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I have been asked many times why I chose Ulvika as my prefix. It's one of those stories that's strange but true.....
In 2001, my father, Gordon, celebrated his 80th birthday in grand style. Having downed a couple of Jennings best in his favourite pub in Kirkby Lonsdale, he began to talk about his love of foreign languages...and said "Of course, I always had a natural love of Norwegian....for obvious reasons!" I asked him to explain...and he told a fascinating tale which i will now recount...
In 1917, his father, James, who was a sales manager for a large cotton importer in Manchester, was captured off the coast of Norway by a German U Boat. Mistaken for a British spy, or so we thought, he was kept submerged on the U boat for questioning for several weeks, only to be released in France from where he returned to England. Debriefed by the MOD, he came home to Didsbury and decided his life as a single man was over. It was time to find a wife and settle down! He bought a house in Didsbury and married my grandmother, Blanche, a few months later. Money was a little tight after WW1, and they didn't manage to have a honeymoon until 1920, when he was allowed by his manager to take Blanche to Norway on a sales trip. They landed in Bergen, and travelled by train to a small village called Ulvik on the Hardanger Fjord. They spent a very happy six weeks in Ulvik,staying with a local family. Innocent enough, one thinks....
When my father was going through some of his late father's papers, he found his passport - not only did it have several German entries, including a document stating that he had only been released having sworn not to take up arms against Germany, but also the cash receipt for the house he had bought on his return - and documents indicating that the MOD had provided the cash - in return for details of the U boat....had he also been a spy for Britain? We'll never know.... however, what my father did find out was that his parents had "honeymooned" in Ulvik nine months before his arrival in June 1921, and hence he always felt a certain fondness for Ulvik and anything Norwegian - including the language which he taught himself when he turned 65, as an intellectual challenge once he'd retired from medicine! He and my mother visited Ulvik twice after that, making friends there - and admiring the local cats, of whom he was particulary fond.
My father died, shortly after his 80th birthday - a quick, peaceful death - and left an intriguing collection of memorabilia - it turned out that he, too, had worked for British Intelligence during WW11 - his talent for languages had impressed his superior officers - and although attached to the RAMC, he was awarded the American Bronze Star twice for services to US Intelligence after D day. What he actually did remains a mystery. As his only child, I inherited my parents' belongings - which included a Royal Doulton dinner service that they had been given as a wedding present in 1952. Rarely used, my father had never liked it....and he specifically left instructions to "do with it what you will".
I, too, had never liked the design, so I packed the service up and had it auctioned in Leeds along with several other crates of memorabilia, including a massive collection of railway photographs - his other hobby and passion. The dinner service sold for £200. I decided to do something a little unusual of which Dad would have approved, and so I looked on the internet for cats with a Norwegian connection - I discovered NFCs, and within a few short weeks, Jhardufae Morc Drommen arrived with us. Spike, as he is known, was the first of many, and I'm sure Dad would have thoroughly approved of what I started with the proceeds of the sale....so, to make the connection permanent, when I applied for my prefix, I applied for Ulvika, and the rest, as they say, is history......
