For me it was also an opportunity to meet up with some old friends I had not seen for a while, as well as meeting up with other FESPA family members who had been at the General Assembly the week before. The old friends included Egil Lindberg and Erik Brynildsen – both past Presidents of NSF - and Jon Halvorsen, former secretary of NSF as well as a few other printers I had encountered at various times during my FESPA career. Kai, Flick (SSTF), Neils Rask (Grafska) and Juha Heljakka (Serpa) were representing their respective Associations with Olav Skilbred (President) and Karen Lind (Secretary) on hand from NSF, but the guest of honour was undoubtedly former founder member Edgar Hartvedt and his wife Joyce who had made the trip from Bergen to take part in this very special celebration.

The event started with a day of seminars – the first in the morning directed at students of whom around 100 attended to hear about design from Trond Nordahl. I think Trond is totally crazy, with some of his ideas and designs being off the wall, but he is innovative, clever, thoughtful and a creative genius. The students were as fascinated as me to see some of his work and he spoke about how he tackled any project and set about the sometimes long task of bringing something to life. A few samples of his work were on display including two calendars produced for clients one being simple in appearance but complex in design as the calendar lasts for 100 years. By turning various wheels, any date for any year can be shown. Also on display were a number of posters Trond had designed for an SAS anniversary a few years ago, quite striking and colourful. Trond dealt with a many questions from the students and all of them seemed to gain a useful insight into the mind of a designer, albeit a crazy one! I had a lovely chat with him and hope to be able to introduce him to some other European printers.

In the afternoon, Vegard Flatjord (from Spacio) gave an insight into how his company was doing during these difficult times. He showed us all a number of samples of his work and said that 2011 had been a bad year for printing in Norway (screen printing in particular) which I said was much the same in other parts of the world. However, I tried to offer some hope as I had recently heard that Thieme was seeing a huge demand in requests for orders – its lead time for a machine was now about 8 weeks instead of 4. This supported what Bhargav Mistry had told me a week earlier in Budapest at the FESPA General Assembly in that demands for screen machines in India had grown considerably, with many being sold to offset and digital printers. I hope that there will be a resurgence in screen printing and told a group during coffee of ideas we had at FESPA to put screen printing firmly back on the map by the time of the 2013 show in London.

It was fitting that in the seminar room there was a display of screen printed iconic art – a collection of some 25 different pictures which in my view were worthy of recognition in a permanent display at an art gallery - as well as two screens from the convention in 1961, which was the foundation stone of FESPA.

In the evening the party assembled at reception for a short walk to the tram stop where we boarded for Lian – some 8km away high on the hill overlooking Trondheim – to alight at a wonderful restaurant sat on the mountain top where we enjoyed a sumptuous meal.

The Saturday morning had been set aside for sight seeing so the group boarded a bus for a two hour tour with stops on the way at vista points, the fabulous cathedral and the german U boat bunker. Our guide imparted a lot of interesting facts and figures about Trondheim, the third largest city in Norway. I could write a book about this lovely city but need to concentrate on why I had gone so will leave out this detail.

After a free afternoon, we assembled in the hotel for the anniversary dinner and it was indeed a treat and a privilege to be a part of this occasion. Everybody was standing around chatting when the doors opened and in procession about 20 very smart dinner jacketed men from the choir Trøndernes Mandssangforening took to the stage and sang two songs. I really enjoyed the lovely singing which was a wonderful way to get things moving. This was followed by an amusing formal introduction from Ellinor Stene and then Olav commenced proceedings by welcoming everybody to the celebration and introducing some of the distinguished guests. He then handed over to Jon who was undertaking the Master of Ceremonies role.

Jon is a man of many talents (I did not know that writing poetry was amongst them) but he had written a poem especially for the occasion which he recited perfectly. Then followed excellent food, fine wine, good company, enjoyable conversation and impeccable service which made this an evening to remember. But of course an event such as this also needs speeches and these were all entertaining and focused on the importance of the event. As I do not speak or understand Norwegian, I was a little lost with what was being said, but judging by the laughter and smiles on the faces of the audience, much enjoyment was being had. Edgar drew great applause explaining about the foundation of NSF in 1961 as well as his involvement with the formation of FESPA later that year. Edgar was followed by myself, Neils, Kai, Juha and Per Hersve with numerous toasts being proposed and responded to throughout these proceedings.

There followed a special ceremony where three members of NSF were formally recognised and inducted into the "Ridder av den gyldne rakel" (which translated means "knights of the golden squeegee") a lovely and traditional custom in NSF which recognises considerable work, effort and contributions made by members for the industry and the Association. The new members were Egil Lindberg, Bjørn Johannessen and Leif Ragnar Vigdel.

The meal and speeches lasted about 5 hours (but this time really flew by) with the formal festivities ending appropriately with coffee and cognac. Almost on the stroke of midnight a band took to the stage and the dancing started. At what time it all ended, I do not know as I was heading home on Sunday morning and decided not to stay up all night, but my farewells lasted about one hour as the party was getting into full swing. Although I was on the 5th floor - and the event had been held at -1 level, I could clearly hear the sound of the music and all the guests enjoying themselves as I was preparing for bed. Any 50th anniversary is a special occasion and this was no exception.

One new friend I had the pleasure of meeting was Jean Emile Inghilleri who apart from being a nice man is also a great photographer. I discovered that he was also friends with Michel Caza, FESPA Board member and also a founder of FESPA. I am so grateful to Jean Emile for supplying me with lots of photos, some of which are in this article.

In conclusion, may NSF flourish for another 50 years. The only sure thing is that sadly I won't be around to celebrate it with them in 2061 (unless I live to 113) but you never know!!!!!