Hemmets Journal 150624
By: PETTER KARLSSON
Every summer Helen stocked up on Marie biscuits and meatballs along with her friend Maggan. But they never went further than a kilometer away. To this day Helen Sjöholm refuses to separate from her yellow-painted, northern childhood idyll.
The summer only needs two seconds to make her surrender in the grass. Then Helen Sjöholm has first driven north for six hours, including pee breaks for three kids.
– Then I open the car door and everything comes towards me at once. The scents of fir-tree and sea. Memories of the card game “Plump” and the trips to the beach on my dad’s flatbed truck. Or the cosiness in front of the TV with my grandmother, when everyone else had gone to bed. She took a drink and I got to taste from the candy bowl. Then we watched “The Secret Army” or any of those other adult series, that you otherwise would not get to watch. Fantastic!
For there are places where Sweden’s best voice wants to burst into song, whether the audience consists only of gull and wild mink.
Alnö outside Sundsvall is Helen Sjöholm’s sea wet childhood dream. Here she spent all her summer vacations. Here she longs as soon as spring is coming in the mountains.
– Norrland’s Hawaii. My grandparents bought the land in the 1950s. There is a yellow wooden house and a lot of small houses and sheds. The Finland ferries glide close by. In the forest you can pick gallons of lingonberries and blueberries.
Alnö was also her first real stage.
– My friend Maggan and I sang Abba. We did the same practiced moves to every single song. Except when Maggan tap-danced on the well lid of sheet metal. Then we did sketches and Elsa Beskow verses in floral costumes. The strawberry hats Maggan’s mother had sewn. The younger children got to be monkeys in some jungle gym and we played circus.
Maggan is a close friend even today. Helen Sjöholm says that the summers brought them together. Especially when they ran away.
Slept in the car
– It happened every year. For two days we stocked Marie biscuits and frozen meatballs. Then we took off in the afternoon and expected everyone to come looking for us in the evening. It always ended with that we slept overnight in my father’s car. He had deliberately left it unlocked.
The summer’s most important vehicle was otherwise dad’s truck that had got vacation from the sheet metal workshop.
– All the kids were loaded on the flatbed truck. Then we went to Tranviken which had a heated pool. Sometimes I biked there with my mom and a basket with boiled eggs, caviar and lukewarm lemonade in a syrup bottle. Sometimes I got a Piggelin – that’s also summer for me. The big cone was considered luxurious and was not to think about. That only occurred at the swimming school’s finale.
Tranviken also had good-looking lifeguards. Helen noticed that when she became a teenager.
– I tried to impress them by taking various swimming badges. It went so-so…
Soon, bike and truck had to give way to her own car. Not least because the tinsmiths’ and elementary school teacher’s daughter in the summers should be able to drive the 100 Swedish miles from work in Skåne.
– A Ford Fiesta. Lousy buy, according to my dad. “Why didn’t you ask me before?!” He was right. It was nearly shaking apart during that long journey.
”I believe, I believe in the summer,” the night the radio sang as she drove north. Once back at Alnö again the accordion music took over.
– At that time Calle Jularbo was always played, it feels like now. I used to sit on the balcony and listen to the music that poured out from my grandmother’s cottage.
Became interested
At the same time her interest in music awakened, not least the Swedish ballad juwels.
– From age 19 I worked at the song festival at Skuleberget. One of those places that just exist in the summer and becomes magical.
Helen Sjöholm has acquired several such places with time. Nösund in Bohuslän, for example, which is one of the stops on this year’s summer tour with Jojje Wadenius and Martin Östergren.
– I’m already looking forward to the seafood dish in the evening. Yum!
And yet…
If she had just one day left in life, it would be spent on Alnö, she says. Sit there on the beach together with loved ones. Grill good food. Eat strawberries. Drink rosé. Be up late and watch the sun just bounce behind the horizon.
For the Garden of Eden is located in the region of the Arctic Circle – and for a mother of three with a full schedule it’s worth gold these days.
– The High Coast is so unearthly beautiful. Also I love to drive in the bright summer night. Or maybe even more preferably sit in the passenger seat and bounce my head against the window…
Yes, Helen Sjöholm can imagine herself sitting there in the yellow house in her late summer’s old age. With sunburned grandchildren, drink and candy bowl. Perhaps even with a Piggelin in her fist and a little accordion music in her ear.
– Something tells me that this is where I end up at last…
MORE FACTS
Personal
Name: Marie Helen Sjöholm Granditsky.
Born: July 10, 1970 in Sundsvall.
Family: Husband David, 48, sound engineer. Son Ruben, 7 years. Twins Samuel and Johanna, 3 years.
Lives: Villa with seashore in Nacka, outside Stockholm.
Current: With the tour Music in the summer evening, June 26 to July 5, and I Love Musicals with Peter Jöback September 25 to October 24.
5 quick questions
Favorite food: Grilling is so delightfully easy And strawberries afterwards, please.
Favorite drink: Rosé wine. I’m not much for snaps, but can have a beer sometimes with my husband.
Favourite song: Nothing beats “Den blomstertid nu kommer”. I become very touched and close to tears, especially when my son sings it at school breakup. It containes the essence of summer, all expectations and that strong feeling of liberation.
Favorite activity: Driving through the summer night along the High Coast.
Favorite ice cream: GB sandwich until I got gluten intolerant the other year. Therefore I hereby urge GB to create a gluten-free one!
Favorite spot: Alnö outside Sundsvall.