My Grandfather Bertil Stenmark was really a character! Father of two naturally, my dad Gillis and his older sister May Britt. Stenmark the older was definitely a hard man, a man’s man sort to speak, worked in the woods for several years and there after in a factory.

He was genuine blue collar and a convinced communist by fate from the start. Why shouldn’t he be? He came from the “Red” parts of Norrland (Northern Sweden), Ångermanland (Kramfors) and was one of the guys who marched in that infamous “Ådalen demonstration” where the military fired arms against the participants and had the workers killed for doing what they did.

It left scars in my grandfather’s heart and soul that wasn’t repairable. He would never sympathize with anyone who came from the upper class after that.

Bertil was also the man who started off the long boxing tradition in my family. (My dad also boxed) He was quite awkward out of a boxing stance, left handed and thereby, a natural south paw.

What I was told, and what I have read about him in the very few press clips that we still have, was that he was a rock hard brawler with very little or limited technique, and not too many fancy moves!

That era’s most significant sport’s publication “Idrottsbladet” wrote these words about Bertil after he had won the junior national title! “Stenmark not the most talented of the participants in the lightweight category and more of a natural fighter” He won that tournament a bit surprisingly during the early thirties/the depression, and received a flashy diploma to hang on the wall. Word from my dad is that he many years after tried to frame it at a specialist to preserve it, but never got it back. It was stolen!

He then had nothing to prove he was national champ except those press clips. Bertil won that prestigious title among a lot of competitors at the famous “Circus” venue In Stockholm back in 1933.

He was strong and somewhat of a beast when it came to raw physical strength actually! My dad once told me that someone close to him had followed him to a weight-lifting gym on one occasion in his youth.

In there, the two of them had tested lifting to the limits of their capacity, and Bertil wasn’t too far away from the Swedish record in his weight category.

In addition to that Junior National championship tournament he also won the regional “Norrland” title during his career at featherweight, and squared off with an Olympic Silver medallist whom I never was told the name of! Unfortunatly!

All in all he had about 120 fights though. Give or take a few! Hard to tell really since this was before the starting book (record book) was introduced.

I only had a few, too few, years to get to know my grandfather as he died already in 1978. He was a quiet man, never talked about boxing with me but I remember that we talked about Cowboys and Indians when I was a little boy! He was very kind to me!