(Photo copyright I Morelius)
I am very lucky to have known Captain Iwan Morelius, retired of the Swedish Army. He was a close personal friend of the Bagley’s and features in the author’s dedication for The Enemy. He was able to shed much light in dark corners during our conversations.
The Captain was a very friendly, helpful, charismatic and energetic man, happy to assist in any way he could. He offered lots of useful advice and a privileged glimpse into the marvellous photo-album of his meetings with the author. That he gifted me so many photographs, was very generous.
Born in Stockholm in 1931 as Iwan Hedman, he left school early and began working for the Swedish Press Office in Visby on the island of Gotland. Military service beckoned and Iwan joined up, serving way beyond his conscription, from 1950 until 1981 in Uppsala, Kiruna and Strängnäs. In later years he was to change his surname to the older family name - Morelius.
During his free time Iwan read a lot of his favourite subject – mysteries and thrillers – and in 1968 founded one of the longest-running thriller-genre magazines: DAST. He subsequently passed the reigns on to someone else, but continued to publish his own Read and Heard in the Hammock magazine. The sheer number of authors he knew would make any fan of the genre green with envy!
Sadly Iwan died the day before before Mid-Summer in 2012.
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