During a summer conference at the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island there was a request to have a photo taken of all of the 600 participants. Arthur made a plan of where they each were to stand. Then he set up a platform high above the crowd for the photo team and enlisted chorus director George Fraser to orchestrate their movements by having them sing a song!
During the years on the road during the war Arthur produced thousands of prints every day. Sometimes he needed big prints but because he didn’t have a photo lab he had to improvise – much like he did in his youth when he was taking photos of children and living in a caravan.
One time He got two of the boys in the photo team to rinse huge prints out in a lake. He got them to row round and round till the prints were fully rinsed!
As a photo-journalist, Arthur often found himself in close contact with people from all over the world. He found that we all have one possible thing in common – we can be bridges between hatred and forgiveness. He began to see people as bridges. Bridges between those who have and do not have, between black and white, yellow and brown. Between old and young, truth and falsehood, oppression and freedom, past and present. Some are bridges in everyday life, others are bridges of a larger dimension and everyone has their important function in society.
“Human nature is the same everywhere. And in the same circumstances we would probably all do similar things, and we do. Here in the North we contribute as much to the misery in the world, and the imbalance in the world, as everyone else. For instance by the way we spend time, effort and money on our own indulgences and unnecessary luxuries while so much of the world is suffering from their lack. Also by the way we fail to deal with discrimination, criminality, and the needs of those who are most vulnerable in our own countries: the children, the old people, and those who come from other countries. We should take care not to point our fingers at other countries for neglecting their human rights and responsibilities as we neglect so much here at home.” And Arthur felt that, “We can all do something about this wherever we are, whatever we do.”
Bridges go over precipices that can seem insurmountable. In Kenya the Mau-Mau Kikuyu ethnic group most affected by British land grabs, started peaceful protests against colonialization in the 1950’s. The Mau Mau movement wanted access to basic rights: higher wages, increased educational opportunities, return of alienated lands and African self-determination. By the mid-1950’s they became more radical and decided they could not achieve independence through peaceful means. The British claimed the rebels were part of a secret and savage society whose members had supposedly pledged to slaughter Europeans and drive them out of Africa and the Mau-Mau resorted to guerilla warfare. Although the Mau Mau rebellion was eventually put down by the British, Kenya’s eventual independence in 1963 was undoubtedly a result of the political and economic pressures created by the Mau Mau. Arthur’s photo of two white and two black Kenyans who visited Caux, illustrated new ways of solving problems and world politics. The two white overseers of Mau-Mau detention camps apologized for their arrogance towards them. The two black leaders answered that if they could have dreamt that there were white people who thought and spoke like that, then Mau-Mau would never have happened.
Signe, Arthur and Ingrid were staying with Signe’s family in Oslo when the old king of Sweden died. Signe and Arthur drove to Stockholm and stayed with Admiral Ekstrand, Commander in Chief of the Stockholm Fleet. His home was on the island opposite the royal palace. The new Crown Prince, Carl Gustav, was only three years old when his grandfather died and the world press ”stormed” into the Swedish Foreign Office press department at the Palace in Stockholm. Paris Match, Time Life – everyone wanted to get a camera audience with the newly crowned prince. It was like a madhouse at the Palace and Arthur tells how he came to be the only photographer to be granted this audience with the Crown Prince!
“The prince was afraid of photographers and their flashes so the Palace press department refused access. In the ensuing chaos I offered to help them hand out the document that explained the refusal to access. Finally when the press had left and we were also preparing to leave the press representative asked us, ‘And what did you want?’ I replied in all honesty ‘The same as all the others of course!’ The press representative said she would see what she could do.”
A few days later Signe and Arthur received an invitation to the Palace for an audience with the Crown Prince! No flash was to be used. The night before the audience Signe and Arthur prepared and Signe tells how “We felt we were given specific ‘guidance’ from above. My thought was to treat the Prince just like we would treat Ingrid who was the same age; to sit on the floor with him and to prepare and draw folded paper with little figures representing the prince and his sisters. I took my first camera, a little pocket Kodak that I used as a child.”
Arthur contacted his photographer friend Stig Hartman and borrowed lights that could be set up in advance in order to avoid using flash. Stig helped set up and operate the lights at the palace. On the actual day they arrived at the Palace and were met by the Prince’s Nanny who took them to his playroom to set up.
The Crown Prince entered the room with his Nanny and his Pekingnese Toy. His mother Princess Sybilla had expected to stay throughout but when she came to check on her son and saw how the little three-year-old had relaxed with Signe sitting on the floor cutting out the dancing paper dolls depicting the prince and his sisters, she left them to get on with the job. Arthur took 24 black and white shots on his Rolleiflex and 6 in colour on his Leica during the 45 minute audience.
In the end Arthur was the only photographer who was allowed to photograph the three-year-old Prince Carl-Gustaf immediately after the old King’s death.
A few days later Arthur received a further message with permission for him to take pictures at the old King’s funeral at Storkyrkan, the Palace Church. He was allotted half a square meter in front of a pillar within touching distance of the Royals, the Bernadotte family. But it was mid-winter and the church was only lit by candles. At this time in history this was a challenge as the films were not fast and flash was not allowed.
Arthur tells how he got his picture. “I had to turn my back on the scene, stretch my arms above my head and press my Leica camera hard against the pillar for steadiness, as I exposed for several seconds. It was impossible to tell at the time whether I’d got the picture of the procession with our old friend Admiral Ekstrand as one of the pall-bearers. But the colour photo came out perfectly with the wonderful atmosphere of the candle-lit nave and high altar. The Bernadotte family with their women in their traditional mourning dress were also clearly visible as well as visiting heads of state.”
Arthur had prints made by Dr Nees, one of Kodak’s directors in Rochester who was an old friend from early days in England. He sent a print to the King and received a very appreciative letter from his private secretary Erik Sjöqvist. Word got around fast and Arthur received a phone call and then a visit from the Swedish Time Life representative. Life would pay for the exclusive rights to the photos of the Prince and the old King’s funeral at $150 per page. Arthur was thrilled. In the mean-time there was a fresh development in the Korean War and press photographer David Duncan Douglas had sent some dramatic pictures to the Time Life office in New York, showing soldiers fighting in the war. Space had to be found and many other stories including that of the Swedish Crown Prince and his photos were scrapped. Arthur received back the prints from Time Life in Stockholm. One of them had been marked up on the back for a full page. That was the nearest Arthur came to getting a photo in Life magazine! 10 days had now passed and the world press were now allowed in to photograph the little prince. Arthurs images were no longer news.
Signe and Arthur returned to Ingrid in Oslo and were offered the loan of a flat by the harbour. It would be their first home! But being primarily committed to reporting on Frank Buchman’s work Arthur cabled Frank in Washington DC with the facts, ending… ‘unless you want Arthur in Washington.’ The cabled reply came: ‘Want Arthur Washington Frank’. So Arthur caught the old ship Drottningholm on her last voyage of 10 days from Gothenburg, leaving Signe and Ingrid in Norway.
Meanwhile in Washington Arthur got 20 of the best photos of the Crown Prince mounted in a beautiful Swedish blue leather book made for the occasion with the Swedish emblem of 3 crowns embossed in gold. He took it to Swedish Ambassador Bohman who sent it in the diplomatic pouch to Princess Sybilla. He received a grateful letter through the Princess’s lady-in-waiting. Stig Hartman also made a print from one of Arthur’s negatives and sent it to the palace and got a plaque with permission to have Hovfotograf Photographer to the Royal Family outside his shop, so he was happy too! Many years later Arthur received a letter from an equerry for the Swedish King Carl VI Gustav, formerly Crown Prince which said ”Your photo book has its place in the King’s private library at Drottningholm and is much appreciated by the family.” Arthur learnt later from the manager of Associated Press agency in London that it would be better to have him handle his business in the future because he was used to dealing with Time Life!
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