SNRG in Norway

Many of you know the origins of the ringing group, but for those that do not please refer to the FAQ pages. Those of us whose group membership goes back to 1971 have kept in touch with the group's founder Humphrey Dobinson over the years by letters and emails. However, the last time anyone from the group visited him was when Gary and I dropped in to see him at his house in Swindon in the early 1980s, on our way to Slimbridge to make some swan darvics. Since then Humphrey and his wife Oddrun retired and went to live in Oddrun’s native Norway. Their two children Colin and Kristin had also moved there to work.

I bumped into ex-member Nigel Bosworth just before last Christmas and he suggested we should pay a visit with any other original members that we could contact and were able to make the trip. After consulting with Colin Dobinson we secretly set up a visit to see Oddrun and Humphrey and flew out on Friday 18 May. Four of us made the trip, Gary, Mick T, Nigel and myself.

In 1966 on 7 September, Humphrey took delivery of a new Bedford mini-bus (the Beddy), Humphrey would take us all over the country in this bird-watching and ringing. He spent countless out of school hours, supported all the way by Oddrun, passing on his ornithological knowledge to van-loads of eager pupils. If we called in at his house in Keyworth to do some garden ringing, Oddrun would often supply waffles for us to eat. Sadly such dedication in this way would not be possible to repeat these days as current laws would not allow it. Pupils now miss out as there are no doubt still teachers today that would be prepared to dedicate so much time in this way if they could. The Beddy became a symbol of the Fairham Ornithological Society and the ringing group, much of the ringing we did in those early days would not have been possible without it. It was sad to see the Beddy head south to Swindon with Humphrey and Oddrun in the early 1970s when Humphrey took up a new position at a school there. Humphrey started an ornithological society at his new school and trained some pupils to become ringers but deliberately kept it on a smaller scale than he did at Fairham School.

As time took its toll on the Beddy it was left in a garage in Swindon and stayed there rusting and the interior being damaged by mice for a long time. But a few years ago Colin had it restored to its former glory and now it too has a new home in Norway. According to Colin it cost a ridiculous amount of money to restore but over the years it had played such an important part in the Dobinson family lives that he just had to do it. A magnificent job he has done as well, we saw photos of the ‘before’ condition and have witnessed the ‘after’. Certain alterations had to be made to make it legal for use on 21st century Norwegian roads, such as removing some of the bench seats to allow the installation of a row of ‘proper’ seats with belts behind the front seats and new Norwegian number plates. (Incidentally the new plate is 66.09.07, not just a random number - see the start of paragraph 3!) As we expected Colin had also saved the old UK plates JNN 902D. The Beddy took us all on a trip down memory lane, literally as we went out for a spin. Not least was the memory of how uncomfortable those bench seats were, it made us wonder how we managed to travel so far on them all those years ago. As one of only 3 of its kind in Norway we saw heads turn as we passed, I commented that we were probably turning more heads with the Beddy than we would if we were passing in a shiny new Ferrari! We just felt there was one thing missing but that was soon rectified as Colin accepted a SNRG car sticker which is now displayed in one the rear door windows.

It was a fantastic trip enabling us to catch up with Oddrun and Humphrey and to see Colin and Kristin who were only children the last time we met. It was great to meet Colin's wife, Trude, and their children Hannah and Fredrik at their house for the great BBQ . We were made so very welcome by them all and would like to thank them for their wonderful hospitality. We must also thank them for arranging the fantastic weather, in the four days we were there we hardly saw a cloud in the sky and the temperature was in the 20s every day.


Kev