What was so special about Elizabeth when she stood at the party at Hotel Prinsen, suddenly without a companion because Peter’s friend was called home? Everything! Everything about Liz was special, smiles Erik Peter Hansen 65 years later, as he recounts the story of the young woman who arrived in Fredensborg in September 1960 to study at the English School and the College of Physical Education.
On the table in front of him, his daughter Inge has brought out the family photo albums. In the clippings, one can see how newspapers in South Africa at the time reported on Miss Elisabeth Unite, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. S. G. Unite of Illovo: “She has arrived in Denmark by air from Johannesburg and is studying physical culture in Fredensborg, near Copenhagen, for a year.” By the end of that year, she was engaged to a young man from the castle town, and the stay became the beginning of a happy life that would take the young gymnast and swimmer around the world — including working as a swimming instructor for the Emir’s family in Bahrain.
How it all came about is quite a story, beginning with Erik Peter Hansen, a newly trained bricklayer in Fredensborg in the mid-1950s, an active member of the Fredensborg Rowing Club, and a winter guest at the gymnastics school on Østrupvej, where there had recently been a youth hostel.
It was an international school, attracting young people from all over the world. One of them came from Southern Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe. His name was Ben Loxton, and he became friends with Peter, as they shared many common interests — including cycling. When Ben returned to Bulawayo in Southern Rhodesia, they agreed that he would let Peter know if work ever became available as a bricklayer in Southern Africa.
The skilled bricklayer flew across Africa
A few years passed, and one day in 1957, a letter arrived by airmail. The 21-year-old Peter prepared to travel.
“I think the ticket down there cost 3,000 kroner, which was a lot of money back then, but it wasn’t a problem — I was a bachelor, after all. One morning at 9:30 I left the Central Station for Düsseldorf, and from there I flew the rest of the way,” Peter recounts. The journey took him over Nice, Libya, Egypt, Lake Victoria, and finally Johannesburg — in planes that often flew low over the desert at about 300 kilometers per hour.
The others told me I couldn’t hit an elephant in the rear with a banjo from half a meter away
The 89-year-old Peter lives in Fredensborg and has a ready, sparkling laugh — especially when recalling the two years in Bulawayo, where he worked as a skilled bricklayer in a rather nice colonial town.
“The roads were so wide you could turn an ox cart with twelve oxen yoked together. But I wasn’t a good hunter. The others told me I couldn’t hit an elephant in the rear with a banjo from half a meter away,” Peter laughs, showing pictures of himself and friends from those years.
In the photos, they lounge in khaki shorts or explore the local wildlife reserves. It was an exciting period, but for young Peter, it was to be a short adventure. He returned home at age 23.
Newly in love and dressed in wildcat skins
Thus, he found himself at the party at Hotel Prinsen in the fall of 1960 when his good friend came over and asked him to keep young Elizabeth company because the friend had been called home on urgent business.
The photographs in the albums Elizabeth created many years later reveal the sight that must have greeted the young bricklayer. He himself was a handsome young man when he met the gymnast and swimmer from South Africa, whom he had likely already noticed at the gymnastics school.
Daughter Inge interrupts the conversation:
“You had something in common, something to talk about, because you had been in Southern Rhodesia, Dad…”
Peter smiles and responds:
“Don’t make it too easy for me. I wasn’t the only one interested…”
The story is then beautifully told through the album’s pictures, showing Elizabeth in a fashionable high-neck sweater with dark, slightly curly hair, particularly around the ears, and a photo of the college room with winter skates hanging on a hook, while the trees have green leaves again.
In another photo, Peter stands in a coat and scarf, smiling at the gate of his parents’ house at number 14. In the background is number 12, an older house later destroyed by an explosion, where the house Peter and Elizabeth bought in 1985 was eventually built. They rented it for several years and then moved in 2001 after many years abroad.
Another picture shows Lis and Peter at a costume party at Hotel Prinsen, dressed in… well, what exactly?
“It’s wildcat fur I brought back from Bulawayo. The moths have probably eaten it by now. I haven’t seen it in many years, and… I’m a little ashamed of it because the cats were caught in the cruelest way,” Peter explains. At the time, as a young bricklayer, he also had to meet his future father-in-law, who hurried to Fredensborg to see what his daughter was up to.
The meeting went well, even though much was at stake.
“In South Africa, bricklayers were often the poorest, but Georg and Winnifred were fantastic people. I’ve always been welcomed with open arms by my in-laws.”
Happy years of work and watercolours
At the end of 1961, Elizabeth left Fredensborg to teach in England for a year. During this time, the engaged couple stayed in touch by writing letters. In January 1963, they married in Johannesburg. The photos show what looks like an upper-class wedding, with morning suits and top hats until 3:00 p.m.
Peter laughs at the memory: what dowry do you give in South Africa when the groom is often expected to bring cattle? As a visitor, he couldn’t buy cattle, so he instead bought five small toy cars — Cadillacs, not cattle.
In the photo below, you can see the happy couple on their wedding day and in the years after they celebrated their golden wedding anniversary. The article continues below the photo.
In the 1980s, the couple moved from South Africa when their daughters, Inge and Lise, were older teenagers. By then, Peter had trained as a construction engineer and held leadership positions in large engineering firms, often posted abroad for years — including in Bahrain for a subsidiary of Rasmussen & Schultz.
Elizabeth passed away in 2021, but her voice comes through in the photo captions: she was exceptional at creating a home wherever the family went, her daughter recalls.
She painted watercolors and taught swimming, but how did she fare in Bahrain? She became the swimming instructor for the entire Emir’s family.
“It’s not what you know, but who you know,” Peter notes, in their Fredensborg home, where Elizabeth’s watercolors of flowers and street life in Bahrain hang on the walls.
Two final details from this story:
Red as a tomato and alone with the wild animals
Peter recounts that his parents once visited him and Elizabeth in South Africa. They went to a wildlife reserve and stood in a viewing tower, but Inge and Lise grew impatient, so Peter and Elizabeth drove the girls around.
“The sun was setting, and the ranger came and sent my parents out of the tower, which had to be locked. When we returned by car, they were standing in front of the tower. I’ve never seen my father so red in the face — tomato red,” Peter chuckles. Standing alone in the African wilderness with its sounds and wild animals was unusual for his father, who had been one of the castle gardeners in Fredensborg.
The other detail concerns the risks you take for love. It was 1962, the couple was engaged, but they didn’t see each other during the year Elizabeth spent in England. Was Peter nervous that the love might slip away?
Shaking his head as he says goodbye, he smiles:
“I thought I was good enough.”
– Jeg mente, at jeg var god nok, smiler han.
The story so far
- Thanks to Erik Peter Hansen and his daughter Inge Nørgaard for kindly inviting me for lunch and sharing the story of a romance in the community around The English School in Fredensborg – and all the good things that followed.
- The story follows TjekFredensborg’s recent article about The English School, which once stood on Østrupvej and enjoyed a strong reputation in the English-speaking world during the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s.
- Several of the town’s young women married visiting Englishmen – perhaps some of you knew these stories? “Yes,” replied Peter and his daughter Inge. But it was a young woman who came to the town…
