Italy

I am currently heading into work. I’m trying a new route which involves a bus and a tube instead of three tube trains. When you get above or below central London, it’s very hard to travel in a west-east direction, which means it takes me an hour and twenty minute to make a journey which would take thirty minutes to drive. And, of course, because I’m working conventional office hours, I’m travelling on packed tubes during the rush hour which invariably make me want to cry!

Just before the mayhem of High Holy Days in the synagogue, I managed to get a long weekend in Italy with Michael. Again, I wrote several blogs about it, but didn’t post them for the reasons listed in my previous entry. That said, we had a brilliant time, and because I’ve already written the majority of content, I’m going to reclaim a bit of joy and take you all back to the end of September..

We stayed in a villa in the hills above the town of Pescia, which is not a million miles from the ancient city of Lucca. Artists and creatives tend to bang on about the glorious light in Tuscany and the more I visit the place, the more I realise it has a unique and very beautiful light. I’m not sure I yet have the words to quantify this statement. Certainly, at the beginning and ends of the day, colours seem super-saturated and clear. But at other times, everything takes on a sort of soft-focussed, somewhat impressionistic straw-coloured haze. Or maybe I’m romanticising.

The villa we stayed in is surrounded by dark cedar trees and spearmint-green olive groves. From the balcony, you can see for miles, all the way to the lilac misty peaks of the mountains which rise from the sea plains between Pisa and Lucca.

In the middle-distance, ancient villages with their skyscraper-esque churches, cling perilously to the hillsides. Sound travels in curious ways in that particular location. The noise of a woman whistling for her cat, maybe half a mile away, feels like it’s happening right next to you. At one point, I heard the drumming and cheers of a festival in Pescia, carried on the breeze, direct to my ears. And of course, every morning and evening, the romantic clangle of church bells is delivered fresh to your ears.

It is, of course, astonishing how quickly us Brits can get to a place as beautiful and serene as Tuscany. Pisa airport is so un-busy, that you’re off the plane and through passport control in a heartbeat. We were swimming in the pool at our villa by the middle of the afternoon and eating in the most glorious little restaurant in a valley beyond Pescia by 8pm.

There is, of course, nothing better than properly-cooked, rustic Italian food. Weeks after our trip to Da Sandrino in Sorana, my mouth still waters when I think about what we ate there: spaghetti with tomato sauce, spaghetti with garlic and chilli, fried potatoes, a bowl of the glorious local delicacy, Fagioli Di Sorana (white beans), and fried mushrooms in a batter so light, and crisp, I have no idea how they were made.

The restaurant is in a tiny, wood-smoke-scented village, next to a river which gushes through a deep ravine. Does it get any better than that, I wonder?

We went for a trek on our second day; up the side of the rather steep hill from the villa where we’re staying, to a hillside town called Monte a Pescia. The air up there is incredibly pure, and filled with the scent of wild flowers, mint and wonderful Italian herbs. It’s the sort of air which is so rich with oxygen that a single gulp makes you feel alive. The views drifting down towards Pescia are glorious: farmhouses, with terracotta roofs, scattered across dark, tree-lined, hills. The odd wisp of smoke.

From Monte a Pescia, we followed an ancient stone-paved footpath back down into Pescia itself. This was the ancient road which linked the main town to its baby sister in the hills and it’s steeped in terrific atmosphere. You get the most astonishing sense of how hard life must have been for people in those Tuscan hills before the invention of the car. I imagined old women walking alongside donkey carts up the vertiginous slopes every market day.

We met a horrible cat with bright yellow eyes whom I made the mistake of stopping to stroke. It turns out it was utterly deranged and it went at me with its nasty claws, drawing so much blood that I had to go and see a pharmacist! Cats are freaks. They see my leonine energy and go on the attack or skittishly run in the opposite direction. Slags.

We swam in the villa’s pool that afternoon, which was a real treat. It’s a salt water pool, which I think is better for the environment, and, on a day where scores of young people across the world were marching against climate change, it was nice to know that some people were doing their bit. (Says the man who’d just jumped on a plane for a three day holiday in Tuscany!) I guess I’m just making the most of my beloved Mainland Europe whilst I’m allowed to feel a part of it.

In the late afternoon, we drove to Lucca, a Medieval, entirely-walled, circular city where cars are not allowed. We went to a little shop there where they sell lovely-looking formal men’s clothes at very reasonable prices and I bought a couple of suits and some ties, which I was excited to wear until I realised that the more expensive of the two had a small amount of wool in it, which makes it pretty much unwearable, particularly when it’s hot.

I’ve never been able to wear wool, much to the chagrin of my knitting-guru husband! I see knitters holding gloriously colourful yarns up to their cheeks and revelling in their softness, and simply imagine how sweaty and itchy they would make me feel.

We had a quick sit down in a cafe in the market square where, for reasons best known to themselves, they were playing an instrumental version of My Heart Will Go On. On a loop. Round and round. To make matters even more surreal, the tune was being played on a recorder - incredibly badly. It had plainly been recorded as a joke and the giggling waiter obviously found it very amusing, which it was - the FIRST time he played it!

It reminded me of being a student and my mate Ellie and me playing California Dreaming 18 times in a row on the juke box in Vanbrugh Bar to see if anyone would notice. They didn’t seem to. How we laughed!

We drove up to the top of a mountain for an evening meal in a remote trattoria. Heaven knows how a place like that survives. It was a Friday night and there were only four people eating there. I can’t think how the owner even covers the costs of his chef. We ordered a starter and then two plates of pasta, which, for the Italians, is a confusing choice. Pasta is only really a dish which you eat between a starter and a meaty main. We’d ordered a side of roast potatoes, because, well you can never eat too many carbs. We assumed it would come with the rest of the meal, but it actually arrived after our pasta plates had been cleared away as a sort of triumphant “and now here’s your roast potato main course. Ta-da!” It was really very strange. Nice potatoes though.

Annoyingly, I managed to lose my wallet at some point that night. It probably slipped out of my pocket as I got out of the car. I lost about €80 and taught myself once and for all that I’m just not a wallet person. I lose wallets at an almost frightening rate of knots whilst some people manage to keep theirs for a lifetime. I learned at my Uncle John’s funeral on Thursday that he’d kept the first love letter he wrote to his wife in his wallet for the best part of 60 years. A hugely romantic story, but I was slightly more impressed that he’d kept the same wallet all that time!

We left for Florence, rather early on the Saturday, after a glorious breakfast in the garden of the villa. They do the most wonderful spread of cheeses, home-made jams and marmalades, breads, pastries and hard-boiled eggs. To eat in the sunshine, with a light, Tuscan morning breeze ruffling your hair is definitely one of the things you need to do before you die! It’s right up there with seeing an eclipse or meeting a member of ABBA! (Or maybe not...)

We were in Florence early enough to attend a Shabbat service at the Great Synagogue there, which is a stunning, domed, ancient building. It’s got an almost impossible acoustic, however, certainly when it comes to understanding spoken words, and because it’s a Sephardi service, not a great deal of it felt familiar. What seems very clear is that the building and the service screamed out for a choir. Acoustics, where the sounds spin in circles into the ether, are always rather lovely for nice, slow, contrapuntal choral pieces by composers like Rossi.

We met my old, dear friend, Tammy for lunch. It’s become a tradition to meet her there every time I’m in Tuscany and it’s always wonderful to see her. We laugh almost constantly.

We went for a stroll through the old town, which, probably because it was a Saturday in the late summer, was utterly rammed with tourists. Isn’t it funny how you never quite see yourself as a tourist?! The Ponte Vecchio was nothing but a sea of faces bobbing up and down. After a while, the experience of walking about in a place so crowded starts to feel claustrophobic and exhausting. The inherent beauty of Florence is considerably diminished by its popularity. Beauty draws crowds. Crowds destroy beauty.

My Mum tells the tale of weeping when she saw Florence for the first time in the 1950s. I feel it’s important she never returns to the city, as it will almost certainly not be the place in her memory with which she fell in love:

We knew Sunday was going to be a day of bad weather and the likelihood was that we’d need to hunker down, read some books, eat food and snooze. As it turned out, the weather wasn’t quite as bad as promised, so we took ourselves on a drive to Bagni Di Lucca, a sleepy spa town, deep in the mountains. It’s a rather charming spot which has an air of faded grandeur. At some point in the early twentieth century, it was obviously THE place to visit. These days, it feels very down-at-heel - a forgotten time capsule which is charming precisely because so many of its shops and cafes are exactly as they were in the 1950s and 60s, right down to the signs which hang above the doors. The whole experience regularly transported me to those old 1960s slide projections we used to look at in German lessons, featuring Hans, Lieselotte and Lumpi the dog in the Bavarian town of Cadolzburg.

A beautifully clear river charges its way through the middle of the town and the whole place smells of damp vegetation.

On our last day in Tuscany, the mists rolled in, and turned the hilltop villages around Pescia into film sets.

The valley out towards Serana is as verdant and tropical as I’ve always imagined Hawaii. It is so unlike the scorched, sunflower-filled world one might expect to find in Tuscany. Tall ferns line the sides of the roads. The river batters the rocks with force. Many of the buildings in those parts are paper factories both ruined and fully operational. I assume that decent paper is somehow made from lots of trees and very fast flowing water.

We drove up to Vellano, marvelling at the fact that we couldn’t see more than five meters in front of us. We knew there were vertiginous drops into dark tree-filled valleys in all directions, but everything was protectively wrapped in a soft, white, hugely eerie blanket, as though nature were trying to lull us into a false sense of security to encourage us to leap into the unknown.

Under the mist, all sounds are amplified and held in. The trickle of water in a town fountain becomes almost deafening. The sound of rock music screeching in a local teenager’s bedroom might as well have been on headphones, just for a moment of course, before the fog blanks the sound out again. Distant thunder rolled, cracked and echoed. And there we were, walking in the whiteness, unaware of what was going to suddenly appear in front of us. It was magical, surreal and a little bit unnerving. You

By the time we’d driven onto the plains around Pisa towards the airport, the mists had lifted and Tuscany was bathed in sunshine once again. It was as though we’d just awoken from a dream...

Clarity

Whilst Nathan was having his three month trip to hell and back, I wrote many blogs, most of which I didn’t post. 15,000 people actually read my account of Nathan’s being admitted to hospital but when some of them began to encourage their followers not to believe me unless I was prepared to provide filmic proof he was in hospital, I realised I no longer had any interest in anything these ghastly bullies had to say to me in the name of “education.” I was certainly not interested in any of them reading about my life or the struggles we were experiencing as a direct result of their hatred, misandry and cult-like behaviour.

I decided to knuckle down instead. I worked hard, looked after Nathan when his trauma episodes kicked in and processed the death of my cousin’s beautiful and vibrant wife. Friends and family tried to offer advice, but everything they suggested was conflicting and contradictory. Ultimately, the problem with the internet is that it’s the new Wild West. Laws and moral compasses can’t keep up with its ludicrous pace and, as a result, on a daily basis, it destroys countless innocent people. Anonymity turns otherwise sane people into absolute nut jobs, all hiding behind, and in many cases bolstered by, a thin veneer of self-righteousness.

For ten weeks I was utterly consumed by a feeling of absolute helplessness and felt I was never going to be able to find equilibrium again.

For the record, if anyone reading this blog goes through anything even remotely similar to what we’ve been through, your best weapons are the truth, stubbornness and instinct. The absolute bottom line is that you mustn’t cave into bullying behaviour - however much you’re threatened. By doing so, you strengthen the bully and give her the power to bully again. And believe me: the bullies’ demands will keep growing. Nothing will ever be enough and even if you do one of those classic toadying apologies thanking these woke women for helping you to see what a dreadful person you are, they’ll keep cutting at you until they’ve got their pound of flesh. At the end of the day, if everything else is taken from you, the one thing you’ll still possess is your dignity and self-respect.

Above anything else, just make sure the truth is out there.

Clarity is now with me again. Clarity came when I saw women monetising their hatred of Nathan. Clarity came when I was shown private messages sent to Nathan’s supporters telling them that if they didn’t publicly denounce him, what happened to Nathan would happen to them next. Clarity came when I discovered the sordid truth about one of Nathan’s most vociferous attackers. Ours was the truth. Theirs was the web of lies.

In the midst of the pain and mayhem, I had my genes tested with 23 and Me. I am, of course, a veritable mongrel, so the results were disappointingly non-specific. I’ve got Jewish, Welsh, Huguenot and probably gypsy blood pumping through my veins, and if family folklore is to be believed, some of it is blue (although name me a family that doesn’t think it has some sort of royal connection!)

My father’s genes certainly seem to be more dominant than my mother’s. One of the services which 23 and Me offers is the comparison of your results to those of other people who have used their service so they can link you up with people who are likely to be distant relatives. Every single suggestion came from my father’s side.

Flaws in the system aside, it’s been a great deal of fun to find a series of third cousins nestling in the US. That said, when you do contact someone with whom you share a great, great, great grandparent, there’s not a lot more to say other than “yay, we’re relatives! Bye!”

But here’s the strange part...

In amongst the clouds of non-specificity, one single line of text utterly blew my mind. Apparently my DNA indicates that a three-times great grandparent was 100% Chinese Dai. This person, the results conclude, was born in the late 18th Century.

The Chinese Dai are a minority ethnic group who mostly live in Southern China, Thailand and Myanmar. Myanmar, where the majority live, would have been under the control of the Portuguese when this particular relative was born, so one assumes that Colonialism played a part in his or her decision to up sticks and come to Europe.

Of course, my head has been filled with exciting and troubling thoughts ever since. Did my relative fall in love with a Portuguese tradesperson? Did they flee where ever they came from as a result of persecution of some kind? Or simply to live a better life? Why did they end up in the UK and not Portugal? How hard must it have been for a Chinese person in Britain in the late 17th Century? A brief bit of googling concludes that, if this relative DID come straight to the UK, he or she would almost certainly have been one of the first Chinese faces seen in this county. It’s utterly bizarre.

It seems clear that our Chinese ancestor was on my father’s mother’s side, which, curiously, is the Welsh branch of my family. My Nana and her brothers certainly had a Chinese look to them. It was something which we’d lightheartedly discussed from time to time, and curiously, more frequently in recent months. I’m told my Nana was always rather wary of anything to do with China and I wonder whether this came as a result of her being bullied as a child because of the way she looked.

This is, of course, supposition, but it would seem particularly brutal and cruel if it were the case. My Nana’s first language was Welsh. She grew up, near Wrecsam, at the tail-end of the horrendous period when the “Welsh Not” was used to terrorise and brutally persecute any child heard not speaking English. The Welsh Not was usually a wooden sign which was worn around the neck of the person being punished. When someone else was heard speaking Welsh, the sign was passed on to them. At the end of the day, the person wearing the Welsh Not was caned. Utterly, utterly unacceptable and totally hideous.

I very clearly remember my Nana telling me that she’d been forced to wear the Welsh Not at school and it’s clear to me that the inbuilt sense of shame it plainly engendered is partly why she didn’t speak her native tongue to my father when he was growing up. The thought that she was potentially also nursing a whole different set of fears about being “other” makes me very sad indeed.

Of course, the lesson for us all is that we must find the time to talk to our Grandparents about their lives. I wonder if my Nana even knew that she came from Chinese stock. As more and more people die from my parents’ generation, I become more and more aware that I there’s way too much I still don’t know.

An ABBA odyssey

Nathan and I are currently sitting in Stockholm Arlanda Airport. We’ve been in the city for two days and are presently buzzing like a pair of over-excited bees. Here’s the story...

We’re actually here as a direct result of the hell that Nathan has recently been put through by the so-called social justice warriors. There’s much to write about on that front, and all in good time, but suffice to say that the extreme hatred and misandry which landed on his shoulders coupled with the grotesque lies which were told about him have generated an outpouring of absolute love. One of my oldest friends was so incensed that he organised for Nathan to review the Pop House Hotel in Stockholm in the National newspaper he works for. He knows that we’re both life-long ABBA fans and felt that a couple of days in Stockholm would give us a bit of a break from the mayhem and some joy in what was becoming a mirthless existence. 

We had to get up at 3am yesterday. This followed an entirely sleepless night for me the day before, so when the alarm went off, I neither knew my own name, nor cared what it was! 

I slept through much of the taxi journey to the airport. I remember seeing a giant lit up billboard for the UK Jewish Film Festival looming in the gloom by the side of the road and feeling more than a little proud to be working on it this year as its tour coordinator. 

I slept through much of the flight as well, which is about 2 1/4 hours. I remember looking down at the sea at one point and thinking how blue it looked. I drank half a cup of tea and then sparked out again. 

The first thing I noticed as we took the train from Arlanda into Central Stockholm was the colour of the trees. Autumn has very much arrived in Sweden and, this year, most of the trees are bright yellow. Apparently this isn’t always the case. A mild autumn means that the tree leaves don’t get as far as turning orange or red before falling. You learn something new every day. Actually I learned about ninety new things in the last two days! 

What certainly occurred to me as we neared Stockholm was that we were arriving in the city at the time that ABBA must have shot their iconic Greatest Hits “park bench” album cover. The one with Benny and Frida snogging, Björn reading a paper and Agnetha, in a cap, looking really sad. There are autumn leaves on the ground. Bright orange ones as it happens, which must mean the autumn of 1975 was a harsher, colder affair! 

It struck me, as we started our epic walk to the hotel from the train station, that this was my first ever trip to Scandinavia, let alone Sweden. Nathan has been to Finland, Sweden and Denmark, and, despite only being in Stockholm for 24 hours, some ten years ago, the place had made a massive impression on him and he’d longed to return with me for an ABBA pilgrimage. 

Our first stop was Strömbron, a bridge which links the mainland to the Gamle Stan, or Old Town island. Lasse Hallström, who directed all of ABBA’s pop videos, chose the middle of this particular bridge to mount his camera for the final tracking shot of the 1978 Summer Night City video, which happens to be my favourite ABBA song. The shot was made in the wee small hours after a night of filming on various clubs and streets around the city. It’s a forty second shot which slowly moves across a panorama of the city. The sky is still light, as you might expect on a summer’s night in a Scandinavian country. 

I got the video up on my phone and we had a great time recreating the shot on Nathan’s phone - literally second for second. The astonishing thing is that very little has changed in the view. Some of the boats in the harbour even seem to be the same ones, moored in the same places, 41 years after Hallström filmed them! 

We had lunch in a cafe at the Scenkonst Musett. We think it’s a sort of theatre museum, but it was just a rather nice-looking cafe in the right place at the right time. We had avocado on rye bread, which was delicious, before eating some sort of carob crap, which reminded me of the whole-food nonsense we periodically ate when I was a child. I think it was raw food. I’m not altogether sure what raw food is, but I think it’s meant to be endured rather than enjoyed. Very much like modern classical music! Emperor’s New Clothes and all that!

From the theatre museum, we walked to the Great Synagogue in Stockholm. A tiny, unrealistic part of me was hoping we’d be able to have a peek inside. Sometimes these grand synagogues are open to the public as museums when they’re not being used for worship, but the doors were very firmly shut. It’s certainly hugely impressive from the outside! I’m told about 5000 Jewish people live in Stockholm. 

We walked through a stunning tree-lined walkway on our way to Djurgården (the Island where Pop House Hotel is situated) and immediately learned that any tree in Stockholm is stunning at this time of year. To make matters even more glorious, we discovered, after it got dark, that trees get lit up spectacularly at night with orange and purple lights. 

It is almost impossible to go wrong in the city when it comes to views. The streets are spotlessly clean - I literally didn’t see a single piece of litter - and the architecture is stunning. Filigree church steeples poke up behind ornate town houses, many of which have their own somewhat eccentric little towers and spires. Most of the streets seem to end at rivers, canals and harbours and the countryside snakes its way right into the city centre. Djurgården is mostly parkland and forest. 

We crossed Djurgårdsbron onto the island and immediately took ourselves to the rather charming little cemetery, Galärvarvs Kyrkogården, which is where Stikken Anderson, the “fifth member” of ABBA is buried. Stig actually co-wrote quite a lot of the early ABBA songs, and was also the band’s manager. His shrewd, maverick and uncompromising management style was largely responsible for the absolute success (both artistic and financial) of ABBA.  

His grave is simple and classy, essentially a block of granite with a small treble clef at the top. It was rather moving to be there. I am hugely grateful that all four members of ABBA are still alive, but one should never forget Stig’s great impact on the band and the huge love the band had for him. 

The Pop House Hotel is housed in the same building as The ABBA Museum, and as you approach, the first thing you hear is glorious ABBA music. As you might expect, they don’t just play the hits. I heard all sorts of wonderful curios. Tiger, I Am Just A Girl, That’s Me... Fabulous. 

We were put in the ABBA Gold room, which is lined with genuine Gold discs celebrating 3 million, 8 million, then 20 million sales of this classic album. The room overlooks Gröne Lund, the amusement park where ABBA often performed in the early stages of their career. 

We have been accompanied throughout our trip by an excellent book called The ABBA Guide to Stockholm, by Sara Russell, which takes readers on a guided tour of every site in the city which might be of interest to the keenest ABBA fans. The majority of documented spots are places where the band did photo shoots. Throughout their fame, the band remained incredibly loyal to the city. Where others might have moved to LA to live the life, ABBA brought up their young families in rather humble houses in and around the capital. 

Our first sojourn took us to a spot, not a great distance from our hotel...

It had to happen. We had to pay homage to the park bench where the Greatest Hits album cover was shot. The book very careful explains which tree and which bench to look for in a sea of trees and benches. The tree is the same, with its familiar jaunty angle, but the bench has long since been replaced with something a great deal less charming. Of course, we couldn’t resist using the wizardry of our phones to create our own version of the album cover, with me playing Björn and Frida and Nathan playing Agnetha and Benny. People passing by must have thought we’d gone quite mad, but it was worth it for the quirky result! 

From the bench, we walked to the Old Town and Baggensgåten, the street where Benny and Frida had shared a flat in the mid 70s. The Gamle Stan is a charming island, covered in buildings, many of which must be four or five hundred years old. The roads between the buildings are more like alleyways - way too small and twisting to get a car down - and the whole island is a giant hill, which means you spend your time going up and down steep slopes and steps. We saw a rather charming sight on Baggensgården, namely a little girl carrying a violin walking up the street holding hands with her father, who was also carrying a violin.

We came across the most amazing little flea market on the corner of a pair of little alleyways. It goes by the name of Eddie’s Lopis (or something akin to that) and it’s one of the most fascinating places I’ve ever visited. Two men sit inside the shop all day and all night. One of them is Eddie himself, who must be in his 70s. The other is David, who is probably 30 and was wearing his pyjamas. 

It’s one of those junk shops which is so jam-packed with stock that a simple movement might bring a whole heap of objects cascading down. The floorboards creek and bounce up and down. The whole building seems to shake with every footstep! 

Another curious aspect to this Bagpuss-like shop is that not everything is for sale. If you want to buy something, David and Eddie have to decide first if it wants to leave the building. If they’re okay for this to happen, they then decide on a price, one assumes based on whether they like you or not. I’d say that a pair of cufflinks and a glass paperweight for £15 implies they liked us rather a lot! 

David took us down into the basement of the shop to show us the space which had been run by Eddie as a bohemian club from the 60s to the early 80s. No alcohol or drugs were allowed at Klubb Kamelen, but there was belly dancing and mud wrestling and was only for the “open-minded”! It sounds exactly like my sort of place. The vaulted ceiling of the basement was covered in beautiful murals of serpents and icons from every conceivable world religion. David took great delight in telling us he was part-Jewish and that he was thrilled when the Jewish Museum opened up in the old synagogue next door. 

They didn’t accept cards, so David said he’d walk us to the cash point - just as well, as I don’t think we would have found it unaided. We noticed that the Jewish Museum was still open and I said I was going to pop in on our way back to see if they had a kippah. I always like to buy a pair of cufflinks and a kippa wherever I travel in the world. David told me that he had a beautiful kippah which I might be able to buy from him. I said I would never deprive him of such a thing and he said he was relieved because it was precious to him. 

We paid for our goods, and gave the same amount again as a gift towards the upkeep of their important building. David was hugely touched by the gesture and walked us back up to the Jewish Museum where we discovered they didn’t have kippahs for sale. David suddenly darted back into his shop, re-emerging a moment later holding his beloved kippah, which he thrust into my hand, and insisted I keep. His belief is that, one day, another kippah will turn up that he’ll love just as much. I will, of course, send one through the post. 

The entire experience demonstrated just how wonderful some people are and I felt so thrilled that this magical building had called us in. 

We ate an evening meal at Hotell Rival, which belongs to Benny from ABBA, and served us a delicious beetroot and goat’s cheese burger. 

We must have walked for miles and miles during the day, but it’s no hardship because the city feels so calm and safe. We didn’t stumble upon any loutish behaviour, any drunk people, anyone skulking about in the shadows. Even the drivers are polite. More often than not, if you’re waiting by the side of the road to cross, they’ll pull up for you! 

We walked home through the old town. A carrillon echoed around the darkened streets. The perfect end to a perfect day. 

We slept like the dead in a bed so soft I thought we were in a cloud! 

The first thing on the agenda today was a trip out to Djurgårdsbrunnsbron at the opposite end of the island on which we were staying. It’s hugely rural out there. A woman rode past us on a horse as we got out of our Uber. 

The trees in the area looked absolutely stunning, and the leaves were falling from them like golden specks of snow with every breath of wind. A yellow carpet covered the ground as far as the eye could see. I have seldom, if ever, seen such a glorious autumnal display. 

We were out there to find the rain shelter where the cover for the first ABBA single was shot. It’s a quirky little building: a sort of cross between a covered bus stop and a band stand. It is exactly as it was when ABBA posed there in 1970. It could probably do with a lick of paint and a bit of TLC, because it’s looking a little down-at-heel. Someone had obviously been sleeping there the night before, because there were signs that a fire had been made from pieces of wood close by. 

We walked back towards the hotel along a winding path beside the river through trees which were now glowing in the sun like molten precious metals. 

It was at this point that a very special day became utterly magical...

We have been beautifully looked after on this trip by the wonderful folk at Visit Stockholm, in particular a most charming woman called Birgitta. 

Now here’s the thing. In my view, the most iconic and startling image of ABBA is on the front of The Visitors album. I actually bought the album when it came out in 1981. I must have been 7, and I remember sitting on a sofa in our house in Higham Ferrers staring at the album cover for long hours. ABBA fans reading this blog will remember that the album cover is surprisingly dark. The band are pictured in a room full of paintings, with one, of Eros, perhaps fifteen feet high. The band members are all standing apart from each other, looking in different directions, with not a smile between them. It’s their last studio album. They were tired. The two couples had got divorced. They plainly wanted to be anywhere other than where they were and the surroundings utterly reflect this bleakness. 

The image was taken in a studio at Skansen, which is the world’s first open air museum. Skansen is like the Weald and Downland Museum: filled with historical houses which have been rescued, brick-by-brick, from elsewhere in the country. The studio where where the image was taken had belonged to an artist called Julius Kronberg. When he died, his widow bequeathed the building to Skansen and it was rebuilt on the site, compete with all of its contents and art work. Fascinating, really.

I had always wanted to see the room. I know the image backwards. But when I realised I was going to Stockholm, and started researching the places I wanted to visit, I realised that the room wasn’t open to the public, so we cheekily emailed Birgitta and asked if there was any chance she could pull a few strings for the sake of my inner 7-year old. 

...And we learned yesterday that she had done us proud, that we were to meet her at the entrance to Skansen at noon whereupon we’d be smuggled into the area for a private viewing of the space. 

Walking into the studio itself had the same profound impact on me as I’d experienced walking into the Pepys Library at Magdalene College, Cambridge. 

There was a heaviness in there. A deep, dark, sad, mysterious atmosphere. The curtains were pulled open, and a shaft of dusty light shot into the room, immediately lighting the top half of the famous painting of Eros. The moment literally took my breath away. The painting itself is impressive enough, but the connection to ABBA, the sadness of the occasion when their picture was taken and the knowledge that so very few people had walked into the space since that time, filled me with all sorts of emotions. I instantly felt like a child again. I saw myself in 1981, listening to the album on a loop, knowing it was darker and more mature than the ABBA I was used to, feeling uneasy and worrying somehow. It was a truly overwhelming moment. 

Nathan decided to take my photograph standing in the places the members of ABBA had stood. I was rather tickled by the lady from Skansen (Caroline) who’d let us into the building. As my picture was taken she repeatedly told me to look more serious. “Glum, glum, glum...” she kept saying! 

The delightful Birgitta took us for lunch and we had the most stunning mushroom and potato dumpling dish in lingonberries. Birgitta told us that it was mushroom season so we could expect something spectacular - and she was not lying. I loved the fact that she was aware of the seasons of various plants and fungi, but that felt Swedish, somehow. The Swedes feel earthier than the Brits. More aware of nature. Perhaps nature, with its long, cold winter nights makes itself more apparent. 

This afternoon, we went to the ABBA Museum, which is a really special place. Like the best museums, it works on different levels. If you like ABBA for the shiny clothes and the big hits, you’ll walk out feeling thrilled. If you need to delve deeper, there’s more stuff for you. Benny’s diary from the time they won Eurovision is displayed. Who knew that Agnetha got very ill with a virus the day after the contest, and performed on Top of the Pops with a ludicrously high temperature? I also didn’t realise quite how much ABBA had to battle the radical left wing climate in Sweden in the 70s which was hugely against anything representing populist “bourgeois” culture. ABBA, with their glamorous costumes and “vacuous” lyrics were seen as the enemy. They were so hated that they weren’t even invited to attend the Eurovision (in Sweden) the year after they’d won, and the same powerful anti-bourgeois lobby actually managed to withdraw Sweden from Eurovision in 1976 - the year ABBA’s international career took off. 

We met Caroline, the manager of the ABBA museum at 5pm, essentially to get some tit bits of information to potentially add to Nathan’s review. 

At one point she mentioned sending Björn an email which made our ears prick up. “Are you in touch with him regularly?” We asked. “Yes, of course...” came the reply. Our hearts started pounding at the thought! 

Nathan suddenly did something which mortified me. “Ben,” he said, “do you have a copy of the London Requiem with you?” He knew I’d stuffed one into my bag on leaving the house because, well, you never know who you’re going to meet! I went bright red and nodded. Nathan spoke to Caroline, “when you next see Björn, could you possibly hand him a copy of Benjamin’s album?” I wanted the floor to swallow me up. “Of course” she said, “why don’t you write him a note? I have another meeting now, but leave the CD at reception and I’ll get it to him.” 

So, we started to scribble a note, leaning against an unoccupied desk in the hotel reception. A few minutes later, Caroline reappeared. “I think” she said, “that you should give the CD to Björn in person. He happens to be on his way here, and I just called him and told him there are two very charming gentlemen here who would love to meet you...” 

I went into shock. Nathan burst into tears and hugged her. 

And five minutes later, Björn Ulveaus, one of my absolute icons, walked into the reception in a beautiful, grey frock coat saying “Ben and Nathan” whilst proffering his hand. 

It was surreal, beautiful, amazing, awe-inspiring. Björn is everything you want him to be. Kind. Charming. Interested. Interesting. 

We burbled as you might expect. I handed him the requiem and said his music had inspired me. I told him that, as a writer, I considered myself to be the love child of ABBA and Vaughan Williams. He laughed. I suddenly realised that he probably didn’t know who Vaughan Williams was! 

Nathan showed Björn his ABBA tattoo and then the picture of us on the park bench, which he found hugely amusing. He also told us he never remembered much about the photo shoots as he always hated them but that on the park bench shoot, the newspaper he was reading was something he’d found in a dustbin next to the bench! Part of the great joy of that image is the story it seems to tell. Agnetha looks so sad because her husband Björn is reading a paper whilst, next to them, Benny and Frida are snogging passionately.  To discover that this wonderful little story wasn’t planned at all, is fascinating, and wonderful, and you heard it here first!! 

We left the museum walking on air and, for the journey home, kept drifting into happy thoughts. We got lost on our way to the train station. At the airport we were forced to go though security twice, because, whilst searching for food, we managed to leave the departures area!! Head in the clouds, you see! 

What an extraordinary day! Thank you Stockholm. Your city is stunning. Your people are charming and kind beyond all words. You have made two men very very happy. 

Kol Nidrei

It’s Yom Kippur - the Day of Atonement - and we’ve just finished the evening service, which heralds the start of this, the holiest of days in the Jewish calendar. The evening service is often called Kol Nidrei, named after the somewhat mystical prayer which kicks things off.

The traditional Kol Nidrei melody is ancient. It’s definitely medieval, if not a great deal older. Written in Aramaic, the tune is described by Jewish people as missinai - unchanged since Moses climbed down from Mount Sinai. Whatever the truth of it’s origin, what cannot be denied is its profound beauty.

I used to play Max Bruch’s version on my ‘cello. It was very definitely my torch song as a teenaged lad. The melody used to make me feel profoundly sad - in a very good way! I used to get utterly lost in its mournfulness. I could never have predicted that I’d be singing it one day in a synagogue.

I was recently asked to do an arrangement of the piece for our choir and we recorded it a few weeks ago. We learned this morning that Radio 3 had decided to play it on In Tune at 6pm, just as candles were being lit by Jewish people across the country to mark the start of Yom Kippur. I hope those who heard it were able to think about loved ones as it played out. Or feel a sense of pride that this special occasion was being marked by the BBC. I was very touched to hear presenter Katie Dereham describing the recording as “beautiful” several times.

To add an extra splash of joy to the occasion, it was broadcast just as our choir was gathering for the Kol Nidrei service, so we were able to listen to it together, which is a massively unifying experience.

We walked into the synagogue, heads held high, and gave the congregation a service to remember.

I sang for my Uncle John, who died this morning. His wife, my Auntie Glen, died at the start of the year and I think, overwhelmed by loneliness, he simply lost the will to live. He’s been slipping further and further into sleep over the last few days and I’m hoping Glen came to find him. They were utterly inseparable in life and I have no reason to suspect the same will not be true when it comes to their adventures on the other side. I know it sounds a bit silly, but I felt their combined presence very clearly this evening and felt happy to know that they’re both at peace.