When everything was new. Finland and Helsinki 50 years ago seen with fresh eyes.
Finland Forevermore is a sequel to Diana Webster's Finland Forever, published in 2013.
At 23, Diana faced the challenge of working as a Lecturer in English at Helsinki University, with almost 1 500 students of English, and only 4 native-speaking lecturers. She watches Finland and her world radically change, as Helsinki grows and becomes more cosmopolitan; as the coming of the Pill upsets social conventions; as manmade fibres and plastics change clothes, shops and manufacturing. She sees young people gain influence and package tours alter the attitudes of Finns, and even change the appearance of the streets.
During these years Diana also writes and acts in the first TV programmes in English in Finland, as well as acting for the amateur theatre and writing musical comedies. She experiences her first Finnish summer, and spends 3 weeks in the winter on an island in the archipelago, marooned by fragile ice. She discovers a world of diplomats and spies, and is a consultant for British TV during the Note Crisis. She also touches on the politics of the period from the point of view of an ordinary citizen, and on the relations with the Soviet Union.
Finland Forevermore is a fascinating account of life in Helsinki as Diana Webster saw it in the fifties and early sixties, written with humour, perception, and a deep affection for Finland.
