But politics was even more exciting than sport. As a result of centralisation in Troms county and the falling numbers of children per year group in the north, each time there was a new budget to balance the politicians weighed up whether to close the upper secondary school in Salangen. Every year it fought for its life, and won. When Simon was in Year 8, he attended a county council meeting for the first time, to speak about why there should be no cuts to the school provision in the area.
Before long he was elected leader of the Salangen youth council. He devoted his energies there to campaigning for facilities for young people. In small towns and villages, sport often provided the only social life, and those who weren’t sporty could find themselves left out. The central issue for him was trying to reopen the youth club that had closed down years before. The local council pledged to fund it as long as Simon could guarantee that the young people undertook the voluntary work of renovating and maintaining it. He gave his promise. The youngsters were given basement premises with a music room, dance floor, pool table and a little café they would run themselves. It would be a place to meet, for everybody. It just needed a bit of redecoration first.
‘But Mum, how can I get people to come and help?’ Simon asked.
‘You need something to lure them in,’ Tone suggested.
‘Like what?’
‘I could make pizza,’ she offered.
Simon put up posters to advertise the working party, and by the time he got home from Velve, as the club was called, he was elated and splashed all over with red and cobalt blue paint.
‘Loads of people volunteered, Mum! We ran out of paintbrushes!’
On his sixteenth birthday, 25 July 2008, Simon was old enough to become a member of the Norwegian Union of Municipal and General Employees. He joined that same day. His friends thought it was odd that he wanted union membership before he had a job.
‘Everybody ought to join a union,’ he argued. ‘Even school pupils. The stronger we make the trade unions now, the better working life will be by the time we finish our education!’ If they had a large enough pool of members, the unions could stamp down harder on shady practices in the world of work, because young people were often exploited, not paid the going rate for the job, or forced to accept poor working conditions. Employers broke laws on health and safety in the workplace and younger job applicants didn’t always know their rights. That was why it was important for the trade union’s summer patrol to go round the country checking up on conditions for young people.
The nicest surprise about membership was that it included several months’ subscription to the left-wing newspaper Klassekampen – ‘Class Struggle’. Simon read about the way the financial crisis was hitting the poorest people in developing countries, about social dumping and the unemployment explosion in Europe. Critical of those in power, the paper debated all the topics that interested him.
‘Dad, you must read it!’ he said. ‘This paper’s great! It tells you about stuff in a totally different way from anywhere else.’
When the summer holidays were over and he started in his first year at Sjøvegan Upper Secondary, a school under threat of closure, he wanted to do more than subscribe to Klassekampen. It wasn’t enough to think about socialist answers to society’s problems on your own. He rang the party office in Tromsø and asked how he could start a branch of the AUF in Salangen.
‘Give notice of a founding meeting and then we can come and help you recruit members,’ came the answer.
Simon put up notices all round the schooclass="underline"
One evening in mid-September, three boys drove over from Tromsø. One was the leader of the Troms AUF, Brage Sollund, whom Simon had talked to on the phone. The second was the best recruiter in the county, named Geir Kåre Nilssen. With them they had a skinny Year 10 boy with glasses and a brace on his teeth. His name was Viljar Hanssen.
Over Tone’s tacos they drew up their plan of action.
‘Right Simon, this is what we’ll do tomorrow,’ said Geir Kåre. ‘You go straight up to the prettiest girl in the school. It’s vital we get her on board, because in most schools she’s the one who decides what’s cool or not. Then we’ll sign up her friends, and once that’s done we’ll move on to the boys. Okay?’
Simon nodded.
‘We’ll start with the tough guys. They’re always the hardest to reach, so if we can get them, this could be really big. Then it’s all easy because the rest will follow.’
Simon nodded again.
‘I’ve got a formula for you,’ Brage said. ‘AUF = 90% social + 10% politics.’
Brage had brought along a book to help Simon prepare for the meeting, a history of the AUF called The Salt of the Party. Brage read out a passage about when the legendary Einar Gerhardsen was leader of the Workers’ Youth League: ‘In spring 1921, Gerhardsen made it a condition of standing for re-election as chairman that there be no more dances. Study activities were to be intensified “to make every member of the group a conscious communist”. His condition was accepted, but the outcome indicate that revolutionary consciousness remained lacking at grass-roots level. At the general meeting six months later, only thirty-six members remained of the original 322, a slump of almost ninety per cent!’
The boys laughed.
No, Simon wouldn’t forget the social side.
They rang the local paper, which promised to come to the inaugural meeting, they planned which issues Salangen AUF would focus on, and they ended up on mattresses under warm quilts in the basement sitting room, joking the night away.
The recruiting session was timed for the lunch break.
‘Okay Simon, the floor is yours,’ said Geir Kåre, giving his new friend a pat on the shoulder.
A few seconds’ hesitation, and Simon strode up to the prettiest girl at Sjøvegan.
‘AUF?’ she queried. ‘For ten kroner?’
Then she smiled. ‘Go on then,’ and wrote her name on his pad.
Viljar came with him, and the boys went from one group of pretty girls to the next.
The membership pad was filling up. Soon they had asked everyone in the school playground and the canteen. Viljar was impressed.
‘He’s got a way with words, that Simon! Everybody joins,’ he said to Brage and Geir Kåre.
The things Simon focused on when he spoke to each new group were: no to closure of Sjøvegan School, and yes to hot school lunches. Cheaper bus fares for young people. Things that most students agreed on. But to achieve them, they needed the AUF, Simon said, and the AUF needed them. It was as simple as that.
‘You’re very persuasive!’ Viljar said to his fellow party member, one year his senior, when the lunch break was over. ‘Salangen’s golden boy. The local prince,’ declared the lad from Tromsø with a laugh. ‘They would have joined anything, as long as it was with you,’ he teased.
Viljar was right, because everyone liked Simon. Whatever he suggested, you wanted to be a part of it. He was cheerful, he was cool, he had style. The girls in the school canteen were always aware of it when that Simon walked in.