ABBA: I do, I do, I do, I did
25 July 2025
• 1,834 words • 11 min read
The Girl Who Introduced Me to Pop Star Crushes
I had a little friend in Grade 4 who was my sunshine. Her name was Vicky Loveridge, and she was my absolute bestie - the first gal pal I ever had. Her parents and mine used to socialise, bonded no doubt by our friendship. I can still see her face in my mind’s eye as it was then. She was slender, with long blondish hair and olive skin. She had a tiny scar from chickenpox near her forehead and used to wear a small gold signet ring on her little finger. When it caught the light, she’d say the glint was a fairy named Tinkerbell.
Something Vicky did for me, during all our fun times together, was introduce me to the concept of admiring men. She showed me posters of Donny Osmond at her house, and I could see the appeal. She also told me that her mother, who was a stunning woman - ever so stylish - taught her the way to catch a boy's eye. She willingly shared the information with me and I was so grateful and incredibly envious that she had such a relationship with her mother. “The trick,” she said, “was to smile a little at the boy you wished to attract, and then look down…”
The Day Vicky Disappeared
Very sadly, Vicky’s parents decided to move back to England, from whence they’d come. Although I knew this devastating event was approaching, I don’t think it ever seemed real to me. One day we were sitting in class together, and her parents turned up to collect her - to leave for good. I was in a daze and didn’t appreciate the magnitude of the situation. I can still see Vicky coming up to me and saying, “I’m going now, Alison.” I didn’t realise that would be the last time I’d see her.
They relocated to Truro in Cornwall. We wrote for a time, but the letters faded. Vicky had given me her goldfish, Goldie, to take care of. He lived in his bowl in my bedroom and lived a long life - for a fish. The morning I woke up and saw him staring at me without opening and closing his mouth was horrifying… but that's another story.
I’ve tried to trace Vicky many times over the years, without success… but look at me, I’ve digressed before I even mentioned the word ABBA!
Saturday Mornings and Donny Osmond
Donny Osmond - and sometimes his sister Marie - became a high point of my Saturday mornings, which were usually spent in the bedroom my sister and I shared. The family TV at that point was black-and-white, mounted on a metal base with casters, making it easy to roll around the house.
Adrienne (my sister) and I used to watch Saturday morning TV for kids. This was the late ’70s. There was a lineup of cartoons, punctuated by music videos - which, back then, were so very basic by today’s standards, but so longed for. It was worth it to sit through The Wacky Races, Milton the Monster, and Fat Albert just to see Donny and Marie singing Morning Side of the Mountain. They’d always put it on at a similar time, but never exactly - so you went to the bathroom at your peril, not wanting to miss it.
Our dad would make us a full English breakfast on Saturday mornings, but we weren’t allowed to eat food in the bedroom. So the breakfast would sit on low heat in the oven, waiting for us to come and eat it. It was usually dry by the time we got to it - but we always loved it anyway.
Anyway, I digress - before I’ve even begun on ABBA!
“For all we know, our love is just a kiss away”
Donny and Marie Osmond ~ Morning Side of the Mountain (circa early 1975).
The Moment ABBA Took Over Everything
One day, instead of Donny and Marie, something new rocked our worlds... it was ABBA with Mamma Mia. Adrienne and I were hooked from the very first watch. ABBA exploded onto the Australian music scene after that - I think Molly Meldrum was partly responsible for their phenomenal success, because all of a sudden they were a very regular fixture on Countdown as well.
The times being what they were, we would fall over ourselves not to miss any appearance by ABBA on TV - short, long, or even just a glimpse. They were fresh and new and so beautiful. The music was catchy to say the least, and we just never, ever grew tired of it. That’s actually an understatement. We just couldn’t get enough.
Records, Barbies, and Our ABBA Universe
Our first ABBA album - which I believe we pooled our pocket money to buy (and then beseeched our parents for the shortfall) - was The Best of ABBA. We played it to death on the family’s small record player, which was situated in the bar room downstairs. I’m honestly surprised the vinyl didn’t wear out.
Whenever we were within earshot of a radio and an ABBA tune came on, it had to be turned up. It was just law.
Around this time, my sister and I were Barbie mad. Although we fought, as sisters do, we spent untold happy hours playing with our Barbies. We had a variety of the dolls, but each of us had a main female doll and a Ken doll. Somehow, these morphed into ABBA characters. I had Anna and Björn, and Adrienne had Benny and Frida.
We made houses for our respective doll popstars in the bottoms of our wardrobes, which were side-by-side. When I think back, our Barbies had some incredible adventures. The very strange thing was that, in our play, the dolls always had American accents - even though they were playing the imagined roles of our Swedish idols.
When they were to perform a concert, we would take them downstairs to the bar room and have them dance to all the songs on our album.
We didn’t have real ABBA dolls - just regular Barbies, fierce devotion, and wild imagination.
This set sold for €269 (around $440 AUD) at auction.
Album soon became albums, with Waterloo, and for my birthday that year I received the best present ever - the record simply entitled ABBA. I remember nearly dying from pleasure, every time I looked at my idols crammed in the back of the limousine which was the cover art of that album.
We started making a scrapbook containing every news article, photograph or mention of the group from any newspaper or magazine we could find. We would buy entire magazines if there was even a hint of a mention of our stars inside.
My most prized piece of clothing was my ABBA T-shirt.
Our pocket money was liberally spent on posters and fan magazines. I have such clear memories of us walking to the local shops and rifling through the latest periodicals on the shelves at the paper shop. Our bedroom walls were covered in posters. I used to literally dream at night about meeting the members of the band.
The Great Tour Disappointment
In 1976, the news broke that ABBA was to tour Australia in 1977. This was insanely exciting news, and we were beside ourselves. We combed the papers for any new detail about this momentous, thrilling event - and when the tour dates were finally released, we did a double take...
ABBA had not scheduled a concert in Brisbane, where we lived. Sydney got two concerts. Melbourne got three and so did Perth! Even Adelaide got a look in! But not Brisbane.
There were actual tears.
Then the campaign began to convince our parents to take us to Sydney for one of the two concerts there. But there was no chance of that happening. I clearly remember being in mourning.
The Australian tour dates in 1977. Brisbane was forgotten in the planning, much to our chagrin…
Grandma’s £10 Gift and the Arrival of ‘Arrival’
Somewhere among the melee that year, I had another birthday. My dad’s mother - Grandma - lived in England and used to routinely send a birthday cheque for £10.
That particular year, the exchange rate was almost pound for dollar, and I was able to march straight up to Harlequin Music in Indooroopilly Shoppingtown and buy the Arrival album - complete with a plastic sleeve for protection.
I remember floating home, clutching that album like treasure, and playing it to distraction. When I Kissed the Teacher was a personal high point - but then again, so was the album art… and the lyrics printed so clearly on the fold out sleeve.
Bubblegum Cards, Schoolyard Rivalries, and the Great ABBA vs BCR Divide
At Jindalee State School, there was a clear divide: two camps, no middle ground. If you were in the ABBA camp, you walked around clutching a fistful of Abba bubblegum cards - pink set and blue set, 72 glorious different images in each. A single pack bought you one stick of chewy gum and five cards, and the lunchtime mission was always the same: complete the set. Both sets. Trading, swapping, begging - that’s how we spent our breaks, every single day.
The other camp, however, were diehard Bay City Rollers fans. They paraded around with strips of tartan tied around their arms, their legs, sometimes even plaited through their hair. When ABBA girls crossed paths with BCR girls on the school grounds, we’d generally sneer at one another… and keep walking.
ABBA bubblegum cards - this pink set had 72 to collect (plus an identical blue set, of course). A complete blue set is currently listed on eBay for $400. We paid with pocket money… and obsession.
ABBA Arrives in Australia - But Not in Brisbane
The day of ABBA’s arrival in Australia loomed ever closer, and I remained convinced they’d pull a Brisbane concert out of the hat at the last minute. They wouldn’t let us down - surely not! My nighttime dreams of meeting them grew more intense and elaborate. But it didn’t happen.
What we did receive was wall-to-wall coverage - news footage on every television, newspaper spreads thick with photos - of the supergroup touching down on Australian soil and fans going absolutely ballistic. It was Beatlemania all over again, only shinier. Our ABBA scrapbook grew fatter and fatter and then grew into two.
A Concert Missed, a Storm Remembered
Given that ABBA had overlooked some of their most loyal devotees by not performing in Brisbane, my campaign to convince Mum and Dad to get us to Sydney only grew more determined. Time, money, logistics - I argued it all. But it was to no avail.
On the night of their first Sydney concert, Adrienne and I held a kind of private vigil - quiet, teary, and spinning our records as if our grief could somehow be absorbed into the grooves. The next morning's paper revealed that our tears had translated into Sydney experiencing a storm and rain of biblical proportions the night before. Over 20,000 fans had lined up for the concert which had proceeded in spite of the weather. Frida famously slipped over on the wet stage that night! As a consolation prize, we gained heaps more newspaper cuttings for our scrapbooks.
While Adrienne and I wept quietly at home in Brisbane, 20,000 umbrellas bloomed in Sydney. The storm was epic. So was the devotion. It was apparently life-threatening after all!
Frida slipped. The media pounced. Rain on stage, dignity intact - even if the headline wasn’t. That headline? Pure 1970s tabloid cringe.
ABBA The Movie, 50 Years of Mamma Mia, and the Final Word
In December that year, ABBA the movie was released. It was testament to the phenomenal fan base in Australia that it was released here first in the world, and of course we were among the first to see it….
I think it bears mentioning that 21 August 2025 marks the 50th anniversary of the release of the song Mamma Mia in Australia. It shot to and stayed at number one on the charts for 10 consecutive weeks. This of course makes me want to dive into many other ABBA fun facts, but….
Looking back, it’s funny how Donny Osmond seemed like everything… until ABBA showed up and rewrote the soundtrack of my soul.
ABBA: The Movie.
Because when your plane lands and an entire country loses its collective mind - you’d better make a film about it.