My father was born in 1937 in Aarhus, Denmark and died in 2011 at age 73. My father was the first born child of his parents. He had a 9 month younger brother, Richard, and two younger sisters, Astrid and Gerda. The family of six lived in a 2-roomed apartment at Lundbyesgade 28 in Aarhus. During his childhood, my father attended Munkegade primary school in Aarhus, a school only for boys. During a relatively large part of his life, my father had a problem with stuttering. My mother told me that when my father was young, his mother, Ingrid Bothilde, would sometimes tell him this: "Stop that, Leif." "Pull yourself together." My mother also told me a story about a time when my father's mother and my father were distributing the newspaper "Demokraten" on the street. My father's mother would point to places, where people with high incomes lived, and say to her son, "Look over there, Leif, that is where the rich people live." In 1955, my father met my mother at Skanderborg youth hostel South of Aarhus. My father was there with a couple of his friends, and my mother was there with one of her friends. My mother and father married in 1960, and in 1970 I was born. 

Quality, perfectionism and order 

• My mother told me that during the time she and my father were a couple, i.e. from the middle of the 1950s until 1975, my father wanted to do everything, he was doing, really well. Quality was of strong importance for him. He was seeking perfection in more or less everything he was doing.  For him, only the best was good enough. 

• My mother said to me that my father spent many evening drawing sketches of products and designing products. 

• In the beginning of the 1970s, after I was born, my mother and father built a house for the three of us at Skæring Skolevej 123 in Egå North of Aarhus. My mother explained that my father would, during his lunchbreak, often go to the house to control whether craftsmen were doing their work in a quality that satisfied his quality criteria.

• When my father bought furniture, be bought the best furniture. He was a strong admirer of several great Danish architects and designers. I remember that he really liked the furniture shop Thorsen Møbler. When my father bought cars, he bought cars of the best quality. For example, he owned and drove cars of the brands Ford, Toyota and Mercedes.

• An example of my father's strong passion for order was the way he organized tools. Tools were lined up perfectly next to each other - like soldiers standing on a line. 

• I remember that the first person, he worked with, Gunnar Krabbe, often asked my father if what he did, was good enough.

• My father liked to do most things himself. As I understood it, the reason for often doing things himself was that he then knew that it would be done well. This perfectionism, focus on control and lack of trust in the work of other people led to problems with stress and burnout. He was not able to transform himself well enough through the many roles he took - including craftsman, designer, salesman and manager. 

• Reflecting on how I could best help my father with work, he did, I noticed that it was something that helped him created order. For example, I mowed the lawn and calculated the number of parts to be used for making products. That made him feel safe.

• Among sentences my father said were these: "Whatever you do, do it well." "Shoemaker, stick to your last." "The person, who has a talent, has a duty." "When you want to eat an elephant, take one bite at a time." "Do not sing with the birds you are among, if they sing falsely."

Curiosity, learning, creative thinking and experimentation

• Early in his life, my father educated himself as a smith. He became a trainee at M.H. Jæger, a company that made safes.

• My father liked to do a variety of craftsmanship work. He had several different tools such as screwdrivers and drilling machine that he used to fix practically any problem. 

• Later, my father learned to make technical drawings and design products. Continuously, he worked on creating new products and improving the quality of products. He educated himself further, for example by reading, writing, drawing, testing, and constructing things.

• My father regularly read the newspaper Jyllands-Posten. Not only did he love to read the articles in the paper. He also felt a special relationship with the paper, as his sister Gerda, his rother Ricard as well as Gerda's first husband Lars worked for Jyllands-Posten.

• With my mother, my father built a summer house at P. Baatrupsvej 62 in Odder South of Aarhus in the 1960s. There, he experimented with different designs and technologies, for example to improve air quality and heating in the house.

• My father liked to fix things - for himself and for others. I recall a story he told me of a time he visited a customer to do some work. When he was in the bathroom, he noticed that the toilet seat was loose and fixed it. On the way back home the customer said. "Oh, one more thing Leif. The toilet seat has been loose for some time. Could you please fix it." My father responded. "I already did. See you later." 

•   My father continuously worked on testing different materials and technologies. He patented more inventions related to safes. As a result of his competencies he taught other people. Later my father became the manager of a design department in a company.

Freedom

• At Easter in 1975, my father decided to move out of our family home at Skæring Skolevej 123 in Egå North of Aarhus. He wanted to divorce my mother. He wanted to be free. As my father left my mother and me, he told me that he would be going on a long trip and that I would not be seeing him for a while. In fact, there was a period of about a year when I did not see my father.

• Not long after my father decided to divorce my mother, he moved to Aalestrup, a small town in the Northern part of Denmark. In Aalestrup he started the company Mitek. He married Karin, who worked as a school teacher and later as a school principal. During the 1980s, the number of people, who worked for Mitek, grew to about 50 people. At the end of the 1980s, Karin and my father divorced. In the 1990s my father sold Mitek to employees, who built the company Treco. 

• In the 1990s, my father moved to a small house Gatten in the Northern part of Denmark.  Over several years, my father spent time during the Winter in the Southern part of Spain.

Conversations when driving in cars
My father and I often had a really good time together when we were driving in cars. At the end of the 1980s, when I was studying to get a driver's license, I would often, when he was driving the cars, switch gears. He would step on the clutch with his right foot. Seeing and hearing that was a sign for me to switch gears.  We would talk about, for example, situations in traffic, which helped me as I was learning to drive. During two summers in the 1980s, for example, we drove from Denmark to the Southern part of France and back. We had many good experiences during these trips through Germany and France. We had a plan about where to go in the Southern part of France. However, during the trips we let us be inspired by what we observed on the way and stopped at different places. Driving together was also a good opportunity for us to listen to music we loved. Sometimes, I brought some music that I played in the car, for example music by the Danish bands Shubidua and Rocazino as well as music by Julio Iglesias. I remember that my father liked to listen to music I played. Sometimes we would sing along in the car.  

Conversations over the phone
Over the phone I also had many good conversations with my father over the years. In conversations over the phone, my father and I talked about, for example, what I was learning during my studies. We also shared what we had seen or heard in relation to sports, politics and comedy. Sometimes, we would talk for hours. And as time went by and we became a little tired, the conversations would sometimes get quite heated. I think that the most important and the most challenging parts of conversations were related to differences we had regarding values, beliefs and personality.

Conversation in  my father's house
In my father's house in Gatten in Himmerland, which was situated at a fairway of one of the golf courses there, I remember that my father and I had numerous great talks.  Sometimes we stayed in the house and talked for hours. Other times, we took walks around the area - talking with each other as well as with people we met on the way. We also enjoyed the beautiful nature there when walking around the area. I think there were a few reasons that conversations, I had with my father in Gatten, were often good. One reason was, I think, was that my father took time for conversations. He was not feeling as stressed as he felt, for example, in the 1980s. Another reason was, I think, that because of the bachelor education and master education, I was studying, I could contribute with knowledge, which he found useful. Also, I could ask better questions, which helped him to reflect on a number of different topics he was thinking about. I remember that we regularly talked about things that had made each one us laugh. Sharing humorous stories with each other often made both of us laugh. Also, we laughed a lot, I recall, as we played the card game "Olsen."  An we also laughed quite a a lot when we were watching the performances of Thomas Eje on television.