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.
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