After dropping Stefan at the airport, the next day we headed south to go to Skövde. A little town midway between Stockholm and Gothenburg. There we went for lunch with a very good friend of my dad Bengt.

His name was also Bengt he has been a priest his whole life and in 1985 he sent a letter to my dad to say that his son Anders was coming to New Zealand and that he would like to meet us in Foxton. He told my dad that he was flying from Sydney to Auckland on a certain date but didn’t say what time. We happened to be in Auckland on that day and so my dad went out to Auckland airport and met every single flight from Sydney with a sign saying “Welcome Anders!” At around 6pm Anders arrived along with his girlfriend Nina and their friends Mats and Mia. They were so surprised that someone was at the airport to meet them, and my mum was equally as surprised when dad came back with not one Swede but four!

Years later I received a message from Anders to say that his son Carl was coming to NZ and so I was at the Auckland airport with a Swedish flag and he came home to us in Orewa. Then when Stefan visited in 2019 he stayed with Anders and Carl. We also met with Anders and his beautiful wife Maja on this trip and they served us a real swedish smörgåsbord. Hospitality has a way of finding its way back to you. 

Bengt and Bengt grew up in a duplex house in the small village of Danmarksby right next to our beautiful church. I had last met Bengt when we stayed with him and his wife  Helena in 1990 so it was lovely to spend some time. I had asked him to tell me stories about my dad and my grandparents.

He told the story that my mum and dad met because of him. My dad had been visiting Bengt when he boarded the infamous train back to Stockholm where he met Margaret. He told me that my grandmother was the Commander in Chief of the family, that she had gone back to work only a few weeks after my dad was born and that his family use to get a little bit annoyed with her every August. This is the traditional time to eat Surströmming (fermented herring) and the Fromén family would eat Surströmming every day for a month. Brita, my grandmother would then store the empty cans in the shared cellar space of Bengts family where it would reek and envelope the area in a rotten stench. 

We returned to Sweden in 1972 as a family and had a wonderful winter (which I don’t particular remember as I was just over a year old). 

Bengt told me that he was one of the first to receive a heartbroken phone call from my dad when he returned to Sweden the second time since leaving and found out his mother had died while he was travelling. He told me how he couldn’t understand what was happening as my dad was crying so much. He said that at my grandmothers funeral my dad lit four candles on the far side of the globe so that me and my siblings and mum could be there for the funeral too.

He told me that he helped my dad to clear out the house after his father died which was the third time my dad returned to Sweden. He also said that after the service for my grandfather my dad got down on his knees at the grave and said “I don’t have a home here anymore, everything is gone”. I know now that he was wrong on that front. Our family have such an amazing connection to Sweden and it now grows in Stefan as he views it as his second home. My dad would be so happy that we have all made so much of an effort to keep up that connection. I just wish I could experience what I know now with him. And that he and Nigel could eat all the fish like the locals.

Bengt also reminded me of the fourth time my dad returned in 1990 and we all stayed with them at their beautiful home. My brother John played the organ in his church and I sang (knights in white satin if I remember rightly).  My dad loved that trip in 1990, he connected with every single person he ever knew. We ate shrimps and drank schnapps and ate more cloudberries than I care to remember. 

Bengt told me that my dad was a really good friend to him and that the whole Fromén family were very respected and loved members of the community. He told me that my dad loved politics and that he would quite often stay in Bengts wife Helena’s flat in Uppsala and smoke all Bengts cigarettes. 

I remember looking at my Dad as we left on the ferry from Trelleborgin 1990 as he stared towards his homeland. It was the last time he saw Sweden and it was a really sad moment for us all, as in some way I think he knew it. 

I was asked while I was in Sweden if my dad missed home. He did. But he loved his life in NZ as well. I know he would be so happy to know that our connection lives on, through family and friends and a shared love of Swedish hardbread.