Autobiography

I was born into an upper-middle class family in a village in the South of Sweden in April, 1899. It was a large family with seven children, a large house and a home which was very hospitable and open to friends and relatives. There was a private school which was not very particular about the knowledge entering children had acquired. Normally, they should have had three years of preparatory studies but many of the children had only two years. For some reason, I was given only a little private teaching and prep school for one year before entering the school at the age of seven. Hence, I passed the "baccalaureat" in the classical line in the city of Hälsingborg rather early. As mathematics had been my best subject at school, my parents proposed - and I accepted - studies at the University of Lund in mathematics, statistics and economics. The choice of the latter subject is said to be due to the fact that at the age of five years, I was very fond of calculating the cost of the various cakes my mother used to bake.