After qualifying as a ship manager, Ulfar Norddahl was sent to Liverpool where he met his wife-to-be and learnt about shipbroking with Roberts Shipping.
Later he worked as a broker in Germany with Grammerstorf Kiel, Teutonia Fracht and Assekuranz Kontor Hamburg, but his career as a ship’s chandler began in the Railway Inn in Runcorn, UK, when a former captain of British military intelligence who had worked with the Danish Resistance during World War II spoke to Norddahl in Danish.