Romjul – pronounced “rom-yool” – is the Norwegian word for the period between Christmas and the New Year. This year it is also the title of an exciting new theatre production, developed by the Welsh drama company Theatr na n’Og in collaboration with the Norwegian Church Arts Centre and supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund.
It tells the story of two Norwegian sisters evacuated to Cardiff during WWII, who find themselves hiding from “trolls” in the little white church in the heart of Cardiff Docks.
It features traditional Norwegian stories and folk songs, and is an educational performance aimed at schools and families. Shows will last around 45 minutes.
There are public performances in English on the following dates:
Wednesday 3 December: 6:00pm
Saturday 6 December: 11:30am
Sunday 7 December: 11:30am (part of the Festival of Light celebrations)
During the Second World War, Cardiff became a temporary home for many Norwegians — seafarers, refugees, and members of the resistance — who helped shape the city’s wartime history.
Now, a new exhibition aims to tell their story. It’s being organised by the heritage officer at the Norwegian Church in Cardiff Bay, Thomas Husøy, and his colleagues. They would love to hear stories of the Norwegian community from that time, and would especially welcome the chance to put on display photographs, artefacts, and archival material.
The heritage team at the Norwegian Church Arts Centre invite the members of the Welsh Norwegian Society to attend its upcoming heritage conference.
On April 9th, we are organising part two of a conference event for our heritage project. The first part took place in November with the theme “South Wales Port Communities: Heritage and History.” It will now be followed by the event “The Diverse Religious and Cultural Heritage of Wales.” The event is co-organised with Cardiff University and Llafur.
We apologise for the lack of communication and absence of events so far in 2025. Thank you for your patience. We just haven’t yet been able to build a calendar of events this year. Like all voluntary societies these days, we are short of volunteers to take on the duties (and rewards!) of organising and communicating activities. The big calendar events of the year – Norwegian national day, the midsummer party and the Festival of Light and Friendship at Christmas – absorb a lot of our capacity. We would welcome help with those, and/or the much less taxing monthly get-togethers. We have use of the Norwegian Church in Cardiff Bay; we can also travel and meet up elsewhere, as we did in Abergavenny last year. But it is always helpful to have a focal point – a speaker, a topic, an activity (such as cooking, crafting or learning the language) to bring people in. We know there is interest but cannot meet the demand with the existing resources. If you’d be willing and able to take on some of the load – however little – we’d love to hear from you. This is the 30th anniversary year of the WNS and we’d very much like to keep going!
It is exceptionally late notice – but we have decided to hold an informal get-together at the Norwegian Church tomorrow, Sunday 16 March, at 2 pm. All are very welcome.
Fellow members have promised to bring Norwegian books to swap or borrow.
There is also talk that it is Scandinavian week at Lidl – so a great chance to pick up snacks and sweets.
Finally, we have confirmed with the church that this year’s national day celebrations will go ahead, with a small difference to the usual schedule, but one which will bring us more into line with the typical Norwegian practice. 17th May being a Saturday this year, we will celebrate in the morning, meeting at the Millennium Centre at 10.15, with a flag parade to the Church at 10.30 and speeches and flag raising at 11.00.
We will ask the church caterers to put on a Norwegian-themed menu. We hope to be able to put on a concert with the church’s new house quartet and perhaps some activities for children.
We hope to see you tomorrow, on 17th May or at one of the other yet-to-be-scheduled events. If you can help, please let us know!
It is the highlight of this part of the year for us and for growing numbers of people who come to join in our celebration of international and intercultural friendship – and to throw some light into the even-darkening days.
Come and join us at the Norwegian Church in Cardiff Bay where the Norsk cafe will be open all day for food and drinks.
The Salvation Army Band will again play a selection of British and Norwegian carols from 4 pm.
At 4.30, we will welcome our official visitors including the new Lord Mayor of Cardiff and representatives of Vestland County Council and, we hope, from Norway’s Embassy in London.
There’ll be some short readings in English, Welsh and Norwegian, some carol singing and lighting of lights on the tree and throughout the church.
The cafe will remain open until 6 for further refreshments.
We like to make sure that the church and the large Christmas tree that will stand proud throughout the many concerts and celebrations that take place over the holiday season reflect Norwegian tradition and culture – and so we ‘pynte’ or decorate them in a traditional style. There is no tinsel on a Norwegian Christmas tree!
Do come and join us on Saturday 23 November at 2.30 pm.
All are welcome.
We’ll bring the decorations – and supply coffee and cake.
Welcome back! Of course, you may not have been away, but it is a Scandinavian tradition to disappear and make the most of the short period of long summer days, enjoying ‘friluftsliv‘ – life outdoors.
We usually congregate at the Norwegian Church in October for a social gathering. Sadly, we have had to cancel the event planned for Sunday 20 October as no one was available to run it, due to work and study commitments.
We will be back for the highlights of the year in the run-up to Christmas.
On Saturday 23 November we will meet to decorate the Christmas tree in the church with traditional Norwegian decorations, some of them hand-made.
And then on Sunday 1 December at 3pm we will hold our annual Festival of Light and Friendship.
Save the dates, and please join us at one or both of those events!
Editor's note: Ken wrote this charming recollection of his involvement with the Welsh Norwegian Society for our Autumn 2021 magazine. We re-publish it now following his passing as the best possible testimony for his contribution to the preservation of the church, to the society and the community over many, many years. Ken's wife Signe pre-deceased him shortly after he wrote this account.
It is lovely to have the opportunity to share few of my recollections of becoming involved with the Norwegian Welsh Society. Over the years it has brought me into contact with many wonderful people. Some are named below, and I apologise to those missed out.
My involvement came about because of an earlier association with norskkrigseilerssamfunnet which enabled Norwegian seafarers who had sailed with the Allies during the Second World War to maintain contact with each other. During the early eighties, [my Norwegian-born wife] Signe and I were honoured to be allowed access to this formidable association of Norwegians who had sailed on the famous one thousand ships that defied the Quisling Government’s orders to sail to an Axis port. They had stayed loyal to the Norwegian Government in London and chose to exile themselves to serve the Allied cause.
I had sailed with such men under the Norwegian flag and was touched by the affection with which they regarded the Welsh coal ports and their people. One of them taught me the words of ‘Sjømannen og stjernen’ which tells of the sailor’s yearning for home and family during those dreadful years.
Most of the members of the Society had married women they had met whilst in exile and had made their homes all over the UK. The Association met twice yearly, on 17th May and near to Christmas. Organised by Mr Erling Pedersen, who lived in Cardiff, and another gentleman called Jorgensen, the meetings took place in the banqueting hall of the historic Westgate Hotel in Newport.
They were grand events which filled the hall. We sat each side of two rows of tables taking up the whole length of that fine room. Across the front was another table seating the officers of the organisation, the Norwegian Ambassador to the UK and the Lord Mayor of Newport. There were speeches, a fine meal and music for dancing away the rest of the evening.
Age takes its toll, and the long tables became shorter year by year. Eventually the sad but wise decision to wind up the organisation was made. But we had made lasting friendships, with people from South Wales like Stan and Ellen Waine and Ebba Lovering. With these, around 1986, Signe became a member of the small group working hard to save the Norwegian Seamen’s church from demolition and she has furnished some of the details from her hospital bed.
The church building looked quite sad at its old site. It just had to be renovated.
At that time the building looked quite sad at its old site at the head of the Bute East Dock. Its decaying corrugated iron cladding belied its fine interior. It just had to be renovated to take its rightful place as an important part of Cardiff’s history. In 1987, it was dismantled and put into storage ready to be reassembled on its new site. The group worked hard, and forged links with the seafaring community of Hordaland, which includes the historic seaport of Bergen on the west coast of Norway. Aware of its links with the Welsh Norwegian community, Hordaland contributed £250,000 to the project.
The enterprise was a stupendous success. The church was rebuilt in its current position. The old, corrugated iron cladding had been a condition imposed by the nineteenth century port authority, and it was replaced by traditional timber painted a sparkling white. In April 1992, the building was reopened by Princess Martha Louise of Norway in the presence of the Norwegian community and the civic dignitaries of Cardiff. Signe was given a lift to Central Station in the mayoral car, an event now firmly ensconced in our family saga.
The enterprise was a stupendous success. The church was rebuilt in its current position.
The old church immediately commenced its new role as an Arts Centre and preserving the memory of the ships and men that hauled pit props from Norway and took coal home again. It was also creating strong links between Wales and Norway.
One of the by-products of the enterprise was the Sunday group. I call it that because it met on the last Sunday of each month at the church. It was made up of the remaining members of that original group which set out to save the building, funded by a bequest from Ellen Greve to enable members of the group to maintain contact with each other.
There was Ellen, Stan, Ebba, Mary Allen, Sid Eide, Deris and Hugh Deeks, and Averil Goldsworthy who was chair of WNS from 2003 to 2017. There were so many interesting people to chat with, like the musician, the late Mr. Nichols and his son and daughter in law, David and Pauline.
We would enjoy good coffee, Norwegian style cakes, waffles, and a good old chinwag about our experiences of Norway and her people. The highlight of the afternoon was drawing the raffle. We all contributed a prize, and most of us went home with one. Our son Gareth used to assist Stan in selling the tickets, making the draw and calling out the winning numbers. It helped the growth of his self-confidence no end.
The ancient Norse gods must have approved of the event.
Then there was the Midsummer Garden party, traditionally held in Ebba’s spacious garden in Sully. Ebba, her family, and friends would furnish a sumptuous buffet. Betty and Peter Persen were prominent memories, and Peter, who became president of the Society, would light the traditional bonfire. The ancient Norse gods must have approved of the event for only on one or two occasions were we obliged to seek refuge from the rain in Ebba’s beautiful home.
The seventeenth of May was, of course, a special event with all flags flying around the church. Around 2006, Karen Allen, the Society’s development officer, started the tradition of parading from the Wales Millennium Centre through Cardiff Bay to the Church. In the evening, all the members of the Society met for a meal, provided by the caterers who ran the Norwegian Church coffee shop. Society members contributed to the menu by supplying their own mulled wine, starters, and gateaux to ensure things could be as authentic as possible. We were never disappointed.
Christmas was celebrated with a whole day event lighting the Christmas Tree and singing the Norwegian national anthem. Evening saw us enjoying another delightful Christmas meal with akvavit served by Erling and Sylvia Lindoe.
We danced around the Christmas tree and sang carols to Mrs. Carol Roese’s accompaniment. Mrs. Barbara Bailey sang for us, she and her husband Colin regularly making the trip from Magor. Even when Colin became wheelchair bound, they managed to make the trip.
It was at one of these events that I first met Solveig Borthwick, and her husband, Don, who was the Society’s first chair. Tony and Carole Olavesen, Alan Milne, and Alan Hall were other new friends made at these events. Alan Hall taught at Atlantic College, and we were frequently joined by Norwegian students at who were always a joy to chat with.
In 2002 we celebrated the 10th anniversary of the reopening of the Norwegian Church. We were joined by Bodø Cathedral Choir, led by their charismatic conductor, Magne Hansen. He had the choir encircle the audience in Llandaff Cathedral which created a very special sound. They sang for us at Ebba’s Garden party, and at the church, first from the balcony before proceeding down the stairs to the hall. The Society also arranged for them to perform in St David’s Cathedral which the choir thought was very special.
There is no shortage of male voice choirs in south Wales. But an afternoon concert at the Norwegian church in April provided a rare treat: a chance to hear a men’s choir from from Skien in south-eastern Norway: the snappily-titled Monastry Island and Scheen Waterfall Walking and Singing Men’s Association.
Twenty-one of the choir’s 25 members made the trip to the UK. They were based in Hereford and made a special day trip to Cardiff to give a free concert in the Norwegian Church in the Bay.
The choir was founded by its current conductor, Kjetil Svestad, in 2010. It is associated with the Gimsøy and Nenset congregation in Skien. Kjetil is the organist and musical director at Nenset Church, where the choir rehearses.
The choir needed a name, and a competition suggested many funny choices. In the end the name Klosterøen og Scheensvassdraget Spadser og Mandssangforening was chosen. Nice and simple!
Scheen is the old spelling of the city of Skien, which is two hours’ drive to the west of Oslo and has around 55,000 inhabitants.
Founded as a ‘men breaking out of an ordinary mixed church-choir’, the singers come from different parts of the city and from different churches, and they represent a variety of talents, personalities and backgrounds. They sing both sacred and secular popular songs, depending on the occasion.
“We’re a bunch of happy amateurs,” they say, “singing because we enjoy it so much.”
“We hope to touch peoples hearts and bring our joy to others.”
We thank the choir for their performance and for permission to show some songs here.
It was FANTASTISK to see so many members at our annual Festival of Light and Friendship at the Norwegian Church on Sunday 10 December.
It was standing room only for the first religious service to be held in the church in many years, led by the Revd Ingrid Ims.
The Salvation Band played, carols were sung, and the tree was lit.
And we remembered our former driving light, Karen Allen, with the unveiling of a plaque in her memory in the gallery.
The Festival of Light and Friendship is becoming the cornerstone of our calendar, and really helps to cement the bonds between Wales and Norway. Thanks to all who came and those who made it happen.
Welsh Norwegian Society 