An armoured car, that’s what might get you into the ABBA headquarters. Or a battalion of soldiers, fully armed and fearless. There simply aren’t any other ways to get through to the heart of the Stockholm Polar Studios, where ABBA is recording secretly. Unless your name is Aunt Anni.Sluggishly, she gets up the stairs of the studio. The traffic is raging through the streets of Stockholm behind her. Without hesitating, she walks up to the heavily garded doors of the ABBA headquarter. The sturdy guard smiles and taps his cap. A moment ago, he decidedly refused admittance to a few German journalists. But to Aunt Anni he grins friendly. With a broad swing he opens the doors to the most secret part of Stockholm; the ABBA headquarter! And Aunt Anni shuffles inside with a bag full of groceries. Who is this mysterious old lady? And what does Aunt Anni have to do with ABBA?
Inside, in the nerve centre of the ABBA happening, it’s all very hectic. And that’s no surprise when you come to think of it that in the Polar Studios lots of treats are being prepared for the millions of ABBA fans. Firstly, hard work is being done on the new single, that will be released in the month of August. Apart from that, Benny and Björn are busy with the preparations for the follow-up of the ABBA-album ‘Arrival’, which is going to consist of songs from their movie. That’s right: a real ABBA-movie (and then we don’t mean the movie about ‘The Girl With The Golden Hair’ that we reported about earlier, but a genuine feature film, with recordings of the Australian concerts) that will probably be ready in December. But what, so the perceptive reader is wondering, has all this to do with the mysterious Aunt Anni, all dressed in black? Well, a lot. Aunt Anni is actually a real aunt of ABBA’s blonde Agnetha, who lost contact with Agnetha’s mother years ago. It wasn’t until last winter, just before ABBA’s world-tour started, that Agnetha and her long lost aunt ran into each other by coincidence. Now Aunt Anni is a part of ABBA, and what kind of part. With her dangerous walking-stick she terrorizes the studios, she just walks into the recording studios when the red lights are on and doesn’t mind the rules at all, that go for the rest of the ABBA-staff. Not because Agnetha desperately wanted it this way, but because Aunt Anni thinks her Agnetha (that’s pronounced ‘Anjetta’ in Swedish) should be looked after properly. “Child,” is what the old lady seems to have exclaimed once, “now you’re not living with your mother in Jönköping anymore, you’re much too skinny and you’re working way too hard. You should be at home, with your child. Those men around here are all slave-drivers!” ABBA-boss Stig Anderson should have taken notice, especially of that last remark, because after having witnessed Stig and Agnetha during a dispute in the studio, Aunt Anni thinks he is Sweden’s biggest brute. Now, Stig watches her timidly, whenever Aunt Anni shuffles along with her grocery-bag and her walking-stick! Besides, photographers are getting acquainted with the reputation of Aunt Anni’s stick as well; because Aunt Anni doesn’t like men who take pictures of her and she chases after them with that very stick.
Apart from that, the other three ABBA-members all think Aunt Anni is adorable. She really is an enormous fan of ABBA’s music and, apart from Stig and the photographers, she doesn’t bother anyone. However, for Agnetha it sometimes gets a bit too much with Aunt Anni. In her resoluteness to be a good second mother to Agnetha, Aunt Anni always brings complete meals, that Agnetha has to eat in front of her. After which the poor thing can’t even eat a cookie for the rest of the day, because she has to mind her figure. And Aunt Anni keeps wondering why Agnetha isn’t getting more flesh around her bones!
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