Romatikk and Love

Among a collection of old magazines at the local

history center in Horten, I saw this copy of a magazine

I read more than 45 years ago. "Romantikk" - romance -

is the name and a similiar magazine was called Love.

Of course this kind of litterature was considered real

thrash, so most of us did not get the money nor

the permission to buy these magazines.

But one girl in my class bought both Romantikk and

Love, and brought them to school so that her friends

could borrow them from her, secretly of course, during

the breaks.

She would hide the magazines under her sweater to

keep the patrolling teacher unaware of what was going

on.

But one day disaster struck! We had a very strict

head teacher who now and then would inspect the

pupils as we marched , two and two, class after class,

to our classrooms. As we passed this stern teacher,

we had to greet him, the boys by bowing their heads

and we girls by what we called "neiing".

Imagine our class walking in, my friend with a bunch

of romantic literature under her sweater, and there he

was , the head teacher. My friend instinctly put her

two hands to her side and folded her one knee slightly,

the correct way for girls to be politely greeting a grownup,

- and the magazines slid to the floor, just in front of the

head teacher!

What a scandal!

My recollection of her punishment may not be right,

because I was not there, but as I remember being told,

she had to take the magazines to the schoolyard and

burn them.

True or not true?

The website for the local history center http://www.lhs.no/