“ They're not Swedish, Mac. They're Norwegian.”

Midnight Quatermass 20: Scandinavia, not a lot of news and a sort-of war story.

This week I’m writing to you from beautiful Stockholm.

I know it a little better than Copenhagen, which I now adore, and we travelled here via Gothenburg which is another lovely city we used to hang out in regularly before the kids arrived. This trip is for them and it’s been a delight to introduce them to these places. We brought Connor here when he was still a baby, but I won’t suffer the photos of him grinning in a borrowed high chair covered in Turbonegro stickers on you. Both of them feel right at home here though.

I was lucky enough that Lockdown didn’t really impact me personally and the kids were young enough to take it in their stride, but I hated not being able to travel so we started again as soon as we were able. Seeing places you love via your children is wonderful as it gives you an entirely new perspective. Often better, always different. We always loved Scandinavia, but seeing it as a parent just reinforced everything we thought we knew about the place and its people. It feels like a second home and everything here just works.

Plus, you know, VIKINGS.

If you want the holiday slideshow you can always follow me over on Instagram.

A few years ago I was involved in a project based here that sadly never really got going, but I’m getting the same itch again to find someone out here to work with. I think I’ll start looking into that once we’re back home.

Home though. It’s weird watching what’s going on back in the UK from here. I’ve seen the term muppets thrown around a lot in relation to the knuckle-dragging brick-throwers, but I hate to see Henson’s wonderfully creative creations reduced to a derogatory term. Everywhere has people like this, but this particular bunch of idiotic and violent fuckwits do sadly seem entwined in a country that is too fucking ancient and has bred easily spell-cast fodder happy to be marched under a simplistic flag by the worst of the worst. We’ll shake this off soon as we always do, but fuck I wish people were using libraries rather than setting fire to them.

Bigger and happier news closer to home is we finally committed to getting a pup for the kids. I have no illusion regarding who will actually be doing the lion’s share of training and looking after the fur-ball and we’re not going to use the little guy to try and build character or provide teachable moments for the monsters or any of that guff. But everyone should have a dog at least once in their lives, right?

This will be Jess’ first too. They don’t know what’s about to hit them.

Anyway… this is Cooper Rockatansky McCabe:

He’ll be joining the clan in September, but I’ll try my best not to turn this place into puppy photos. Jess refused to let me name either of the kids Rockatansky so they had to settle for HIGHLANDER and The Bionic Woman references on their birth certificates, but it’s a fine name for a pup.

Cooper was chosen by both kids independently of our input and it makes my inner David Lynch fan soar.

The pic up top by the way is from the Swedish show Jordskott that ran for two seasons back in 2015. It’s a horror story masquerading as a police procedural and has all the trappings of that first wave of Nordic crime, but takes you somewhere very different. It was fucking huge here but sadly unpraised elsewhere. If you can find it I think you’ll love it.

Work wise I’ve been cracking on with PANIC! while travelling and the couple of long train journeys have been a blessing. Until this evening the kids have run me too ragged to do much in the late evening, but tonight everyone crashed early and I have coffee and french punk rock and you guys.

Speaking of France The Night Bride that I mentioned here a while ago is up and running again in its operatic version. Fun times.

When back in London I’ll be kicking around a new film newsletter thing with Rob, but it won’t launch until the winter I expect. Watch this space I guess.

I think we just hit MQ 20 which I guess is a milestone. There are over two hundred of you receiving this thing which is lovely as its been purely organic with no real promotion from me. Once I get back I’ll start thinking about where we’re taking the next twenty or so issues. This still feels like the preliminary stage of something, but I do feel like I’m circling its purpose now so again thank you so much for being here from the beginning. It really does mean a lot.

Right. Story time I think.

HOME

A lovely huge landscaped garden is the centre point of the nursing home. Paths snake here and there in the sunshine while huge ancient oaks create shade. The flowers are in bloom and some residents stop to admire them. One diminutive lady carries a camera and pauses here and there to capture a slice of nature with a gentle smile. Other residents sit here and there on benches, a couple in wheelchairs, all watched over by a smiling nurse from the open double-doors of the main house.

It’s a grand Georgian mansion that looks the part, offering as it does, a little old-fashioned dignity to those that reside here.

No one is certain exactly how old Jan Domanski is but he’s certainly in his late 90’s now. A little frail and confined to a wheelchair, but smiling at the view. He has a sticking plaster on the right side of his forehead and the beginnings of a bruise at its edge.

“How is he?” asks Julia. His granddaughter.

“He’s okay, love,” says Nurse Evans. Julia is slight, but athletic and you can see her grandfather in her. The nurse is rosey cheeked and her voice is reassuring, but…

“The paramedics checked him out and apart from the cut on his head he’s a-ok. It’s just that…”

They’re in one of the large back drawing rooms that overlook the garden. The door is open wide and are not far from where Jan sits, but stand slightly out of earshot.

Julia is worried.

“Just that?”

“He was a little more confused than normal is all. We thought a visit from you might bring him back to us.”

As if on cue Jan begins to raise his voice.

“I can’t… can’t… it’s all gone. Gone.”

Julia moves over to his and kneels in front of him holding his hand.

“What’s gone, grandad?”

“I can’t… where… who?”

“It’s me, grandad. Julia.”

The nurse frowns a little as she stands behind Jan, listening.

“The instruments. The instruments are gone. I can’t…”

“He keeps going on about his instruments. Was he a musician, love?”

Julia shakes her head, but holds his gaze and doesn’t look up at the nurse.

“He’s talking about his plane. The Lancaster. He was a pilot in World War II.”

Above them the sky could not be any clearer.

“My grandfather is a war hero.”

~

Jan Domanski, aged 21. His head is bleeding freely into his right eye as he tries to blink it away. His shoulder is also bloody, his leather jacket torn up. He sits in the pilot seat of a Lancaster Bomber. The seat around him, the rear of the cockpit and the shattered windshield in front of him  are all shot up. Next to him is the slumped body of his friend and co-pilot.

“Can’t see a damn thing, Jarek. Instruments are gone. Radio too. If I ditch her… you and the boys have had it.”

He wipes away the blood from his eye, but doesn’t look at his silent friend.

“Let’s head home.”

The plane flies on, billowing smoke, as a fog bank moves in and hides it from view.

~

Julia is standing now as she holds her phone out to show the screen to the nurse.

Jan is using the back of his hand to wipe his eye.

“Lost. Can’t get them home…”

“The BBC did an article about him. His crew were all shot up. He’d been hit in the head and shoulder and there was fog. His plane was falling apart, burning, but somehow he navigated his way back to the base and landed. He saved them all.”

Nurse Evan’s is genuinely impressed as she takes the phone to read the article.

“Bloody Nora! I never would have guessed.”

Julia’s face is full of concern as she looks at her grandfather.

“He’s reliving it.”

~

Young Jan’s blood-stained gloved hand is poking at the broken instrument panel.

“Come on, blast you!”

Outside it’s pitch black now, but there’s light from the burning plane. A small fire is spreading across the fuselage.

“Let me try something…”

~

Jan is leaning forward in his wheelchair. His eyes are narrowed. His voice distraught.

“It’s no use. We’re lost. Sorry…”

The nurse hands the phone back and Julia scrolls down looking for something.

“They retraced the course he took. Listed the headings and everything. Here it is. The first course correction was…”

~

Young Jan is staring at the shattered radio in disbelief as a young woman’s voice fills the cockpit.

“…steer two three zero.”

Jan leans forward and barks at the broken console.

“Say again. I can hardly hear you. Steer two three…”

~

Julia is holding his hand again and smiling at him as he looks at her without seeing her.

“Zero. Then take her up over the fog bank. You’ll see lights.”

The old man smiles.

~

Back in the cockpit a lifetime ago it’s old Jan sat in the pilot’s seat now. The jacket, the uniform, the blood is all gone. His hand is on the stick and he’s grinning from ear to ear.

“Affirmative. I see the lights. It’s Dover. Bringing her in!”

Julia’s voice fills the cockpit again.

“Keep the dipper to your right. You’re on a heading for RAF Swingfield.”

~

Her grandfather is squeezing her hand and Julia is smiling right back at him. She has a tear in her eye.

“I can’t see you. How will I find you?” he asks.

“You’ll always find me…”

~

September 16th, 1940. The burning Lancaster is touching down on the runway at RAF Swingfield. Two ambulances and a fire engine race towards it.

“Just follow my voice. Where are you? Do you know where you are?”

~

Julia has her eyes closed as her grandfather leans forward out of his chair to wrap his arms around her, hugging her, but for a moment Nurse Evans could have sworn he looked younger, his hair blonde and shining, his physique lithe and strong…

“Home. Julia… I’m home!”

The nurse blinks and shakes her head. A trick of the light that’s all. She’s been working too hard. But she’s glad she agreed to the extra shift. It’s moments like this that make it all worthwhile. Her own eyes are wet now as she backs away to leave them to their moment.

~

Young Jan is shooing away the medic as he watches his crew being loaded into the ambulance. His friend Jarek is conscious and manages to raise his thumb up as the doors close on him.

The CO is looking back at the Lancaster in amazement as the brigade put the last of the fire out.

“Damn fine flying, Domanski. Damn fine! You saved them all.”

With the ambulance away Jan allows the medic to remove his jacket to apply a field dressing to his shoulder. He shakes his head at the CO.

“Wasn’t me. Thank Julia for that. Didn’t catch her full name. The radio… she saved us.”

The officer looks at the nasty gash on the pilot’s head and shakes his head.

“No Julia here, old chap. I took to the radio myself for the last twenty minutes, but couldn’t raise you. Not surprised with the amount of lead you took. You may still have some of it up there. Let’s get that head wound of yours fixed, and then we’ll see about getting you some leave.”

Jan Domanski sits heavily in the jeep as the CO drives them back to the 303. The medic does his best to wrap the pilot’s head from the back seat.

“I could have sworn…”

The sky over Britain is clearing.

It’s going to be a beautiful day.

Tad short this week.

Once I hit send I’ll start thinking about a slightly meatier 21st issue. I’ve been out here long enough to forget all about the short time difference between Sweden and London, but it feels relatively early still so I’ll start noodling.

See you next week and stay safe.

Mike