Kurt explained

The man in the passenger seat was clearly serious. He rolled down the window of the small van and pointed his shotgun at the cab of the trailer next to him. The two vehicles sped through the night on the Italian highway. Behind the wheel of the trailer was 24-year-old Kurt Petersen. He had heard the stories about the Italian highwaymen, and he had no intention of stopping.

– I made a sudden lunge at the van before I straightened the trailer. They were surprised and slammed on the brakes, but after a short while they came back. They didn't give up.

The highway wound through a mountainous area, and in the darkness Petersen could not see what lay next to the road.

– But at least there wasn't a field there. Maybe it was a cliff.

When the pursuers once again came up the side of the trailer, Petersen tightened his grip on the steering wheel.

– I took a sharp turn so that the trailer hit them. The last thing I saw was the lights from the van as they disappeared down the side of the road.

– How did things go with them?

– I don't know. I didn't exactly go out to ask. It's not sure it went so well. But I thought they had planned it themselves. It was mountainous terrain there, and it was a stupid place to play with a truck.

44 years have passed since Kurt Petersen dealt with armed highway robbers along the Italian motorway. Today, life is a bit more peaceful. Petersen, who was born and raised in Denmark, has moved to Norway, married for the second time and drives a truck for a small construction company. The company has two employees, the manager who operates the excavator, and Petersen who drives the truck. Petersen loves his job, and does not dream of a bigger position or more responsibility – he has tried that, and he does not want to go back. He is having a great time as a truck driver and shop steward in Yrkestrafikkforbundet .

Earlier this winter, Petersen was named "Elected Official of the Year" in YTF . According to the jury, Petersen is in YTF known for being a "real YES person". When someone needs help, Petersen steps up. Through "presence, credibility and hard work" he works to ensure that more people become organized in YTF .

The main character himself says he was "extremely surprised" when his name was read out during the award ceremony.

– I didn't see it coming. Because I don't think I'm doing anything special.

– What do you think is the most important thing for a shop steward to do?

– I think the most important thing is to get information out to members, so they can see that there is someone working and doing something for them, and that there is someone who is available to them.

After several years in Norway, Petersen now has a large network in the transport industry. Ever since he was a child, he has enjoyed talking to people, and this quality has also come in handy in his role as a union representative.

– I try to listen the most and give space to those I talk to. I think a lot of drivers and to some extent others, can be a little nervous when they have to contact the management where they work, the authorities or a public body. And I also think that they can be a little unsure when they contact the union. They can be afraid of saying the wrong thing, and they can be nervous about whether they have misunderstood something. Then it is important to give them security.

The path into the driving profession was quite accidental for Petersen himself. The first step came in the form of a derailment – ​​from elementary school in Denmark. After two weeks in eighth grade, the message was clear: Kurt Petersen was not wanted. The best solution was for him to go home and not come back.

At least that's how Petersen himself remembers and describes what became his last day at elementary school.

– The school thought that the best thing for me, and the school, was that I wasn't there anymore.

Kurt about his time at primary school

– But where would you be?

– I was supposed to be away. The school got the most out of it. I had probably filled the tank with a little too much octane, you could say. But it was actually really nice for me that I was sent home. I didn't want to sit still for so long at a time.

It wasn't about the ability to sit still at school, but 14-year-old Petersen found it terribly boring.

– I think the biggest problem was that I was stubborn as hell. If I had decided that there was something I didn't want to do, it was never going to happen.

Whether it was the rigidity of young Petersen that was decisive is unknown, but his time at school was over anyway.

His father rented out agricultural machinery, and that's how Petersen got behind the wheel at an early age. He was already driving a tractor at the age of six, and in his teenage years he gained experience with all kinds of agricultural machinery. But after a few years working, first for his father and later on a farm, young Petersen wanted to go out into the world.

– I went to Hirtshals and became a fisherman. I worked on a fishing boat in the North Sea and Skagerak both before and after my military service.

As with many others at the time, technological advances eventually made the job at sea disappear and a new machine made Petersen redundant.

– So then I suddenly found myself on the dock and had no job. But in the military I had gotten a truck driver's license, and I thought that it had to be useful for something.

Petersen contacted some of the drivers at the fish distributors. Initially, he was allowed to sit in to see how the job was done, but then he was allowed to try driving a bit himself.

– What I had driven in the military wasn't big loads, but now I got to try my hand at really big cars with trailers. And it went well. The regular drivers thought I did a good job, and so I became their vacation replacement – ​​and they were old, so they just took more and more time off.

The new job took Petersen to new countries where he did not speak the language. Initially, Germany and the Netherlands.

– I said, “I’ve never tried this before, so I’m probably good at it.” And I learned German and a little Dutch.

– How did you do it?

– I found a radio program where they just talked, and then I sat and listened to it. At first I didn't understand anything, but then I caught one word, and then another, and suddenly I knew quite a lot. I've used the same technique to learn Italian, Spanish and Portuguese.

The technique of "bathing" in the language has been taken to more exotic challenges. Petersen can make himself understood in 11 languages, including Kirundi.

– My wife is from Congo and I can speak Kirundi with her or with someone in her family. I don't know it perfectly, but I get what I want to say. I suck at grammar. It's not important when you're speaking.

His wife's name is Chantal and she came to Norway as a refugee in 2003.

– Chantal belongs to a group of people who were slaughtered with machete. She fled without a plan, and it was by chance that she came to Norway. She waited a long time for her husband to come after her, but was finally told that he had been killed, says Petersen.

He had himself lost his wife of 18 years – Lis, to lung cancer. When he later moved to Norway, he lived alone for several years before Chantal walked by one day.

– We met at the bus station in Asker. I had taken the bus to Asker to go shopping, and she was on her way to work.

We were getting off our respective buses when I saw her. I thought, "She looks exciting," and then I thought that in a few seconds we would pass each other and never see each other again.

Kurt about meeting his wife Chantal

Petersen decided to talk to the woman.

– “You must be busy,” I said, and she was a little startled. She had learned Norwegian, but she probably found it a little difficult to understand what I was saying with my dialect. But she stopped and asked me what it was.

Petersen repeated her small comment and received a response that she was on her way to work, but that she would also go to the shops in Asker to do some shopping first.

– I followed up and asked if she wanted to have a cup of coffee, and she said she would be happy to. We went into a restaurant and ordered, and that was the beginning. It's been 12 years now.

– Did you have the habit of saying hello to ladies you passed at the bus station?

– No, I had never done it before. That is, I had talked to people, but not in that way. But I thought, “In a moment, we will have passed each other, and then you will never meet that person again.” If you want to get something done, you have to act.

The will to act , combined with curiosity and commitment, has opened new doors for Petersen several times. One of them opened when he drove long-distance transport in Europe for a Danish company.

– I kept having ideas about how they could do things differently, and one day the boss said he was really tired of hearing all these comments all the time. “It sounds like you know a lot more about this than we do here in the office. Wouldn’t it be better if you came here and managed, you who know how everything should be done,” he said. “I can do that,” I replied.

The next day, Petersen became a driving supervisor and was given responsibility for some of the company's cars.

– I had the advantage of having driven a lot, and I knew everything. So when the drivers called home with some problem, they often wanted to talk to me – because I usually knew what to do.

In the days before GPS and fleet management systems, driving was solved with maps, which were not always as detailed.

– I remember someone who got lost and called in. He had no idea where he was. I told him to drive to an intersection and write down the names of the roads, then he should drive on to a gas station and call me. The driver did so, and then I was able to direct him back to a road he knew from memory.

When he's not driving a truck , he works as a shop steward. YTF or watching Ukrainian news on YouTube, there's a good chance that Kurt Petersen is baking bread. A visit to Petersen's Facebook page reveals a dedication to bread baking - since 2014 he has posted over 150 photos of homemade bread.

– I don't just take pictures, I also send videos to people I know. Many people know that I like to bake, and they would like to have some tips. Sometimes we bake together online. I send them a shopping list in advance and set up the camera at home. It's fun, then I'm standing here in Norway and teaching people in Canada and Australia.

And it's not just bread baking that keeps Petersen busy in the kitchen. He enjoys cooking, and preferably something that he can heat up "on the exhaust" of the car to have for lunch. A casserole dish is placed in an aluminum pan and wrapped tightly. The pan is then placed on the exhaust pipe from the engine and heated while the car is running. He learned the trick when he was a fisherman, and he has used it all his years driving a truck.

– If you have a supermarket, a knife and a roll of aluminium foil, you can cook anything and heat it on the exhaust. I have cooked everything, but I have never used recipes – then you are freer and become better at using what you have. Why should professional drivers only eat junk food. It costs a lot of money and it is just fat.

Kurt Petersen

For a few years, Petersen drove meat from Danish producers down to markets in Europe.

– Sometimes – when we had to wait a long time at a customs station or something – we could have several drivers take a look at what we had in our loads. And then we could maybe take a piece of meat from one car, some vegetables from the other and maybe wine from the third. Then we would have enough for a little party.

At these communal meals, Petersen took great pleasure in the language skills he had acquired.

– I was often the one standing in the middle and directing the whole thing. By then I had learned most of the languages ​​in Europe well enough to talk to other drivers. It was a lot of fun.

In a year and a half, Kurt Petersen will turn 70. That means little.

– I've heard that many people are deciding when they want to retire. I don't think like that. I don't want to set a date and then start the countdown. I don't plan on stopping doing anything.

In addition to his job as a driver and his position in YTF , Petersen also runs a company that sells network radios – a web-based system created in the same style as the old radios that drivers used to communicate with.

– Don't you get tired of all these projects?

– No, not really.

– But maybe others will be? Does it ever happen that your wife gets irritated with you?

– Yes, it happens quite often. Then maybe we should do something, but then I don't have time because I have another project I need to finish. Then she might get a little irritated.

– And what do you say then?

– He-he, I don't say much back. I don't want to make a drama out of it. If she yells, I don't listen to it much, but sometimes I reply "that was nice to hear, I understand that you're awake now."

One project he doesn't want to spend less time on is his position as a shop steward.

– I think it is a pleasure to be allowed to help others.

According to Petersen, the questions from members can range in many different directions. With over 45 years in the industry, Petersen has good advice to offer himself, but that's not all he can help with.

– I get contacted about everything. Sometimes there are people who need help from the lawyers. YTF , other times there may be someone who needs help with the bank, and other times there may be someone who needs to talk to someone who is good at how their head is screwed together.

Petersen admits that he is proud of how he – who is “a bit of a foreigner” – gains trust from the members.

– But think of all the things you could do if you spent less time being a shop steward? You could work a little more and earn better, you could bake a few more loaves of bread or go for a bike ride.

– No, it's not like that. I can do all that even though I'm a shop steward. It's not as much work as you think it is. I do it while I'm behind the wheel or when I'm sitting at home on the couch. And I really enjoy it.