I turned right at the main jetty and started to walk along the little beaches. I could have been in Connemara: there is bog cotton, the texture of the sand and grasses reminded me of Gurteen or Dog’s Bay at Roundstone. There were berries growing which looked edible but I didn’t dare. Back at the little quayside shop all became clear.They are “cloud berries” I was told and they grow only inside the Arctic circle. The locals are now making them into jams and even have an eye on the export market. We bought a wee jar of the jam and had it with scones and tea from plastic cups sitting on the quayside. Delicious! To the tourist in summer Lofoten is idyllic: I could easily spend a few weeks here, especially when the midnight sun gives you endless days and spectacular sights.
Come winter however, this is bleak: darkness day and night, biting wind and snowstorms and freezing temperatures. Just the type of conditions John Smedley and his comrades faced in 1941 when their bravery significantly blunted a crucial part of the German war machine in northern Europe.
We finish our tea. Mrs Smedley has a hair appointment, and despite using a walking frame didn’t need my help. “It’s been nice to see where John was,” she says without a flicker of sentiment. “It’s just a shame we never got to see it together because it’s so lovely”.