John Didier took this photo of a Yale yellow locksmith van, and a Norwegian locksmith working on a door in Bergen.

John Didier took this photo of a Yale yellow locksmith van, and a locksmith working on a door in Bergen, Norway.

John Didier, who has worked as an Anderson Lock locksmith since he was a teenager, likes to take photos of locksmith shops and trucks when he travels. John has also been a member of rock ‘n roll bands since he was a teenager, playing guitar and singing songs from the 50’s,60’s-and 70’s.

In the early 2000’s, John’s band, The Wild Ones, performed in festivals in Scandinavia. In Bergen, Norway, John took a photo, during the day, of a Yale yellow locksmith van, and a locksmith in the shadow of an entryway, working on a door.

That night, after his concert, a pretty Norwegian girl asked for John’s autograph. The next year, The Wild Ones went back to Norway, and he met that same pretty girl, named Susan, after his gig. Fast forward a few months… Susan moved to the United States, and John and Susan married! She is still his biggest fan!

“-den originale Yale las” translates to: the original Yale lock, and the words on the window on the left side of the photo, in English, are: “lock systems, installation / service, door automatic, door closers.”

“-den originale Yale las” translates to: the original Yale lock, and the words on the window on the left side of the photo, in English, are: “lock systems, installation / service, door automatic, door closers.”

On a vacation back to Bergen, in 2005, John asked Susan to take his picture in front of Heikki Bruvik’s locksmith shop. It turns out that the locksmith John had photographed a few years earlier, named Geir Sonnesyn, worked for that shop, and he is also one of Susan’s friends!

While they were visiting Susan’s parents, her father asked John to help him with a lock. John says, “European locks are a bit different. I needed to swap out a Yale mortise lock body, change the handing, and install it. It took me a while, but I did it.”

ASSA ABLOY, pronounced “aah-suh aah-bloy,” is now the parent company of Yale Locks, as well as of many other lock and security door hardware companies. The ASSA ABLOY Group is headquartered in Sweden and is the world’s largest lock manufacturer by sales. Yale 5400 Series heavy-duty lever locks are among the most popular locks on our website, and John has a lot of experience installing them, mainly in schools and hospitals. He currently works as an estimator, and likes knowing that Anderson Lock can match almost any building’s existing door hardware.

Yale Lock logo

Yale Lock logo

P.S. John, who is also a beer connoisseur, notes that he drank “Ass Beer” while in Norway, and that they pronounce it “aah-ss” just like in ASSA ABLOY!