Early Life
Berggren was born on 12 August 1937, in Mölndal, Sweden an impoverished working class district. His father, a sailor by trade and a socialist, was supportive of and heavily involved with the worker's rights movement in Sweden. His mother was employed at the local factory and was similarly politically inclined. When he was born he suffered with a disease of the lungs which caused him to have to stay in a hospital facility for one year. As if poverty were not difficult enough, the young Thommy also had to deal with the fact that his father suffered from a severe addiction to alcohol. In Stefan Jarl's 2002 film The Bricklayer, a documentary about Thommy's life and career, he recounted an incident in which he had walked a great distance to meet his father at a train station only to discover that he would not keep the promised appointment with his son. Instead, he had remained in town drinking.
However, in spite of his difficult childhood, Berggren does not hold any resentment toward his parents. He openly chooses to defend his father, stating that while he may have suffered with an addiction to alcohol he was not aggressive or abusive in any way as a result, and that both of his parents were good people. In The Bricklayer Berggren's stories and anecdotes of his parents are imbued with a deep love and humor. Eventually it would be his father, and his early life spent among the poor and the working class, that would prove to be the greatest influence on his future life and career.
Read more about this topic: Thommy Berggren
Famous quotes containing the words early life, early and/or life:
“... business training in early life should not be regarded solely as insurance against destitution in the case of an emergency. For from business experience women can gain, too, knowledge of the world and of human beings, which should be of immeasurable value to their marriage careers. Self-discipline, co-operation, adaptability, efficiency, economic management,—if she learns these in her business life she is liable for many less heartbreaks and disappointments in her married life.”
—Hortense Odlum (1892–?)
“I doubt that I would have taken so many leaps in my own writing or been as clear about my feminist and political commitments if I had not been anointed as early as I was. Some major form of recognition seems to have to mark a woman’s career for her to be able to go out on a limb without having her credentials questioned.”
—Ruth Behar (b. 1956)
“School divides life into two segments, which are increasingly of comparable length. As much as anything else, schooling implies custodial care for persons who are declared undesirable elsewhere by the simple fact that a school has been built to serve them.”
—Ivan Illich (b. 1926)