Old and redundant

For the first time since 1997, I have reached October 31 without buying a pumpkin or a neep. It feels odd. For almost three decades, the rhythm of late October has been the same: pumpkins appearing in the shops, little faces planning designs, and the smell of candle wax and slightly singed squash in the dining room. It is such a small tradition, but it has been part of the fabric of family life for so long that letting it go feels like closing a chapter.

In the early years, I was the one who did everything. I bought the pumpkin, chose the design, and did the carving while small people watched in awe and occasionally tried to poke out an eye or add an extra tooth. Later, in the 2010s, the job shifted hands. Charlotte gathered her minions around her to pick the perfect pumpkin and sketch out faces that grew increasingly elaborate every year. Thomas, ever the traditionalist, sat beside her with his turnip and a range of tools, determined to keep the old ways alive and prove he was the most Scottish of us all.

The last few years have been quieter. The two youngest still asked for pumpkins, but without the same energy. They were busy with friends, homework, or phones, and the carving became a quick afterthought rather than an event. And now, suddenly, there is no one left waiting for me to bring one home. Anna is buried under assignments, Amaia is off to a Halloween party that apparently involves cocktails rather than pumpkins, Léon is living half an hour away in the city, Charlotte's living in Madrid, and Marcel is currently living in Mexico City.

I stood in the kitchen and realised that there was no reason to go out and buy one. For a moment, that small fact hit me harder than expected. This is what it feels like when family traditions quietly slip away, not with drama but with a slow fading. You notice it in these tiny absences - the empty seat at the table, the quiet house at the weekend, the October without a pumpkin.

It is not sadness exactly, more a soft ache mixed with pride. This is how it is meant to go. The whole point of parenting is to raise people who can build their own lives, who are too busy doing things that matter to them to need you for every small ritual. It is what we hope for, even as we secretly wish they still needed us just a little bit.

So, resigned to my pumpkin-free fate and feeling slightly adrift, I grabbed the shopping list to go to Netto. At least the fridge would get stocked, even if the windowsill to the courtyard stayed bare. But as I reached for my car keys, I spotted an item on the list added by Thomas.

'1 pumpkin'

And that was it. The universe’s small way of reminding me that parenting does not really stop; it just changes shape.

It made me laugh, standing there in my jacket with the shopping list in my hand. Maybe I no longer need to buy pumpkins for the kids, but apparently, I still have one overgrown child who is not ready to give up the tradition. Thomas may have a grey beard and a mortgage, but he still wants his pumpkin. I suppose that’s comforting in a way, at least one of them still believes in Halloween magic, even if he needs reading glasses to carve it.

Watching your children grow up is strange because it happens so gradually that you rarely see it in real time. You go from tying shoelaces to teaching them to drive in what feels like a handful of summers. They slip away gently, one small independence at a time, until one day you look up and they are fully grown. You feel proud and amazed, but also a little redundant, as though you have been quietly laid off from the best job you ever had.

Every so often they still need something. A recipe. A bit of advice. Or just a chat. That is when you realise the job description has not vanished at all, it has simply been updated. You are no longer the project manager of daily life, but the trusted consultant, the person they call when comfort or common sense is required. It is a promotion of sorts, though the salary remains the same.

So, I guess I will go to Netto and thereafter to the pumpkin farm to pick out a good, solid pumpkin for my husband. 

The Country I No Longer Recognise

It is just over six years since we made the very difficult decision to leave the UK. At the time, people assumed Brexit was mostly about paperwork and would not really change their lives. But to us, that Brexit deadline was a door about to slam shut, leaving me on the opposite side from my husband and kids. If we did not move before it came down, my children and husband had an escape route but, as the only one in the family who had only a British passport, I would be landlocked.

And I had been afraid for a long time already, at least five years, of the anti-immigrant direction England was taking, dragging Scotland along in its wake and pulling us, kicking and screaming, out of the EU. I began to imagine a future, insular UK. But even in my wildest dreams, I did not think it could get this bad. In my worst nightmares, Farage as a potential prime minister was still a joke. The idea that abortion rights might be up for debate, or that fundamentalist Christianity could ever make inroads into mainstream politics, felt utterly impossible. And yet here we are. The irony is that when I voiced much smaller fears back then, I was invariably told I was overreacting.

I remember once, when Anna was in Primary 3, the children were asked to bring in their favourite book to share with the class. Most of the others turned up with well-thumbed copies of Roald Dahl or Julia Donaldson, the sort of titles every teacher knows by heart and every child has at least seen before.

Anna, though, chose a Danish book, Lotte kan nemlig cykle, a big green hardback her dad often read to her at bedtime. Her teacher picked it up, turned it over in her hands, and realised with surprise that she could not read a word of it. Instead of putting it aside or hurrying on, she was fascinated. She asked Anna to stand up in front of the class and tell everyone the story they would never otherwise be able to read themselves.

And Anna did. Page by page, she translated as she went, telling the story in English, six years old and standing there with quiet confidence. The class sat in rapt silence, wide-eyed, and the teacher stood moved, almost in awe of this small, ordinary-looking child who suddenly revealed such an extraordinary, hidden side to herself. Afterwards, a few classmates crowded round her, asking questions: “Can you really read that?” “Can you teach me?” Anna came home glowing, proud of herself in a way that made my heart swell.

The teacher rang to tell me about it. She said it was one of those magical classroom moments, the kind that make a teacher feel they have glimpsed a child properly for who they are.

But even as I basked in the warmth of that memory, I felt a creeping fear. Because I knew how quickly things can change. I was scared we were on the cusp of a time when the reaction to that very same book might be the opposite, not wonder but suspicion. I could too easily imagine a teacher leaning in with hushed tones, telling Anna to put it back in her bag, explaining it was inappropriate, bustling her off to the library to choose an English book instead. Not because it was wrong, but because it revealed something they thought best kept hidden, her “dirty secret.” I even imagined myself pre-empting it, perhaps suggesting she should leave that book at home.

That thought chilled me. I could not bear to be around for the moment when the genuine delight and admiration in her teacher’s eyes might be replaced by discomfort or disapproval. Because at its heart, what I feared was this: that my children would one day be pressured to conceal half of who they are. To shrink away from their foreign names, perhaps dropping their dad's surname from their CVs, to tuck their second passports out of sight, to pretend their bilingualism did not exist. I was afraid that what should be celebrated as a gift would instead be treated as something shameful.

So we left.

When I look back, I realise I was one of the first to go, but many friends followed in our wake.

The Polish shops in our town told the story more clearly than the politicians ever could. Once vibrant places filled with chatter, with shelves stacked high with breads and sausages and fancy sweets, they started closing down one by one. There was one corner shop I especially remember. We used to buy white eggs there every year for Easter. It was always warm, with the bustle of people chatting in Polish while children tugged at their mothers’ coats. It felt welcoming, colourful, alive. And then one day it was gone, replaced by an empty storefront with a faded, sad “To Let” sign.

It felt like watching colour drain from the streets, a quiet exodus made visible.

For me it is not just theoretical. I have brown family members and very close friends who do not have the luxury of hiding their difference. They cannot soften their names or even tuck their foreignness away in a passport drawer. They are the ones most exposed as Britain grows harder and angrier, and I ache with the helpless wish to scoop them all up, evacuate them to the safety of my annex, and show them how much I care.

I think about them every time the news mentions another rise in support for the Reform Party, even in Scotland. Back when I left, Nigel Farage was still a pantomime villain north of the border, laughed at and jeered whenever he dared set foot there, and chased back south within hours. I comforted myself with that. But now even Scotland is not immune. The things I once believed impossible have quietly become plausible.

Saturday broke something in me. I sat in my living room in Denmark and watched footage of 100,000 people marching through London, openly chanting pro-fascist slogans. London of all places, a city I love, where I have always felt at home precisely because you cannot walk the streets without hearing a dozen languages and seeing the wonderful, beautiful range of humanity in all its colours.

I knew Britain had racism. I grew up with sectarianism and racism. But it got better as I moved into adulthood. Schools began to mix, people married across religions and races without the looks they would have got when I was a child. One of my best friend’s weddings was officiated by a priest and an imam together, and it was a truly wonderful day. I felt filled with hope for the future that I would soon bring my kids into.

To see that hope so thoroughly eclipsed, to see London, my London, overrun by chants that belonged to another, darker world, was devastating.

What made me shiver most were the undertones, the unmistakable echo of American fundamentalism. Religion weaponised against outsiders. Chants and rhetoric that sounded imported straight from US culture wars. Musk on live link calling for violence in the streets. Seriously?

It brought back a conversation I had this summer with one of Thomas’s old friends, Danish, a professor at an American university, raising Asian children in the US. Sitting at our coffee table over dessert, he told me why universities there are facing such a furious backlash.

“It is not only politics,” he said, shaking his head. “It is resentment. Ordinary people who had no chance of reaching the academic level for scholarships watch others succeed where they themselves were excluded. And instead of celebrating those successes, realising they too need those doctors and scientists even if they cannot become them, they are so angry they simply want to bar others from what was barred from them.”

It struck me as such a sad, human response, but also such a dangerous one. And when I watched the London demonstration, I recognised those same undertones. Not just a desire to close borders, but to close minds. Universities in the UK are already on their knees financially before we go in this direction.

All of this circles back to empathy. To me, empathy is the single most important human trait. It is what allows us to look at someone different and see not a rival, but another human being.

The far right thrives by eroding empathy. It tells people their neighbours are competitors, their colleagues parasites, strangers invaders. It feeds on bitterness until there is no space left for compassion. We see that same absence of empathy playing out horrifically in Gaza, where entire populations are dehumanised until their suffering becomes tolerable background noise.

That is the opposite of what I wanted for my children. They have grown up proud of being bilingual, proud of their mixed heritage, proud of their passports, their friends from all over the world, and their complicated family tree. They meet difference with curiosity, not suspicion. They want to know the people who are not like them, deeply and genuinely.

Leaving has not spared me the grief. I still feel tied to Britain. I may be Scottish, but I also have a son, his partner, and their Asian flatmate, who I have considered one of my own kids for ten years, living in London. Every time I see news of marches like Saturday’s, my thoughts go straight to them.

And yet, over this summer, as I watched small, angry white men pitifully painting roundabouts in protest instead of doing something positive about the real problems facing the world, I felt like I no longer recognised the UK. The passport I still carry feels more like an artefact than a document of belonging.

The Britain of the 1990s and 2000s was flawed, often frustrating, sometimes cruel. But it was also a place where I believed empathy had a foothold, where openness and equality could still become the norm. I guess deep down I thought that was the country I was leaving behind temporarily to give it time to sort itself out back in 2019.

The one I see now feels like something else entirely. I can see no hope for a kinder Britain in the next decade. I fear it will have to sink much lower before it comes out the other side, and I am glad my children will not have to live through that descent.

Declaration of cultural independence... in clay

 

Amaia is currently knee-deep exams, one of which is the Danish equivalent of Nat 5 Art. It’s a serious affair: two years’ worth of artistic output compiled into a neat little portfolio which she has to display in her own art cubicle, polished off with an oral exam in front of an external ministry-appointed examiner next week.

She has to display and categorise her work with all the solemnity of a gallery curator. "Famous artwork redone in the style of another artist," check. "Self-portraits over time to show improvement," check. "Animal portrait in charcoal," check. "Works with varying light sources," check - etcetcetc... "3D clay media sculpture representing your soul, but in the form of lunch," wait, what?

Yes, one category was to make, in clay, a slice of rye bread with your favourite toppings complete with a 2D explanation of the cultural and personal backstory of your sandwich. Some kind of art meets anthropology thing in the most Danish way possible!

Now, Amaia is nothing if not principled. She took one look at this brief and declared, flatly, "I’m not doing that."

"But everyone else is," said the teacher. "I know you're not fully Danish, but look at Farouk, he made a curry to represent his heritage and stuck it on a clay slice of rye bread."

I can only begin to imagine Amaia's reaction to that, she certainly told me in no uncertain terms that she wouldn't be wasting a decent curry by putting it on rye bread, not as long as peshwari naan exists!

They suggested she make something traditionally Scottish on top of the rye bread to represent her blended identity. "It’s about showing who you are!" they encouraged.

Amaia’s response? "No one in Scotland would ever put a potato scone and square sausage on rye bread. It’s sacrilege."

In the end, she stuck to her guns, making a lovingly detailed square sausage, a tattie scone, and a fried egg, layered triumphantly on what she insists is a proper Scottish morning roll.

No rye in sight. No compromise. No apologies.

When I asked if she was worried they might fail her, she shrugged and said, "If they do, it’ll have been worth it to retain my cultural identity."

I have never been prouder. Vive la sausage rebellion.

Phyllis

There are some names that seem to have been permanently cast out of fashion, and way down at the bottom of that list there’s Phyllis. Poor, unloved Phyllis.

I know this because I grew up with it. Even being born in 1968, it was already an old lady name then. My peers were Gillians, Karens, and Sheenas. I was saddled with a name that sounded like it belonged to a distant great-aunt who smelled of lavender and boiled cabbage. While my classmates had those trendy little keyrings with their names on them from Woolworths, I was left empty-handed. Phyllis was not making the cut, even in the 70s.

You’d think that by now, Phyllis would have come full circle. Names like Edith, Martha, Ruby, and Maisie have all made their grand comebacks, trotting back into nurseries and primary schools like nothing ever happened. Even Agnes has had a resurgence, helped in no small part by a certain small, endearing cartoon character in Despicable Me. But Phyllis? No. Maybe I should campaign for a Phyllis character the next time they reboot the Minions?

This morning, just to confirm my suspicions, I checked the Scottish name records. And the results were bleak. Since the year 2000, many Scottish parents have dutifully handed down Phyllis as a middle name—eight pages worth of them, to be precise. Presumably, these poor children are carrying the name as an homage to a beloved (and likely deceased) granny. But as a first name? Just one. One single child in Scotland has been named Phyllis in the last 25 years. That child is now either carrying their name with defiant pride or planning to change it the second they turn 16.

My mum was definitely much more likely to have given me a common, trendy-at-the-time name - my brother is a Derek after all and she was very non-plussed when I chose a foreign name for my first born, despite him being foreign(!), and suggested very strongly that calling him 'Ryan' might have been more appropriate! I was actually meant to be a Linda, till my own granny upped and died six days before I was born. As a child I would often wonder how life would have been for Linda Buchanan? As a shy child, I would have found blending into the background instead of standing out to every teacher and child alike, quite a relief, I imagine.

I can’t say I blame them. Growing up with the name Phyllis was no picnic. While my friends’ names exuded youthful energy, mine sounded like it should be embroidered onto a lacy handkerchief. It felt like a name you were assigned at birth and somehow retired with immediately. If names had default accessories, mine came with a blue rinse and a walking stick.

The question is, why? Why has Phyllis been left to rot in the attic of history while other names of the same era have dusted themselves off and reclaimed their place in baby name books? Is it the sound? The way it doesn’t quite roll off the tongue like a Daisy or an Evie? It has no cuteness rating and sounds positively frumpy. Or is it because no modern cultural icons have emerged to make it fashionable again? No glamorous actresses, no bestselling authors, no inexplicably popular reality TV stars called Phyllis have stepped forward to rescue us from obscurity.

Even the Americans, who have an impressive track record of bringing back old-fashioned names before we do, haven’t touched it. There’s no Phyllis Kardashian, no Phyllis gracing the covers of Vogue. The closest we’ve got is Phyllis from The Office, a lovely woman but definitely the embodiment of Phyllisness - older, frumpier, middle-aged, dead-end job, slightly overweight.

And so Phyllis remains in limbo. A name too dusty for revival, too clunky for reinvention. Maybe in another hundred years, when all other names have been used up, Phyllis will finally get her turn. 

To the lone Phyllis born in Scotland in the last quarter-century—if you’re out there, I salute you. You are a rare gem. And if you ever need to talk, I understand. Oh, how I understand.

"Studenterhuen" - Unravelling the Danish Student Hat Tradition

As promised, or threatened, on my previous breakdown of graduation traditions, the Danish student hat, or studenterhue, is such a legend that it needs a whole post of its own. These hats are more than just a piece of graduation attire; they're a symbol of achievement, camaraderie, and a rite of passage filled with quirky and memorable customs. Different schools have different band colours. A whole list is available on this website, if you are interested!

They are such a huge part of Danish culture that Thomas held this exchange with Amaia's teacher:

Literally: 

Hi Bjørn,

Léon's getting his hat on tomorrow, so would it be ok if Amaia leaves 10-20 mins early?

Best, Thomas

Hi Thomas,

Yes! Of course 😊 And many congratulations to Léon! It is a big day. Send him all my best regards and tell him congratulations! 

All the best, Bjørn

Can you imagine understanding these messages if you had arrived in Denmark the day before? As a non-Dane, it struck me as a truly bizarre conversation. So, someone is putting on a hat and that not only lets their sister leave a different school early, but evokes all sorts of congratulatory excitement from a former teacher! Odd, indeed!

So, let me take you on the hat journey...

Months in advance, you order it, so it can be embroidered with the name of your school, your name etc. Then, it turns up a couple of weeks before your exams start in a velvet box. (No pressure there, given you earn the right to wear it by passing your exams!) It even comes with built-in pen for your mates to write their greetings, and Léon assures me the even more expensive models come with scissors too, to cut the notches!

First off, putting on the student hat before passing your final exam is considered bad luck. But once you've aced that last oral, or for that matter screwed it up royally, the hat becomes your badge of honour, and the celebrations begin!

After your final oral exam, you walk out of school for the last time on a red carpet, reveal your final mark to your parents, and then write it in the centre of your hat before they place it on your head. It’s a proud moment, marked with cheers, confetti, and lots of Danish-flag-coloured roses. 

At that point, out of nowhere Léon's mates appeared to welcome him into the graduate ranks with the famous beer bong, that seems to play quite a major role in this whole rite of passage.

Over the month of July, with nightly parties, the kids try to earn as many symbols as possible for the inside of their hat.

Traditions and Notches

The inside of the hat, including its sweatband end up telling quite a story:

• Size Matters: Months ago, when they were measuring their heads with a view to ordering their hats, the students with the largest and smallest hat sizes were duly noted. And again after the graduation when they had all been issued their GPA, the lowest and highest scoring student in each class was again noted. Those four, or perhaps fewer if there happens to be an overlap, have to provide a drink for all their classmates to get the party started.
• Greetings Inside the Hat: Friends and classmates write messages inside your hat, cheeky, or sincere, turning it into a keepsake full of memories.
• Sweatband/Visor Notches: Various experiences earn you notches cut out in the sweatband or visor. Throwing up from too much partying? That's a triangle in the visor, a visible-to-the-world symbol of your fuck-up. Thirteen parties in and Léon’s hat remains unscathed in this regard... I don't think I'd have predicted that!
• 24-Hour Mark: If you manage to stay awake for 24 hours straight, you earn the right to turn your hat the other way around. 

Of course, from the day after the student truck (the 4th day after Léon's last exam) Léon's has been the wrong way round, but I have noticed more and more of the kids in the photos from his nightly parties have theirs on backwards as time progresses. It's quite handy even, given that means you can read their name, if you can't remember who someone is!

The Symbolic Language

Your hat can become quite the storybook, with symbols denoting your various feats either drawn or cut into the inside. Here is a list of just some of the symbols to be drawn inside or cut into the inner sweatband that Léon has told me about, and how you go about earning them:

• Wave: Jump in the sea wearing only your hat.
• Square: Drink a case of beer in 24 hours.
• Fish: Down 24 shots in 24 hours.
• Lightning Bolt: Have sex wearing only your hat.
• Circle: Run around a roundabout in your town wearing only your hat.
• Cross: Run around the church in your town wearing only your hat. (Yes, nudity, is a leit motif of graduating high school.)
• Triangle: Stay awake for 24 hours.
• House: Achieve the 24-hour triangle, square for drinking a case, and feel free to add a chimney if you smoke a pack of cigarettes that day too.
• Corn: Run through a cornfield wearing only your hat.
• Crown: Run around your old school grounds wearing only your hat.
• Signpost: Climb a road sign and drink a beer on top.
• Tree: Climb a tree and drink a beer sitting on top.
• Car: Flag down a random car and have the driver feed you beer from a funnel.
• Funnel: Drink beer from a funnel while peeing against a tree.
• Submarine: Drink beer from a bong with your head underwater, usually alongside the wave symbol.

So, basically, do anything in the nude and draw whatever you fancy inside your hat! Just as well the nights are reasonably warm at the moment!

Rotating symbols

On the front of each hat is a button-sized burgundy-coloured symbol. Most have a cross, as Denmark is traditionally a Christian country, even if there isn't much church-going still going on. But you can get it with a crescent, or a star of David if you prefer. Léon has no religion, so opted for the initials STX, which is just means grammar school. This symbol can rotate, and you apparently earn the right to turn it upside down by kissing someone of the same gender, if you are straight, or the opposite gender if you are gay. As far as I can see, everyone in Léon's photo has this upside down currently, though it is slightly subtler on the cross ones than on the STX option!😂

Biting the Skip

Lastly, the pristine hat gets a makeover from day one. Friends and teachers bite into the patent leather brim, leaving tooth indentations to symbolise leaving a lasting mark on someone’s life. I became aware of this when during the after graduation buffet, Léon's politics teacher came over to congratulate him and Léon offered to let him bite his hat, and the teacher obliged without a puzzled look. I guess that tradition was probably paused during Covid. I'm so glad the kids weren't hit by that during Gymnasium.

These are the hat rules Léon has mentioned to me but the list is even longer according to the official site (in Danish)!

By the end of the celebrations, the hat is a well-worn, personalised memento of your student days. I must have a wee look inside Léon's next time he's taking a shower, though do I even want to know?! I know he has already clocked up most of the naked ones!😂 In saying that, having a shower wearing only your hat is probably a challenge too, just to guard against your mother getting a peak at what you have been getting up to all night every night!