As a young graduate, Martin Pope travelled thousands of miles from his West Yorkshire home to a small Lap village in the far north of Norway to take up a teaching job. Yet he gained a lot more than his profession had to offer - a wife and ready-made family.

Martin spoke to Helen Mead about his life during a holiday back home in West Yorkshire.

MARTIN POPE is sitting in the living room at his parent's comfortable Otley home, trying to explain where he and his family live.

"Have you got an Atlas handy, dad?" he asks his father, Les, who goes off to find one. Next, we're sitting in front of a map and Martin points to the extreme north of Norway - an area 600 kilometres north of the Arctic Circle, where the summer sun shines 24 hours a day from the end of May to the end of July, and where, in the winter months, it is permanently dark.

"That's Karasjok, where we live," he says. The "we" Martin, 52, refers to is his family - his wife Kirsten, 55, and children Emily, 27, Lailyn, 21, and 18-year-old Marvin.

Martin and Kirsten have been married for 24 years. They met as teachers after Martin left Britain to work in Scandinavia.

He recalls: "I had been teaching at a school in Bedford for newly-arrived immigrant children. I applied for a job in Norway through the British Council and was given a position teaching at a primary school in the far North at Kautokeino, a small Lap village. I didn't know where it was, and the council didn't either."

The village may have been in the back of beyond, but Norway itself was not an entirely new experience Martin, who studied to teach English as a foreign language at Manchester University. After taking a degree in European studies he took a year off and travelled to Oslo. "I liked it so much that a year became two," he says, in English with a Norwegian accent - clearly pronounced words that are easy on the ear. So, on his return to Britain, he pledged to go back.

He remembers the feeling of optimism as he set off by road in his small 2cv to Kautokeino. "It was exciting, driving my little car into the unknown. I had three maps, all showing roads in different places. On one map there would be roads here and roads there, and on another there would be no road. I was never really quite sure where the roads were going, but I knew I must be driving in the right direction as the trees were getting smaller and smaller and then there were no trees at all. The houses are very spread out and I drove through the village and out the other side before I realised I'd arrived."

Kirsten, a native Lap - or Sami, as the people are now commonly known - was already teaching at the 2000-strong community's secondary school, where Martin became a regular visitor. "I used to spend a lot of time in their staff room - it was bigger than ours," he jokes.

He could speak a little Norwegian, and chatted to Kirsten, but romance did not bloom immediately. It was an act of chivalry - although distinctly unromantic - that drew the pair together. Kirsten had bought a new vacuum cleaner and Martin offered to carry it from the bus stop to her home. Says Kirsten: "I gave him a cup of coffee and some cake for carrying it for me."

It was Christmas, and Martin responded by bringing some Christmas cake round for Kirsten.

From there, the relationship blossomed. But it was at this time that Martin was offered another teaching job, back in Bedford. So, with time in short supply, the couple decided to marry. Watched by a small number of friends and relatives, they wed the following summer in Alta, a picturesque settlement on the Norwegian coast.

Kirsten, who wore traditional Sami costume for her wedding, had not been to England before, but soon settled into the way of life. "I thought the people were friendly and I loved seeing the country."

But it was not easy for her to get a job and the pair decided to return to Norway. They settled in Karasjok, where Kirsten was brought up. Martin found a job at the local sixth form college and Kirsten at the secondary school.

The couple wanted to start a family, but, says Kirsten, "We tried and it didn't happen, so we decided to go for adoption."

They registered with an adoption scheme which saw children from the Philippines placed with Norwegian families. As is the case in England, they had to endure much bureaucracy before good news finally came through. Eleven children from one family were coming to Norway, and three of them would be allocated to Martin and Kirsten.

The couple were elated when Emily, then 11, Lailyn, four, and 23-month-old Marvin, arrived at their cosy village home. But, as with any new arrival, it was a shock to the system - particularly with three at once.

"It was exhausting," says Martin. "The children would wake up at 3am thinking it was Philippine time, then at 4pm they would all be nodding off."

Adds Kirsten: "We had to keep finding things for them to do to keep them awake for an extra hour or so until they were in tune with the rest of us."

Luckily, Martin and Kirsten had paid leave from their jobs so they could adapt to life as parents of their ready-made family.

Adds Kirsten: "We had not bought a lot of clothes as we did not know how big the children were going to be, but we had a lot given by relatives and friends, and they got lots of presents at Christmas."

Emily picked up Norwegian very quickly and within a month was speaking English and Norwegian. It did not take long for her younger sister to catch up.

The children had never experienced snow - let alone snow deeper than cars - and they were bowled over by the winter wonderland.

Says Martin: "We have a cottage by the river near Karasjok where we would go with the children, where they could ski and enjoy themselves."

The children's brothers and sisters were sent to homes in other parts of the country, while, because of age restrictions, their two older brothers remained in the Philippines at an orphanage run by American missionaries.

Says Kirsten: "We made sure they met up with their siblings at least once a year. It felt strange meeting the others. You feel they are part of your family as well."

For reasons unbeknown to them, the children were told not to contact their older brothers back home. But, despite this they have remained in contact, and anthropology graduate Emily, now 27, has been back to visit them.

Like her parents, Emily works as a teacher. She is now married, with a two-year-old daughter, Dina. Lailyn, 21, now lives in Bradford, where she is working towards a degree in peace studies at the university, while Marvin, 18, a sixth form student, is planning to study music.

Martin and Kirsten come over to Otley as much as they possibly can, and in the meantime they keep in touch with 79-year-old Les via e-mail, regularly sending him photographs of his great-granddaughter.

"That's Dina," he says, clicking his mouse to call up a picture of a beautiful dark-haired little girl in a flower-filled meadow. "And that's her mother, Emily."

Martin and Kirsten plan to stay in Karasjok which, although small, has its own Sami parliament, radio station and newspaper. The family is are blissfully happy. says Martin. "We are very settled. It has been a wonderful place to bring our children up - we couldn't have asked for better."

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