Our previous post was a digression from Preben's life story. There we talked about the knighting of his maternal grandfather. Prior to that, we left off Preben's own story with the conclusion of his youthful sojourn in the United States. We will now pick up from there.
Preben returned to Denmark on February
28, 1949 and went to work as a purchasing assistant for the Danish
operation of Kores, an international dealer in paper and office goods.
He worked there until the end of September 1949.
Next, on October 1,
1949, Preben was sent to Brussels, Belgium through a Danish association for young businessmen's training abroad to work as a consular secretary. Here is a 1950 photograph of Brussels:
Preben worked for the consulate until April 30, 1950. Then, through consul J. Lythcke-Jørgensen, Preben was hired as a salesman in Belgium for the Danish firm Nilfisk (originally Fisker & Nielsen). Among other products, Nilfisk manufactured and marketed industrial vacuum cleaners.
Preben started with Nilfisk on May 1, 1950. During this early time in Brussels, Preben lived in a boarding house where he met and befriended Douglas Bridges, a pilot for the Belgian airline Sabena. and a former British Royal Air Force bomber pilot. Preben and Bridges later undertook a wonderful charitable project that we will describe in Part VI.
In July, 1954 Preben married the lovely Agnes Euphrasie Donnay (1925-2003). Agnes was born in Flemelle-Haute in the Belgian province of Liege. The couple was married in Flemelle-Haute. Agnes proceeded to learn the Danish language in order to be able to better communicate with Preben's mother.
Preben continued
working as a salesman until December 31, 1954. On May 1,
1955 he was promoted to office manager of Nilfisk's Belgian office
and continued in that capacity until April 30, 1961.
At that point, Nilfisk established a Belgian company, Aspirateurs Nilfisk S.A., with Preben as deputy director. He functioned in that role from May 1, 1961 to December 31, 1963 when he was again promoted, this time to administrative director of Aspirateurs Nilfisk S.A.
Thereafter Preben
served as director until his retirement. In 1975, he achieved his
25 year jubilee with Nilfisk. The event was celebrated on April 30, 1975 with festivities at Nilfisk in Brussels. Corporate director E. Fisker from Copenhagen participated.
A company photograph for Preben's 25th jubilee has a frame showing that he eventually achieved his 40th anniversary with Nilfisk.
In November, 1976, Queen Margrethe and her consort Prince Henrik (1934-2018) made a Danish state visit to Belgium. During the visit, Prince Henrik toured Nilfisk in Brussels.
As a result, on May 31, 1977, Queen Margrethe awarded the Knight's Cross to Preben just as King Christian X had awarded the Haederstegn Cross to Preben's grandfather Søren.
One of the bases for awarding the Knight's Cross is a significant contribution to Danish business life or Danish interests. Thus, it appears that the reason Queen Margrethe knighted Preben was his work in promoting Danish interests abroad through Aspirateurs Nilfisk S.A. and related activities such as the Danish-Belgian Chamber of Commerce.
The photo below is of Preben's own Knight's Cross:
Preben went on to celebrate his 40th jubilee with Nilfisk in 1990. His portrait now hangs with those of other 40 year jubilarians on Nilfisk's Jubilee Wall:
Preben retired on December 31, 1992, in anticipation of his 70th birthday in 1993. (Letter dated May 13, 2009; email from Christensen-Anesen granddaughter dated March 7, 2023.)
Recently a Fisker granddaughter related that she had once met Preben and that she was delighted to hear that we were writing about "this great dedicated Nilfisk man". (Email from Nilfisk contact, 3-3-2023.)
Until the passing of Preben's mother in 1979, Preben and Agnes usually spent their summer vacations with her in Copenhagen and visited the Jutland relatives from there.
(Email from Christensen-Anesen granddaughter, 2-24-2023.)
As we will see in Part VI, after retirement Preben turned his abundant energy to various avocations that were helpful to many.
To be continued . . .
Attributions:
Information re Preben's knighting courtesy of Crown historian for Dannebrog order
Information re Preben's Nilfisk employment courtesy of Nilfisk employees
General information courtesy of pastor of Danish Church in Belgium, and Christensen-Anesen granddaughter.
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