The Boy Who Wouldn't Die - On the Book "I'm Adding Sunshine to My Paint"

Five years old, Harald Sandberg (1912-1983) came down with a double-sided pneumonia. Three doctors in Söderhamn, a city in northern Sweden, said that there was nothing they could do. (This was in the time when the Spanish flue killed tens of millions of people around the world.)

Harald survived, but the disease damaged his heart, and he was told that he was unlikely to see his tenth birthday. He looked forward to that day with trepidation, but it was his father who died on that day, 39 years old.

Early on, Harald wanted to become an artist, but a doctor said that his heart was too week for him to continue school and suggested that he should become a hairdresser. Which he did, and a successful one at that, but he never gave up on his dream.

“I’m Adding Sunshine to My Paint” tells the story of the first four decades of Harald Sandberg’s life, from his birth on August 13, 1912, to the end of 1955, when he had accomplished his childhood’s dream of becoming an artist – a painter. He had had his first solo exhibits in Stockholm as well as a very successful exhibit in Paris. By then he had also brought three children into the world together with his wife Constance.

“I’m Adding Sunshine to My Paint” includes a diary that Harald wrote in 1946 during a critical phase of his struggle to become an artist. It also contains two interviews made during the last two years of his life, as well as over 100 photos and illustrations.

The book was written by his son Hans Sandberg.

Over the coming months, I will post excerpts from the book - both texts and pictures - here and on my substack for the book. 

Scan the QR code below to find my book on Amazon.

Timeline of Harald Sandberg's Life

I have created a dynamic timeline that covers my father's life, actually starting with his parents birth in the late 19th Century. Click below to open the timeline application.

Harald Sandberg (1912-1983)

I have also written a biography that is available both as a print book through Lulu.com and as an ebook for Kindle (and iPad or Android tablets with the Kindle app).

How Dad Cheated Death and Became An Artist

Here is the English version of my book about my father's struggle to become an artist.

When Hoodlums Ran Amok in Stockholm

In a clip from March, 8, 1948, a very serious reporter describes the growing "youth problem" in Sweden. 15-18 year olds have "crossed the boundaries of decent behaviour and created problems for the local police." Fights, car thefts and disturbances have made the Stockholm police pay attention. See how the crowd disperses when Constaple Sven approaches. This being Sweden, there is a of course a solution: The youths have organized a club that rents a nightclub on Mondays where the young and restless (50 percent are children of divorce we are informed. On the night of the reporters' visit, a Jitterbug contest is taking place.. well what could you expect the reporter shrugs and informs us about the 80% drop in car thefts since the club opened.

Swedish Bishop: ”We Are Building a Church and a Mosque Under One Roof”

A drawing of the proposed Church and Mosque center
in Nacka, east of Stockholm, Sweden.

We will strengthen a shared feeling of belonging and trust in God’s house by building a Christian church and a mosque under one roof, writes Bengt Wadensjö, a bishop in the Lutheran church of Sweden, in Svenska Dagbladet, a leading Swedish daily. “I want to highlight a completely different image of Sweden,” he writes contrasting this unique project with the fact that the xenophobic Sweden Democrat party won 20 seats in the parliament.

The new joint center of worship will be built in Nacka municipality east of Stockholm, and house a Lutheran church, a Catholic church and an Islamic mosque. Bishop Wadensjö recalls that the leader of the Sweden Democrat party last year claimed that “the Muslims are the biggest foreign threat.” This is however not the case in Nacka, the bishop writes. “We see them as an asset. We have worked for several years … towards integration and living together as good neighbors. (…) For the past few years, we have had a discussion about Nacka’s parish in the /Lutheran/ Swedish church, St. Konrad’s catholic parish in Nacka and the Islamic association in Fisksätra /a suburb/ about building a joint House of God. The people of Nacka are about to get a church and a mosque as good neighbors under one common roof.”

“A model of the planned center of worship shows a mosque and a church side by side, unified by a joint foyer,” he continues. There will be a common space with space for both the Lutheran church and the Roman-Catholic church to follow their separate liturgical traditions, while the mosque will be an open forum for Muslims and friends. “The goal is to make a joint manifestation of shared belonging independent of faith, culture and language,” he writes, adding that there are “ignorant people within both Christianity and Islam,” but rejects the notion that extremists in either side represent either religions.

The proposed religious center in Nacka will be unique, but it is not the first time a church has shared space with a mosque. Bishop Wadensjö points to the Ummayad Mosque as an example from the 7th century. The Grand Mosque of Damascus was originally a Christian basilica dedicated to John the Baptist, but became a dual-use house of worship after the Muslim conquest of Damascus in 634.

“The goal of the project is not to blend the faiths and not to proselytize. It strives to give more chances for people of different religious traditions to meet, contribute to a positive development in Fisksätra and demonstrate that religion can be a unifying force in the local society.” (Fisksätra is a development in Nacka municipality with 7 000 inhabitants, many of which are immigrants.)

“Word history is created in Fisksätra. World peace begins in Fisksätra,” the bishop concludes his article.

Hans Sandberg