Anders Says
- a testament of my life with Dame Julie Andrews
My Stories - 1
'The Sound of Mysen', 1978
At the tender age of 18 I made the journey of a lifetime - I took the train from Sweden to a remote place in Norway called Mysen. I'd read in the papers that Julie was to perform at Momarkedet and that I was going to be televised live in both Norway and Sweden. It said in the papers that Bing Crosby had asked her to perform the year before, shortly before he died.
Not satisfied by live TV, I wanted to be there, so I pestered the organizers for a ticket. I arrived about noon at the gates and I could hear Julie singing. Naturally, I wanted to see her, so I went up to the guards and pleaded with them to let me in. It must have been my lucky day as they did let me pass through the gates. There she was - the most beautiful woman in the world - I was in heaven.
I found a group of other fans who had also managed to find their way in. They were mostly from Holland and Sweden. When the rehearsal had finished Julie accepted flowers (pink carnations from me) and signed autographs. I had not brought any sort of paper with me, so in desperation I asked a Dutch fan if she had any paper - she tore me the back of a used brown envelope which I handed to Julie to sign. I wonder what Julie thought when she signed that.... Regardless, it is now a prize possession.
We returned back early for the evening show. Though our tickets were numbered it was actually 'first come, first served' so we took our seats on the front row. Seconds later we were told to move as this section was reserved for 'dignitaries'. Luckily, we immediately found seats just behind them.
Julie sparkled and sang well. As I didn't have a VCR in 1978 I couldn't tape the show. I had asked my parents to hold a microphone against the TV speaker and record the sound for me and they did, but the sound wasn't great.
The evening drew to a close, and after having been on cloud nine the whole day, I now felt lonely and depressed. When would I see her again?
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View the concert on YouTube
​ Going to Momarkedet was to be my first Julie encounter
Fans from Sweden, among them Ida and Katalin
and myself
'Duet For One', 1987
Nine years after first having met Julie it was about to happen again. I had travelled to London in order to attend the opening and to meet up with fellow fans - Jean and Jenny.
We knew Julie was in town, so we decided to go to the Dorchester, where she normally stays when in London. Lo and behold, just as we got there, we saw Julie arrive in a car. She disappeared through the doors, but we started running to try to catch her. We did catch up with her outside the elevators (lifts) and luckily for us she was in a good frame of mind. She accepted our flowers and even let us take some photographs with her. It may look like I'm blinking but I'm actually in a state of sheer bliss..
For the opening of the film I had decided to hand out paper tissues. The cinema manager wouldn't let me hand them out in the foyer, so we stood on the outside instead. However, the paper tissues came in handy for a lot of members of the audience, as this is a very emotional film and in my view Julie's best dramatic role. Shame that Globus Golan/Cannon were unable to better promote the film.
On the day we met Julie, I believe that she was coming back from the taping of 'Aspel & Company'. You can see the show with her and Tom Jones on YouTube (1), (2).
Also available - The London Opening of the film.
'Elevator Trio' - Jean, (Julie), Anders and Jenny
