Gunnar Brodin, Marshal of the Realm, 1931-2009

Gunnar Brodin passed away on Christmas Eve 24 December 2009 at an age of 78. Behind him he had a long and distinguished service in higher technical education, science and research, public administration and finally the monarch’s as Marshal of the Realm (the head of the Royal Court), a position in which he was considered one of the King’s most important advisors. (more…)

Carl Philip shacking up at castle?

There has been much speculation about where he will live during his studies at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. Svensk Damtidning believes to have the answer as they this week report that Prince Carl Philip is staying with Baron Carl Johan Cees von Schwerin at Skarhult Castle outside Eslöv in Skåne County. The Baron’s family consists of his wife Alexandra, children Werner, 5, Isabella, 4, and Diana, 1 1/2. The Baron is a farmer and grows malt, peas and wheat on 900 hectares of land.
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Victoria’s confidante explores new horizons

Screencap: Tarras-Wahlberg on Nyhetsmorgon 29 August 2008

After 23 years of dutiful service at the Royal Court, spanning a number of important positions, Court Marshal Elisabeth Tarras-Wahlberg let it be known this past spring that she had accepted a job position with the Emir of Qatar, His Highness Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani. The wealthy oil state is, just like so many of its neighbours, putting up a lot of money and effort from its leaders to become an international key player, and for Qatar the financial markets has been the area of focus as they are aiming at becoming an international financial centre. In all of this, contacts with the international community are very important, and that is where Tarras-Wahlberg comes in…

This past weekend Elisabeth boarded a Qatar Airways flight from Stockholm to Doha which is her new address. She is officially on a leave of absence from the Royal Court as she takes on a new job as protocol adviser to the Emir, if both parties are happy the one year trial employment might lead to a longer contract.

Many Swedes recognize Elisabeth as the former head of press and information at the Royal Court, through her job she has become a familiar face in the media and a favourite guest at mingling events in Stockholm. Since 2001 she has been an adviser to Crown Princess Victoria, and since 2004 she has been Court Marshal and head of HRH The Crown Princess Household. Victoria and Elisabeth are very close and one has been able see the elegant grey-haired Tarras-Wahlberg constantly in her employer’s shadow at official events.

Last Friday, 29 September, Elisabeth Tarras-Wahlberg was a guest on TV4’s morning show “Nyhetsmorgon” before she left the country this weekend. You can watch the clip online, just click here.

Princess’s mentor is pleased with her adept

This is a translation of an article written by Barbro Hultman for Svenska Dagbladet, published on 19 October 2007. The original article can be found here.

Lena Ramel retires after five years with the Royal Court. She describes the time as Princess Madeleine’s mentor as her professional career’s most challenging. Now she will devote herself to her great interest – painting.

Chance wanted that Lena Ramel, with close ties to Hälsingland, would become mentor to the province’s Duchess, Princess Madeleine. A bonus point for both teacher and student which have resulted in many rewarding cultural trips in the fair areas.

The task to guide and support Princess Madeleine and to be her personal adviser is finished. The Princess has taken her academic degree and received the security and safety she needs, both in the hereditary role to represent the Royal Family and Sweden and as a base for her future professional role.

Lena Ramel can retire with a good conscience and devote herself to the own personal development. Parallel to the teaching profession she has always painted and exhibited her work regularly. She enjoys the new freedom at the easel, standing upright on a sun drenched terrace at San Michele on Capri. There she makes long and quite eventful hikes in the mountains in the company of her husband Gunnar and that is where the birthday will be celebrated tomorrow.

The upbringing with two siblings in a happy, ingenious, esthetical and intellectual environment has imprinted her. The father was a lawyer and the great role model. He was Sweden’s first environmental lawyer with a burning interest for the culture and society of the antiquity. At age 87 he received a doctorate about water rights in ancient Greece!

Lena took a master in Latin, history, German and Swedish at Gothenburg University and became a teacher with Swedish as her main subject. One of those beloved teachers who manage to transfer a feeling of what he or she believes in onto the students.

There has to be something more in teaching, she feels, than to just mechanically distribute facts. The force of art and play for example, and the courage to blast established boundaries, given complements in the education on all levels, not the least the academic.

- I would like to say that the greatest danger that lures for the young person is the mechanical soul. It’s the whole of a growing person that we should open up the possibilities too.

The five years at the Royal Court as the mentor for Princess Madeleine and study advisor for Prince Carl Philip became her most fun and challenging ones. Not because the students were royal and the task could be considered as “fancy”, that kind of thing does not impress Lena Ramel. The challenge was of another kind: to develop the personalities from their inherited roles, which puts special demands and expectations.

The goal and the bar were put up high for Princess Madeleine. In the education- and development plan an academic degree within the staked out time of three years and at the same terms as other students was included. The Princess fully accepted. She’s one who never gives up what she’s decided to do according to her mentor, who describes her adept as a brilliant person, warm and generous with a good judgement.

- The Princess’ and my cooperation has been both zestful and intense with a mutual trust –but not always without contradictory opinions.

As study advisor for Prince Carl Philip she has been able to rejoice at his inherited artistic talent been given full justice and having had an outlet. A substantial base is laid for a future profession as a designer and photographer.

Even if Lena Ramel ends her employment with the Royal Court, the mentorship means something more than a normal work based relationship. She has to be prepared to also in the future assist with a little advice if needed.

She won’t give up painting.

- My inclination to fable with the help of the brush feels no boundaries. Often I’ve found inspiration in the Bible’s colourful world but also in the school and every day life. To paint means, like all creating, the feeling that for oneself having to formulate the meaning with existence.

Facts

Turns: 65 tomorrow

Family: Husband Gunnar, engineer. Children Staffan Hemrå, diplomat and embassy councillor at the Swedish UN delegation in New York and Karin Hemrå-Forsberg, prosecutor. Bonus kids and grandkids.

Lives: Centrally in Stockholm and during the summer in Arbrå, Hälsingland

Professions: Teacher, artist, lecturer, mentor for Princess Madeleine and study advisor for Prince Carl Philip.

Interests: Paints and have exhibited at Färg och Form, the Museum of Gotland, Galleri 17. She’s preparing a new exhibition in a year or so. Plays the violin. Building conservation and the culture of Hälsingland.

Hails: The creative methodology.

Reading right now: “Vatten” by Staffan Michelson.

Celebrates: At Capri where she’s staying at a guest house for three weeks to paint.

Increased royal appropriations

After years of very meagre changes to His Majesty the King’s budget for The Royal Court as Sweden’s head of state, the Government on Thursday proposed much needed increased appropriations of the apanage in the coming years.

With barely any cost enumerations included over the years and increasing demands and needs for improvement in some areas, such as security, the Government has finally accepted their responsibility to address the situation. His Excellency the Marshal of the Realm and other high royal officials have many times made written statements on how the security around the Royal Palace of Stockholm needs to be improved, a situation which is today nearly a laugh compared to the high security that surrounds the Parliament and Government Offices. While those have rigorous security measures for visitors, with a large staff of security officers stationed all around the buildings, and controls at the entrances, the Royal Palace has not had almost any security whatsoever. The occasional security guard can be seen but there are mostly only visitor guides around in some rooms and no security measures at all when tourists enter the facility. Finally the Government has accepted their responsibility and changes will come as a result of the suggestion for new budget appropriations, Sweden’s head of state may finally get a decent security and safety control for his working residence.

The state allocation for 2007 is 98,468 million SEK. For the coming years the Government has suggested the the following increases to the Parliament in its Budget Bill: 109,5 million SEK in 2008, 112,1 million SEK in 2009 and 114,9 million SEK in 210. Those for the years after 2008 are calculated estimates and might change however.

About half of the increased appropriations will be used to increase the security of the Royal Palace of Stockholm: a new entrance with a security central will be installed, equipment to scan letters and packages to the Royal Family and the Royal Court will be purchased plus training for the staff how to use it, and additional security and service staff will be hired. Additionally, Crown Princess Victoria’s personal security will be tightened and the Guest Apartments at the Royal Palace will be spruced up.

Swedish State Visit to Japan

On Tuesday, the second day of the state visit, the Royal Couple had a full schedule. The main item on the programme, for all parties, must surely have been the visit to the National Science Museum where the original of world famous botanist Carl von Linné’s “Systema Naturae” along with other books, sketches and letters had been shipped from Sweden. It’s the first time it visits another country, and the Emperor, whom is very botanically skilled and interested, listened carefully to the explanations.

The Queen also visited the National Art Center where she saw the exhibition ”Foreign Artists in Paris 1900-2005” from the Centre Pompidou in Paris, in which many noble paintings from among others Picasso, Chagall, Mondigliani and Giacometti are a part.

In the evening, the Royal Couple gave a return banquet for the Emperor and Empress and invited guests at the Hotel Okura.

On the menu of the return banquet at Hotel Okura, 27 March 2007:

* Sill (pickled herring) from Solliden, own recipe from Öland
* King Carl XVI Gustaf salmon with apple-curry sauce, zucchini and escallops
* Whitefish roe in a little “package”
* Kobe stak with braised endives, truffle and horseradish

On Wednesday both the Royal and Imperial Couples boarded a train in Tokyo to go on a day-trip outside the big city. The destination was the city of Kwagoe in the Saitama Prefecture about thirty kilometers outside Tokyo, a very traditional city that is often called “Little Edo” , after the former name of the capital.

In Kwagoe, the Royal and Imperial Couples were received with flags and bows from large crowds of people as they steered their path towards, among things, the Kitain Temple, where they were guided around the grounds by a buddhist monk

The temple is world famous for the Gohyaku Rakan statues, five hundred completely unique pieces of stown statues of the disciples of Buddha, made between the years 1782 and 1825.

A visit to the Kawagoe City Art Museum was also on the agenda, and there the royals were shown a performance of the traditional dance kagura and a demonstation of an old traditional wood craft.

On Wednesday evening, the Emperor and Empress invited the King and Queen to a private dinner at the Imperial Palace in Tokyo.

On Thursday, the state visit was concluded in Tokyo. The Imperial Couple visited the King and Queen at the hotel to say goodbye, after which the Swedish Royal Couple continued an official programme at different locations.

The King visited Kungen the Toyota Higashi-Fuji Technical Center, while the Queen took part in a symposia about child pornography and sexual exploitation of children.

She also visited the Ghibli Museum in Tokyo where she met with Hayako Miyazaki, a world famous anime director and animator whom had made the highest grossing film ever in Japan – Spirited Away – which also received an Oscar

On Friday, the Royal Couple pays an official visit to the city of Nagasaki.

Culiary legend Werner Vögeli is dead

Werner Vögeli was born on 2 January 1930 in Langnau im Emmental in Bern, Switzerland. His love for food grew already at an early age. In the little village where he grew up, Werner got the best start a chef can have as he experienced the best ingredients possible: fresh milk and cream from the cows, newly grinded flour, meat and vegetables from the farms nearby. At the age of 9 he began working at a local tavern, and when he was 16 he moved away from home to work as a chef student in Geneva. After that, he worked and educated himself in Germany, Ireland and France.

In 1951 Werner came to Sweden, without knowing a word of Swedish, but determined to become a great chef. Together with another culinary legend, Tore Wretman, he began working at Grand Hôtel. Not much later, he was appointed to a head position at the elegant restaurant Operakällaren in Stockholm. Werner and Tore Wretman were together the ones who developed the culinary education and put Sweden on the culinary world map, and with time the country has developed into the super power it is today in the world of food.

The friendly man from the Swiss countryside immediately struck home with the Swedes. Werner became immensely popular with the Swedish public from the start; there was even a comedy show inspired by his persona on national television, called “Werner and Werner”.

Werner’s royal careers started early and lead him straight to the top position. In 1961 he was appointed a cook for the Royal Court, in 1972 he became a Royal Chef and in 1977 he was appointed to the highest honour – the Royal Head Chef.

In 1977, he was one of the founders of Le Club des Chefs des Chefs d’Etat, an exclusive club for all the head chefs of the world’s heads of states. The club’s motto is “Politics divides men, but a good meal unites them”, and Werner was the Chairman of that club from 1988-1993, and after that Honorary President. In 1980 he received HM The King’s medal of the 8th size in a blue ribbon. In 2002, he became an Honorary Doctor at Umeå University. Werner was also an honorary member of the Académie Culinaire de France and Officer of the l’Ordre Le Mérite Agricole.

As one of the country’s most popular personalities and a legend in the culinary world, Werner was never afraid to share his passion to the Swedish people via books, participance on television or radio. Through the years he published many books; the last one came out in 2005.

Werner Vögeli died yesterday, 6 March 2007, at a hospital after some time of illness. He leaves behind his wife Ingrid, three children and many grandchildren. He will be sincerely missed by everyone; Sweden has lost one of its greatest personalities.