REFLECTIONS: Frankfurt

It must have been 1971 when we first attended the Frankfurt Book Fair at the invitation of our Swedish publishers who had signed us on just four years earlier to produce our very first series of English Language textbooks called This Way that covered the seven years from grade three to nine of basic school. From the very outset the books had been a success and we soon had about ninety per cent of the market. For each grade of 100,000 pupils there was a textbook, a workbook, a teacher’s guide, a set of tapes for everything in the textbook and a separate set of tapes for all the exercises in the workbook.

Everything had worked in our favour. The year the books first started to appear, the Ministry of Education had decreed that English was to be taught from grade three instead of grade four, as had been the case until then, so we were the first to provide material for the extended period. In addition, all schools were to be provided with language laboratories with tape recorders so that kids could work individually to improve their language skills, and ours was the only course that provided tapes for every exercise in the workbooks. Some might say we were lucky, others might agree that we were way ahead of our time and saw the direction education was heading in. Within the short space of four years our publisher had progressed from a maths-only producer of textbooks to the leading language-publishing house in Scandinavia. We were selling over three million books a year in Sweden alone, and that was before Denmark, Norway, Finland and Holland joined in.

If this was not enough, this was the time of unbridled optimism when Sweden had more money than it could deal with. Incredibly, every child received, free of charge, a new set of books each year, courtesy of the Swedish government, which meant that if a school adopted your book it would remain loyal to you for at least the first seven years of the cycle, after which they almost always opted for another two cycles, which meant 21 years of sales in all.

Given that it took us about five years to write a complete series of books, we “renewed ourselves” by starting a new series immediately upon completing the previous one based on what we had learnt during that time—instant renewal, each time improving the product we had to offer, feeding off the experiences gained at home and abroad.

Of course, all this was paid for through the tax system which for many foreigners was horrendous but, for Swedes, who knew all the benefits they were receiving, high taxes seemed a fair exchange. Even today, health care is almost free for everyone. Just recently, I underwent a colonoscopy that, after I had paid the initial EC $27 for the first examination, was completely free of any additional charges, and the nurse even brought me a cup of coffee and a cheese sandwich when I was in the recovery room. My wife had a double hip replacement for the same small fee, all paid for by our taxes.

As part of our after-sales policy we guaranteed any teachers who had issues that we would visit their school and even hold lessons with the kids to help solve any problems. This meant that we spent two to three days on the road each week and, before long, I knew every school, large or small, in every community in Sweden. In 1972 I began flying and soon realized that I needed all-weather capability, good or bad, in order to meet my commitments. Decades later, I can still recall some of the horrendous winter-weather conditions at some of the out of the way, isolated grass landing strips situated deep in the forests and the faithful publishing reps who would be waiting on the ground to whisk me away to the nearest school.

For over a quarter of a century we were producing a new book every six weeks — and by ‘producing’ I include writing, testing, checking layout and design, and instructing illustrators. I doubt that I slept more than four to five hours in any twenty-four hour period during that time. My work was my hobby. It was all-consuming. Once our coverage had extended outside Sweden, I found myself visiting schools all over Europe with the help of my own aircraft. I could comfortably leave home at five in the morning, fly down to Zurich in Switzerland, work there for a few hours and be home in the evening. Switzerland was no further away from home than some small town in Lapland above the Arctic Circle in the very north of Sweden.

Oh dear, I am almost out of space and I have scarcely mentioned Frankfurt and what took place at the Book Fair. Well, that will have to wait until next week! Suffice to say, for now, our already busy lives were about to get even busier.