Swedes’ love of silence has saved us from the plague of talking unmanned supermarket checkouts — but its city centres need to turn up the volume, says James Savage.

Swedes’ love of silence has saved us from the plague of talking unmanned supermarket checkouts — but its city centres need to turn up the volume, says James Savage. Reclining on the terrace at my Swedish summerhouse, soaking up the global warming and toasting the end of the world with a glass of rosé from a parched Provençal vineyard, a large 1950s Chevrolet revved past, Swedish ‘dansband’ music blasting out of the windows. The noise of the car and the music really just served to accentuate the otherwise perfect silence of the place. If you have moved to Sweden from almost anywhere in the world (apart from Finland, Canada or the Australian outback), the quietness is exquisite. In one sense it’s just a result of Sweden’s human geography: this is one of the most sparsely-populated places in Europe, with 25 people per square kilometre, compared to 425 in the Netherlands, Europe’s most densely populated proper country (Sorry Monaco, you’re not a proper country). In many parts of Europe you’re barely ever out of earshot of a road; in most parts of Sweden you rarely hear traffic. But silence is also part of Swedish culture. I grew up with a fear of silences: it's your duty in England to jump in with small talk to fill the slightest lull in the dinner table conversation; in Sweden they just let the silence play out. It’s hardcore, like an endurance sport; fill the silence with prattle and you have failed. I remember discovering with wonderment that the endless silences in Ingmar Bergman films weren’t a cinematic device: that was just life as Bergman had lived it. Swedish silence is blissful when contrasted with the tinny, artificial noise that plagues the common spaces of my home country. Unmanned supermarket checkouts there are equipped with fruity, disembodied digital voices to tell us to ‘scan your items’, ‘insert your card’ – though thank goodness the ‘unexpected item in the bagging area’ seems to have made an exit. Maybe this is done in the name of accessibility, but it’s a scourge on the public sphere. Every British train journey is punctuated by incessant reminders to mind gaps, throw away your litter, don’t forget your bags and report suspicious behaviour (“See it, say it, sorted”. Urgh). The culture spreads to ordinary people, many of whom seem to think it’s perfectly acceptable to watch YouTube videos or talk to friends without using earphones. And I’m fully aware that by the standards of many places – you don’t have to go further than Spain to hear it – Britain is quiet and reserved. In Sweden, though, silence reigns: train announcements are functional and kept to a minimum. Supermarket checkouts communicate through gentle blips rather than imperious commands.