A few days ago I decided to take the bike over to Djurgårdsgrind. It's a property in Tungelsta where the famous author
Ivar Lo-Johansson lived for a number of years when he was a kid. He was a friend of my grandfather, and I have read a few of Ivar Lo's books. The Johansson family moved out from Djurgårdsgrind in 1922. These days the big house that the family built is used as a summer house by the current owners. The rest of the buildings, including the
cottage and a few barns are in a very sad state, so I figured I should document them before they
collapse. If you would like to see all my photos from Djurgårdsgrind
press here. Anyway, there I was minding my own business taking a photo of a poster I noticed on the outhouse wall. Or was I perhaps trespassing on a private property with camera in hand? It's hard to tell the difference. I knew that the owners had taken some security measures, but I was still a bit surprised when the first security guard showed up asking me what I was up to. His name was Jocke and he came from Securitas Direct. He had noticed my bike and decided to see what was going on. Jocke had never heard about the author so I told him a few facts, and as we were talking, a police officer shows up! Inge, as he is called, lives nearby and keeps an eye on the place for the owners as there have been a few incidents here over the years. I knew that Inge might turn up after talking to Sune Nilsson (a local historian), so I quickly told him who I was, and he had probably heard about me because he asked if I had been able to locate an inscription (It's Ivar Lo's signature), on a hill side here. Sadly I hadn't found the inscription, and with that we started to talk about other "intruders" and a few other things before going are separate ways. Obviously in true Steffe style I took a photo of the guys
and you can see it here.
Three photos from Djurgårdsgrind in Tungelsta. The land here was bought by the Johansson family a century ago. They were land-workers employed at a big estate near Ösmo in Nynäshamn. Somehow they managed to borrow enough money to buy Djurgårdsgrind. The first thing they did was to build a home, seen in the first photo. They stayed here for a number of years and also built a second home, that is the larger building on the second photo. They had a young son when they moved in here, he became a good friend to my grandfather. The young boy grew up to become a famous author. Ivar Lo-Johansson. As soon as he could, he left Tungelsta and moved to Stockholm. I have read a couple of his auto biographies where he speaks of his life here. Sadly the property will soon be gone. The elderly owners that have used Djurgårdsgrind as a summer house for the last decades never cared about any of the buildings here, as you can tell by the state of one of the barns. I heard from a friend recently that the couple had passed away and that the property was up for sale, so on a sunny day last week I took the bike over for a photo shoot. I'm guessing that any new owner will know nothing about the history here and that all the buildings will be gone in a near future. I have a few more photos it a flickr set.
