THE ANGLO-DANISH SOCIETY NEWSLETTER Autumn 2021 www.anglo-danishsociety.org.uk Reg. Charity No 313202 The Royal Yacht Dannebrog in London 2012 PHOTO : Palle Baggesgaard Pedersen THE ANGLO-DANISH SOCIETY Dear Members & Friends Patrons Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II The Covid-19 restrictions regarding social interaction sadly meant that Her Majesty Queen Margrethe II some of our proposed past events were cancelled. We remain optimistic that we can again meet friends and members at the Ambassador’s Protector of the Scholarship Programme Reception in September. You will also be able to meet some of our HRH the Duchess of Gloucester, GCVO scholars. Honorary Presidents The Tower of London Dinner in October, the Georg Jensen shopping HE Lars Thuesen, R1, Danish Ambassador event in November and The Danish Church Christmas event in December will hopefully also take place as planned. These are all popular events. Officers and Members of Council There may well be a refreshing change ahead to events on offer as two Wayne Harber, OBE, K (Chairman) new council members elected to council in June, Cecilie Mortensen and Peter Davis, OBE (Vice Chairman) Louisa Greenbaum, will oversee Event Management in future. Alan Davey, FCMA (Hon. Treasurer) Bette Petersen Broyd (Hon. Secretary) At the AGM in June Kristian Jensen, who already serves on the Katie Schwarck (Hon. Scholarship Scholarship Committee, was elected to council with responsibility for Secretary) Heritage. We envisage that Kristian will oversee the mapping of the Palle Baggesgaard Pedersen, R nearly 100 years since The Anglo-Danish Society was formed in 1924. Christine Bergstedt Queen Alexandra offered her encouragement in the formation of the Dr. Kristian Jensen, R society. If any of you have insights, documents or photographs Cecilie Mortensen illuminating the past history of The Anglo-Danish Society, or the Louisa Greenbaum Students’ Section, then please share your gems with Kristian. Ex-Officio Members Lone Britt Christensen– Danish Embassy The AGM also saw an addition to the Ex-Officio members with Managing Pastor Flemming Kloster Poulsen Director Gunnar Papendick Larsen representing our sister organisation The Danish Church DK-UK. We hope to share more events and experiences with DK-UK Connie Yilmaz Jantzen - Danish YWCA Association in future. Gunnar Papendick Larsen, DK-UK Assoc. We warmly welcome all the new council members as well as all new Scholarship Committee members of The Anglo-Danish Society. Katie Schwarck (Chair & Hon. Secretary) Lone Britt Christensen If you happen to follow The Anglo-Danish Society on Facebook you will Wayne Harber, OBE, K see a constant flow of information and inspiration from the two royal Dr Kristian Jensen, R households in UK and Denmark. As here in the newsletter, you can learn Professor Jacob Stougaard-Nielsen more about the Danish Royal Yacht, the sausage stand centenary, the Danish Ambassador's take on life after Brexit, a lost sofa, a Pyramid of Membership Subscriptions sand and renewable life on a small, romantic island. We share infor- Single membership £25 mation about recent events which is generally entertaining, informative Family membership £40 and only very gently partisan. I promised myself not to mention the foot- Corporate membership £200 ball. No more said! Anglo-Danish Society Our Vice Chair, Peter Davis, has written about his time as a Goodwill 43 Maresfield Gardens Ambassador to Denmark. An interesting concept, which reminded me London NW3 5TF that we are all of us – in big and small ways – goodwill ambassadors for [email protected] UK, for Denmark and for The Anglo-Danish Society, where both cultures www.anglo-danishsociety.org.uk are celebrated. Webpage: Palle Baggesgaard Pedersen, R Bette Petersen Broyd, Editor Editor : Bette Petersen Broyd [email protected] Layout: Palle Baggesgaard Pedersen, R Social Media: Bette Petersen Broyd Reg. Charity No.: 313202 The Anglo-Danish Society is a member of COSCAN (The Confederation of Working for Denmark post-Brexit By Lars Thuesen, Danish Ambassador to UK UK will most likely become more expensive. No doubt that we are going to see fewer Danish students and interns in the UK in the future. Post-Brexit new control mechanisms have been put in place for the trade of goods. There has been talk of 50.000 new customs officers and agents having to deal with 200-300 million extra customs declarations due to Brexit. The overlap between the COVID-19 crisis and Brexit has made it hard to measure the direct impacts of Brexit. The COVID restrictions meant that UK’s GDP dropped by almost 10% in 2020. However, we do know for sure that the former friction- less trade has become more complicated. We have also lost fishing rights and the significant Greenlandic shrimp export is now subject to tariffs. Small and medium size enterprises have had a harder time dealing with red tape than bigger companies, but none of them is excited by this change. At the Embassy, we have adapted to the new condi- Five years ago, the Brits voted the UK out of the EU. tions. We know that we need to fight more for Danish Denmark immediately established a Brexit-task force companies in order to maintain our market share. Our across the relevant ministries and a Brexit-secretariat in Consular Service has had more and new tasks for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to secure Danish Danish and British citizens, just as our Trade Council, interests during the negotiations. At that time, I must and Invest-in-Denmark section are adapting to the new admit, I did not foresee the task would be as huge and reality with changed commercial relations. The political complex as it turned out to be. Only five years later relationship between UK and Denmark has also were we able to dissolve the secretariat. changed significantly and has to be adjusted to the new conditions. The Brexit-deal between the EU and UK, which came into effect on 1st of January this year, is the most There is plenty of work to do, and the COVID- comprehensive of its kind. Nevertheless, a lot has restrictions that we have had for 15 months now, have changed and we have to adjust to new conditions and not made the situation less complex. We hope that the relations between our two countries. Embassy can soon return to normality, so we can speed up the process of establishing our new relationship The Trade and Cooperation Agreement only barely with the UK. touches on services and free movement of people is gone. Effectively, that means that Danes or other EU citizens who are thinking about moving to the UK are treated like all other foreigners in the future. For Danes in the UK, this has already had consequen- ces. Danish citizens have had to apply for pre-settled or settled status to maintain their rights and the Embassy has put a vast amount of resources into communicating this important message to as many Danes as possible before the deadline on 1 July this year. With the UK leaving the Erasmus scheme and home fees no longer applying to EU citizens, studying in the Scholarship News Selecting the awardees for an Anglo-Danish Society KATRINE STRUNK scholarship is never an easy task. This year was no exception. Although the number of applicants was slightly down on last year (26 compared to 34), the standard was very high and the range of subjects excitingly diverse. The process of considering all the applications is, of course, extensive, but the rewards are significant – not least the insight gained by the Scholarship Committee into new fields of study. Who knew, for instance, that important research was being conducted into the health effects of lead in Scandinavian brown bears or that we produce 13 million tonnes of textile waste each year – which is why sustainable design practices are so important? The applications we receive, therefore, reflect the growing number of inspiring post-graduate opportunities still available to young people in Denmark and the UK. And long may this continue! Our 2021-2022 awardees are:. TÓRA DJHURUUS - PhD at Exeter University in “The Legacy of the Past in Brexit Britain”. A particularly CAOIMHE DOWLING topical area of research, which seeks to add to the discussion about the imperial dimension of British Euroscepticism. MATTIAS HORAN – PhD Neuroscience at University College London, Sainsbury Wellcome Centre for Neural Circuits and Behaviour. Mattias has already qualified as a doctor but is keen to work as a physician-scientist. His current area of research examines Alzheimer’s disease and the area of the brain known as the Hippocampal Formation– the seat of the brain’s navigation system. HELLE HYDESKOV – PhD Veterinary Medicine at Nottingham Trent. Helle is studying lead poisoning in Scandinavian brown bears and its health effects. As lead is still widely used in hunting ammunition, the lead from spent ammunition poses a global health problem. The ultimate aim is to create a lead-free environment to improve animal and human health. CAOIMHE DOWLING – MA in Fashion, Clothing, Textiles and News Landscapes for Design at The Royal Danish TÓRA DJHURUUS Academy. This is a new MA course which focuses on how sustainable design practices can be incorporated to reshape the fashion industry and make it more sus- tainable. KATRINE STRUNK – Master of Performance (Vocal) at the Royal College of Music. Katrine’s ambition is to become an opera singer. She enjoys the works of female composers (Alma Mahler, Johanna Muller- Hermann, Clara Schumann) and has produced a concert series on this topic. She became a Søholm Opera Young Artist in 2020-21. You can listen to Katrine sing via her website www.katrinedeleuran.com Scholarship News HELLE HYDESKOV We continue to benefit from the generosity of the Ove Arup Foundation who sponsor a £2,500 award for advanced studies in the Built Environment.