Princess Birgitta on Swedish radio

As earlier mentioned, Princess Birgitta was one of the celebrities chosen to be a so-called “Summer Talker” on Swedish Radio’s P1 this summer. The Princess’s programme was broadcast on Sunday and for a month it can be listened to in its entirety at Swedish Radio’s website:

http://www.sr.se/webbradio/webbradio.asp?type=broadcast&Id=1845418&BroadcastDate=&IsBlock=

Interspersed with music it lasted for 90 minutes and Princess Birgitta talked about – well, herself, mostly. There was a lot about her great sports interest, particularly golf, but also flowers, her interest in food which she thinks is a Bernadotte family trait, her charity work, the climate at Majorca (where she lives), her childhood at Haga and the shyness which all the sisters (“except Christina”) suffer from.
More interestingly she also spoke of her memories of her father, who was killed in an airplane accident a week after her tenth birthday, describing him as a “wonderful father” and talking about how he has become more and more important to her as she has grown older.
She also relates how she, as a young girl, wanted to go to Italy. However, her German-born mother had other ideas – she put her daughter on the train to Munich to learn German, and that was where Princess Birgitta met her future husband, Prince Johann Georg of Hohenzollern. When they had made up their mind to marry, the Princess went to her grandfather to ask for his permission. She reminisces about how she sat next to the King on a sofa, he took out his calendar and concluded that 25 May suited his plans. So 25 May 1961 it was.