There was a Swedish pop group that had hits all around the world with "Dancing Queen", "Fernando", etc. from the mid-70s until the early 80s. ABBA were 2 couples, and the name comes from the first letter of each of their names put together. You don't hear much about them lately, so I wonder what they are doing.
In March 1980, my family and I were on our way home from London to Tokyo via Alaska on JAL. We got on a crowded shuttle bus at Heathrow Airport to board the plane. The man sitting in front of my mother and I got up. "Would you like to sit down?" he said, motioning for my mother to take his seat. Mum accepted his kind offer. I thought he was very kind to offer his seat, and glanced at his face. I saw a monkey face (sorry for being blunt), that I had seen somewhere before. I of course realised it was Bjorn from ABBA straight away, but nobody around us was making a fuss and there were no guards either. Even though it was a bit rude, I looked at his face a couple of times to confirm that it really was him. As soon as we got off the bus, I turned to my mother and said, "Mum, that was Bjorn from ABBA!", but she simply answered "Oh, really?", and didn't seem to care like everyone else. I quickly got a pen and paper out of my bag and managed to get his autograph on top of the ramp, just before going into the plane. Even then, he gave me a warm friendly smile and signed his autograph.
After that, we had to stop in Anchorage to refuel, and spent a couple of
hours in the airport, along with the ABBA entourage. It was probably the
members with their band, staff and others, but they were all huge. All the
members, including the women were about 180 cm, and the largest band member
was extremely fat and would have been at least about 190 cm. I was really
surprised. It was the first time that I realised, "Swedes are huge."
As I was wandering around, I saw that another member, Benny, was also taking
a leisurely stroll around the airport, so of course I got his autograph as
well. We had time for a brief conversation.
"Are you going to Japan for a concert tour?"
"Yes"
"Good luck."
"Thanks"
He was an easy person to talk to.
When we got to Narita Airport, it took a bit longer than usual to get off the plane. The pilot made an announcement that there has been a delay due to ABBA being on the same flight. They seemed to have alighted before us. After a thorough customs check, we had cleared customs before they did. The moment we walked through into the arrival lounge, I was overwhelmed by the press who had come to cover ABBA's arrival. It's not often you have the experience of having all cameras and lights pointing in your direction. We walked past them and then I got my camera out and joined the media to get a photo of ABBA (top).
I did wonder if all stars get on crowded shuttle buses, with the other
passengers to board planes. But of course on board, they were on First Class. Even so, despite the fact that he's a star, Bjorn is a gentleman!@
Translation from my original Japanese text by George Bourdaniotis