From apprenticeship to business takeover.

By chance we came across a folder whose title page read "Radio diagrams". However, upon closer inspection it turned out that the folder contained receipts for payments that Stig had made in the period January 1950 to the end of March 1956.

In the story about Stig, we lacked detailed information about what Stig had done after graduating from high school at Sønderborg State School and up until the business takeover in April 1956.

The contents of the folder turned out to be the source of a rare insight into Stig's activities during these years. To get an overview, I went through all the documents and entered the date, transaction (e.g. Fuglsang Bookstore, "calculator") and amount into a table. After sorting the resulting 7 pages of data by date, it was like reading an open book. The result is the following short report.

After his high school diploma, Stig became an apprentice at Radiomagasinet, which was located at the top of Perlegade opposite Rønhave Plads. During his apprenticeship, Stig lived at home with his parents at Ringgade 37. These are terraced houses built in 1944 by the Housing Association of 1942. Stig's brother Asger was an apprentice as a warehouse worker at Hans Knudsens Jernforretning in Østergade, and we can see that Stig took advantage of the opportunity to buy tools through Asger and get a discount. The small electric drill that is in the restored workshop was purchased in this way. It cost 186.37 kr. Throughout the period covered by the annexes, there are a lot of purchases of tools, which suggests that Stig was already early on set about a life as an independent. It seems that Stig supplemented his apprentice's salary by selling used radios. He regularly bought radios from radio dealer Heinr. Simonsen, who had a business at H.C. Andersensgade 1. Throughout the period, components and spare parts were purchased from the wholesalers Radio Parts and Rudolph Schmidt.

In March 1953, Stig was in Copenhagen, where he took his apprenticeship test at the Danish Technological Institute. The ticket to Copenhagen cost 59 kroner and 10 øre, and the costs for the apprenticeship test amounted to 108 kroner and 84 øre. Stig completed his apprenticeship in June 1953.

After his apprenticeship, Stig was in Switzerland from August to October. Here he worked at Zellweger A.G. Apparate- und Maschinenfabrik in Uster. They manufactured apparatus for spinning mills, and I assume that the agreement had been made through Stig's father, who was a mechanical engineer at "the Nordic Worsted Mill".

Returning from Switzerland, Stig was stationed at Skrydstrup air station, where he served his military service in the radar service. He was sent home as a corporal at the turn of the year 1954-55.

It appears from the attachments that Stig bought two rings on December 31, 1954. I would take the liberty of interpreting this as meaning that Stig became engaged to Karin on New Year's Eve 1954.

In May 1955, Stig moved to Aarhus, where he stayed privately and ate at a boarding house. He had found work at TERMA A/S. During his stay in Aarhus, Stig got his driver's license. He received driving lessons at Viby Taxa. The total bill for 15 driving lessons and a driving test was 218 kroner. While Stig was in Aarhus, he regularly used the National Telephone Number to a number in Broager. It was Karin. A 5-minute call cost 1 krone and 75 øre.

On March 10, 1956, a final statement is available on a savings bank book from the Låne-og Sparekassen in Aarhus. A penalty of one krone is accrued due to failure to terminate the book. This can be interpreted as Stig ending his engagement in Aarhus by moving to Sønderborg to take over the radio shop from Andreas Duus. The last document related to Aarhus is dated March 16, 1956, and is the settlement with the boarding house for 31 dinners.

Shortly afterwards, Stig takes over the company in Jernbanegade, but this cannot be seen from the documents, which end with the purchase of an Aristona record player from radio dealer Brødr. Jørgensen on March 28, 1956.

Chairman Sven Dyhr
July 2016