Lena's Guestbook

I want to thank you, Lena, for the way you enriched my life. I met you at the School for Professional Dancers at the Ballet Academy in Stockholm. We were a group of friends, and then there was you. It's like you came from another planet, a more advanced civilisation. When we were bickering and sometimes less nice, you always took the high ground. You just showed love to everyone, you didn't talk badly about anyone, and all your friends became friends with each other. You showed us a better way of being, and so elevated all of us who were lucky enough to have known you. Thank you Lena.

Åhh Lena du var en sån fantastiskt fin och härlig människa. Så full av liv, glädje och gott humör. Vi hade det så roligt i Wales i ert fina hem och i er stora trädgård där vi hade flera härliga fester! Minns midsommarfesten extra bra. Världen kommer bli en tommare plats utan dig Lena. ❤️ Jag sörjer för din fantastiska och härliga familj. Men jag tror att du är på en fin plats nu där allt är som förr med mycket prat och skratt och där du kan se ner över oss och le. Jag saknar dig mycket.❤️❤️❤️ Kramar till dig var du än är nu.

Many's the time over the years that I’ve stopped and thought of Lena.

We met at Nadeen School in Bahrain, where we both worked. She was the mother of Edwin, so I was informed, the boy in the year above my son Alex at St Christopher’s School, and Edwin had green hair. Well if Lena thought it was okay, why shouldn't I let Alex have green hair too?

Lena and I got on like a bracken burn right from the off. She was so laid back and funny too, always laughing. Even if there was a very serious staff meeting, we would somehow come out laughing.I loved it whenever she came out with us girls from school. She’d be first on the dance floor taking us all with her and singing along to all the songs. She was with me one night in BJ’s. They were playing Brown Eyed Girl by Van Morrison when she introduced me to Edwin. The three of us joined hands and got up and danced on the stage in front of everyone. I would never have done that without Lena!

Every Christmas I think of Lena. Well, she practically was Mrs Christmas, wasn’t she? The beautiful Swedishness of everything was just so organic and wholesome and in a warm fuzzy sort of way, very comforting. The crafting of the decorations and the placement of them, just lovely. The advent wreath above the kitchen table, the candle bridge on the windowsill and all the little woolly people in the Christmas tree.

Then there was the baking. Oh my goodness! Remember when I we would come over on Christmas Eve? We would bring wine and cheese and Lena would make bulla and glog. Lena would always be excited to tell me the story of who and how she found that year's Father Christmas. It didn’t matter that the children were in their late teens and into their twenties. It was traditional and so!

Oh and remember before Christmas, the Swedish celebration of St. Lucia? One year or maybe more than once it was held in your garden. What a beautiful evening it was. The girls dressed in white and one with a candle wreath on her head and the boys dressed as gingerbread men. It was indeed a most magical evening. When you think of it, Lena was quite the ambassador for Sweden. Everything I know about Sweden I learned from Lena.

Another time I always think of Lena is every anniversary of 9/11. A bit strange, you might think, but Lena and I were together at my house in Kanoo Gardens when the first tower was hit. I had received a phone call from my friend Hejris, who could be quite dramatic and excitable, and often got the wrong end of the stick — with English not being his first language. He told me what he'd just witnessed on TV saying that a car bomb had exploded outside the Pentagon, and I told Lena. We both assumed he'd seen a trailer for a movie and laughed at how ridiculous such an event would be. Can you imagine? It would never happen, we agreed, and Lena got into her car smiling and shaking her head as she went home.

It was a whole new chapter in the lives of Bahrain friends when you and your family left us and headed off to the UK. But it was so lovely when I was able to catch up with you all in Cambridge.

Lena took me all around the town. I’d never been there before even though it was my dad’s neck of the woods. Then the next day she, along with Josie and Annelie, maybe Edwin too though I’m not sure, went for a walk through Grantchester Meadows — I'm a big Pink Floyd fan, so that was superb. We had a most peaceful rest in old-fashioned, stripey deck chairs, with tea and scones bought from a wooden pavilion in a small orchard with trees full of finches. I’ll never forget that day. It almost makes me cry to think of it. It was perfect.

I have many more memories of Lena. These are just a few of my favourites. I’ll always remember her with a little mischief written across her face. That in itself would make anyone smile.

Kram, Puss puss.

Lena and I were neighbours in Vällingby, a suburb of Stockholm. Lena's family, the Mejners, lived in the apartment upstairs from us. Lena and I had so much fun and giggled and laughed our way through life.

I believe that Lena was a dancer at heart even then, and I'm pretty sure it was her idea that we should go to the youth center in Vällingby to take classes in social dancing (the foxtrot). So we did, giggling of course.

After that we used to practice in our living-room. Cliff Richard's 'Living Doll' is the song I remember us always dancing to - just having a wonderful time.

Also in our building in Vallingby, on the third floor and just across the landing from Lena in the next apartment, there was a boy called Benny Andersson - a couple of years older than us. He was a wizard on the accordion and sometimes he would knock on neighbours' doors to play for us. He joined a band called the Hep Stars, and then a bit later, another one called Abba.

My parents rented a small house on an island in the Stockholm archipelago. One day my father had to go there to fix something or other. Lena and I went with him.

Lena wanted to explore, so off we went. But after a while Lena felt the urge to find a toilet. There was no such thing on the island of course, so Mother Nature had to do and Lena sat down next to the path. When she'd finished she topped it off with pretty little badminton shuttlecock we happened to have - you know, the things with feathers. So pretty! And we happily went on our way.

A couple of hours later my father discovered it and he wasn't happy at all. But we weren't going to let it spoil our day, and everyone remained friends.