Advent Calendar - 06 - Nina and Frederik

Nina and Frederik - Christmas at Home

We had Nina and Frederik records when I was growing up, although that’s not some sort of parental sign of approval - we just had craploads of records acquired from who knows where over many years. I’m not sure I’ve really listened to them up until now … and frankly they’re not that great, not bad, just … dull.

I have an EP (Christmas at Home) and a single of White Christmas - I’ll spare you them all and just post their two UK xmas hits! Mary’s Boy Child is sung in West Indian accent which seems strange for a couple of very white northern europeans.

• Nina and Frederik - Mary’s Boy Child - #26 - 1959
• Nina and Frederik - Little Donkey - #3 - 1960

OK - just noticed that White Christmas has a John Barry arrangement which does lift it head and shoulders above the Christmas at Home EP!

• Nina and Frederik - White Christmas - Didn’t chart - 1962

The couple separated in the mid-70s and Frederik and his second wife were shot in The Phillipines in 1994 - the obit in The Independent mentions the death like it was just another routine way of dying - which seems very odd. A post on IMDB suggests it was river pirates!

Though the couple separated and eventually divorced in 1976, they remained friends until Frederik’s death, from gunshot wounds, along with his second wife, Susannah. It was a measure of their continuing closeness that Nina flew out to the Philippines to bring his body home to Europe.