Bikes and books

Years ago, when I would go on a cycling trip, I would spend hours trying to decide which books to take. Now I just pack my e-reader, a godsend for cyclists!
Among the books I bought this time was Anne Hall's Four French Holidays, which I chose mainly because it includes a chapter on The Greengage Summer by Rumer Godden. A favourite book and one of the reasons I once cycled through Northern France, looking for, and not finding, its location in Epernay. It was only when I returned that I discovered I had been looking in the wrong place, I should have gone to Chateau Thierry.

My family used to spend summer holidays on the island of Ameland and I would get some extra pocket money to buy a book in the local shop. This is when I bought De zomer van de reine claudes, the Dutch translation.
I loved the story and the magical atmosphere of the book and went on to read most of Rumer Godden's books in English.

Anne Hall's book starts with an introduction by Hugh Schofield who shares her fascination with Rumer Godden. Hugh Schofield wrote this article on his search for Rumer Godden's 'famed French Summer'.
This really gives you all the information you could want, including a map.

What could Anne Hall add to this? As it turns out: not much and too much. For a start, she does not include most of the facts covered by Hugh S. in his article. So hardly any information on landmarks in the book. What she does do is give a summary of the story, thereby spoiling it for anybody who still wants to read it. She also gives us every detail she has found out about the lives of two people Rumer G. based her characters on: the hotel owner, and a mysterious Englishman staying in the hotel. Anne Hall may be good at research, but she cannot tell a story (I kept loosing the thread because of all the (grand)parents, wives and husbands she mentions).
I tried reading the other chapters on Margery Sharp, Stella Gibbons and Daphne du Maurier, but gave up. Not recommended!

Last Friday we took a cycling trip to Delft; a lovely trip along a canal. Along the way we stopped at the Kringloopwinkel (a giant charity shop or thriftshop) which usually has a good selection of English language books, thanks to the technical University and its many foreign students and teachers.
One of the books I picked up this time was a Little Toller edition of The Fat of the Land by John Seymour.
I already own a copy but this was worth it (at only E 2,50) for the cover alone, plus a very interesting introduction by John's daughter Anne.

We often visit Delft (some 14 km's from Rotterdam), as it is such a lovely old town with a beautiful market place, lots of quiet canals to wander round and many small shops and cafés. This is apart from the wonderful museums, churches and windmill.
If you ever intend to visit the Netherlands I recommend seeking out the smaller towns like Delft (or Leiden, Dordrecht, Zutphen and many many more). They are small enough to explore on foot and aren't filled with loads of tourists.

Fields of Orange: a True Welsh Love Story by Johanna Francis, with Jantien Powell and Alan Francis, edited by Stephen Jones (2022)

I was browsing the pages of Y Lofla Publishers, when I came across this title, a story about a Dutch girl who married a Welsh Farmer. Now, being Dutch and writing this blog, that was a book I hád to have!

The publishers mentioned that Johanna (or Hanny) Francis, née Dooyeweerd, was the daughter of one of the Netherland's foremost philosophers. This puzzled me, as I had never heard of him. Looking up information about him I understood why. Herman Dooyeweerd was a professor at the " Vrije Universiteit" in Amsterdam, which was founded in 1880 by a group of Calvinists led by Abraham Kuyper as the first Protestant university in the Netherlands. Being well known in Dutch Reformed circles, he would have been a stranger in mine. Though my mother did go to church, both my parents were firm believers in "openbaar onderwijs" (public education = for everyone and non-religious)). In my street I was the only one to go to a public school. All the other children went to schools of various Protestant denominations. (As a side note: all schools were and are funded by the Dutch government). All this is a long winded way of saying that although both Hanny (born in 1936) and I (born in 1953) were/are Dutch, our worlds would have been completely different. 

Anyway, back to the story. The first part of the book consists of Hanny's memoir, the second part was written by her children.

I found the announcement of Hanny's birth in a Dutch newspaper:     

 

Soon after her birth her family moved to a large house near the Vondelpark in Amsterdam. Hanny grew up in a very busy household, she had eight brothers and sisters, and her parents had many visitors. Although they had nannies, home helps and cleaning ladies, the girls (not the boys) were expected to do their bit, and after finishing school they had to do a yearlong stint in housekeeping so as " to be ready for marriage". When Hanny is five the Germans invade The Netherlands. Of course, as a child she often does not understand what is going on, though she knows not to talk about her new "aunty" (a Jewish lady) and the men hiding in the attics of the house. During the last winter of the war (known as "the Hunger Winter") some of the children, including Hanny, are taken to stay on farms were there is food, in contrast to western Holland, were many people starved to death.

 

 

After the war life slowly returns to normal. Hanny's sister Marja has her heart set on becoming an air hostess and so she goes to the UK to improve her English. She later marries an English policeman. By 1954, when Hanny is 19, Marja and John, her husband, have settled in Pontnewwydd in Wales. Hanny travels to Wales, to help her sister who is pregnant with twins. 

'One day there was a knock on the door. There were two men standing there. One was a friend of John's. The other was a rather scruffy and disheveled tall man with jet black hair and a tanned outdoor face. His name was Robert (Bob) Francis. Oh boy, was he handsome! He had a tray of eggs and told me he was selling them. (...) We clicked immediately, despite my English being so poor. There and then he asked me out for the following day, as he put it, 'to see a bit of Wales'. I was 18 at the time. The good-looking Welshman with the eggs was 33.'

 

 

Bob has served in the army for eight years and was now back in Wales trying to earn an living, running a farm, with 15 milking cows, a few chickens, a horse and one pig. Hanny and Bob fall in love, and after a week Bob proposes marriage. Her parents are not amused in the least by the news and tell her to come home at once. However, in the end her parents give in and Hanny and Bob get married on 22 July 1955. I found the ad announcing their engagement:

Hanny and Bob travel to Wales after the wedding and Hanny starts to adjust to life at Glebe Farm: looking after the cattle, the chickens, piglets, growing vegetables, and cooking on the Raeburn. Times are hard and struggling with debts, they are forced to sell off their cows and most of the land. Next they turn to chicken and pig farming and start a company collecting waste from schools and hospitals. Son Allen is born in 1957, daughter Jantien (pronounced Janteen, and called Jant) in 1959. Later they set up a company driving school buses. After his retirement Bob, who is a keen carpenter, spends a lot of time making furniture, including two snooker tables. 'His other love and interest was the garden.(...) Bob created a beautiful garden that looked better and more beautiful every year. ' Sadly, in 1995 Bob becomes ill and after being nursed at home he dies in May 2000. Hanny spends time working as an assistant to the district nurse, before retiring herself. Her son Alan and his family move into the converted barn next door.

This is where Hanny's memoir ends and where her children take up the story, and we learn a little more about Hanny's and Bob's contrasting personalities. 

'Mam so loved a party, she would dance all night.(...). She was an amazing woman of two worlds, a tough and hardworking farmer's wife and, when the occasion arose, she would crack open the wine, put on the high heels and glamour and dance the night away. She was a knockout. 'Dad loved home. 'He'd build a moat around us if he could', Mam would say. He didn't care about personal hygiene or new clothes, dressing in 'his checked shirt full of stains and belting up his trousers with binder twine.'

Hanny died in 2020. Alan writes: 'My lasting memory was that Jant and I had the luck to be born into a family home which was full of love. We didn't have a lot, and during the early years, especially, Mam and Dad were outside for most of the time and not with us. But there was always affection in large amounts, and we'll miss it enormously. Mam was at the centre of that.'

This is a charming story, but I wish editor Stephen Jones had checked some facts. For instance, Hanny writes (page 26) that 30,000 people were killed during the bombing of Rotterdam. In fact, around 1200 people died.

Persondy, the original name of Glebe Farm, which it reverted to later, became a listed building in 1975. It has a Wikipedia page.

 

Living in The Netherlands: Water and Bridges

I would guess that most of my readers live in English speaking countries. So I thought it a nice idea to, every now and then, give you a glimpse into what it is like to live in The Netherlands. First stop: water!

We live in a large (by Dutch standards) town, round the corner from a large canal. There is a bridge we cross often to visit the supermarket and the open air market or to go the metro station. It is a busy canal and the bridge opens at least once every hour to let the ships pass: empty ones on their way back to the locks and the port of Rotterdam, full ones on their way to Delft or inland ports further north. It is with reason that one of the most used excuses for being late at school is: 'de brug was open' (the bridge opened). Here is what the ships look like:

So, we were shocked to hear that a defect had been discovered which made it dangerous to open the bridge, necessitating urgent repairs. Suddenly the bridge stood open permanently, like this:

The small building on the right side of the bridge is the former 'brugwachtershuisje' ('bridgekeeper's house'), now a tiny coffee bar. The bridgekeeper now occupies the new building, just seen on the left of the bridge. From this building he can operate two other bridges as well.

All road traffic had to use other bridges.  For us, it meant about 30 minutes extra walk (though the council did operate a shuttle bus). After a few weeks we heard repairs where going to take longer than expected, and instead of a bus we would get a ferry! 

And here it is (the building above that bridge is also a bridgekeeper's house ). I suppose people in a hurry may dislike it, but we enjoy it. It feels like a tiny holiday every time you board. And also: people talk to each other.

I am sure we will miss it after the bridge is fixed!

Christmas in The Netherlands, 1944

" Monday, 25 December. Christmas if fortunately behind us. It was a day full of good things. This morning by the Christmas tree I again read the Christmas story to the children. Then came four Germans who wanted to billet themselves, but it was too small for them. Then we sang Christmas carols with piano accompaniment until 5 anti-aircraft guns came rattling by on the road. Then we went out. It's clear and freezing - bitterly cold - and we put on many layers of clothing to save our calories.

Moeder had come to drink a cup of coffee and then walked with us until we were at the family Jos' house, which was our destination. At 1: 00 we had dinner (meat! and canned peas and rice pudding made with half milk and half water!) and at 3: 00 we went with the four of us to Stameren to visit Annetje and Floris, where we got real tea with white bread - pinched from the Germans - to serve instead of cake! By moonlight home through the snowy woods. Then I really missed you! And now with all our clothes on we go under the blankets."

From: This Faithful Book by Madzy Brender à Brandis

Land for our Sons (1958) and This Faithful Book (2019) by Maxine Brandis / Madzy Brender à Brandis

 

This was a tip from Clarien, who blogs here (in Dutch) on her smallholding. Looking up information on the book and the author made me curious so I ordered it, plus her World War Two diary This Faithful Book. 

First of all a note on names: the author, Mattha van Vollenhoven (always called Madzy) was married to Wim Brender à Brandis (this name is not as unusual as I thought, I found extensive family trees on the Internet). In Canada she wrote under the name Maxine Brandis. Her daughter, a writer who edited the diary, also uses the name Brandis, but chose to use her mother's full name for that book. Madzy's sons (more on them later) use the full name.

Maxine and her family (she and her husband have a daughter and two sons) emigrate to Canada in 1947. They travel to Terrace, British Columbia, where they stay with friends. Soon they are able to buy a small farm. They keep goats and chickens, and grow vegetables and fruit, which they sell. The house on the farm, which is very small (at first the whole family sleeps in one room), is gradually extended. Although they have chosen a location with a very short growing season (June to September) they are successful. At first the town where they live is very isolated (three trains a week) and there is no hospital or dentist.

Maxine makes a strong point for immigrants to learn the language and to adapt to the new country. However, sometimes she herself has trouble adapting, like on the occasion when a young child calls her by her first name. She is shocked: "in the Netherlands they would call me aunt Maxine!" She then gives us a glimpse of her strict upbringing in an upperclass family, where she had to address her father with the formal "U" instead of the informal "je". Like French and German, Dutch has two forms of address. I can relate to her shock. I can still recall my discomfort when, staying with my sister in Australia in 1970, I was expected to call people aged 70 and over by their first name. At home we just did not do that. 

 

The farm prospers, and the children do well, with Maxine becoming manager of the district's cooperative society, but after a while Maxine's husband feels he should return to university (after having spent a few years there in the Netherlands) as having a degree will give him more chances. So they sell the farm.

I'm afraid I was slightly underwhelmed by the book. It is not so much a story as a series of vignettes, in which everything goes well, everyone is friendly and hardly anything goes wrong. At times it felt like an ad for emigrating to Canada. I thought the title odd as Maxine has a daughter and two sons, and the family had no plans to continue farming.

This Faithful Book was published in 2019. It is the diary Madzy kept from 1942 till the end of the war. The diary was translated and edited by her daughter Marianne. In 1942, Madzy and her husband Wim, who had been an officer in the Dutch army, are living in a small, isolated, house in the middle of the Netherlands with their small daughter Marianne (nicknamed Pankie). Wim has to report to the occupying German authorities once a month. In August 1942, two days after Madzy has given birth to their son Gerard Wim and his fellow officers are arrested without warning and sent to P.O.W. camps in Poland. He will not return until 1945. Madzy starts keeping the diary as a kind of letter to Wim, for him to read after his return.

I enjoy reading about ordinary, day-to-day life in those exceptional circumstances. This book was especially interesting to me as my parents lived nearby and also had two young children. I was once again struck by the hardship suffered by people in the last year of the war. Maxine was lucky to have people staying with her to help (mostly her old nanny, still employed by her mother), but it fell to her  to find enough food for the family, especially hard in that last extremely cold "Hunger Winter", when they sometimes had nothing more to eat than a few slices of bread or some potatoes There was no electricity, very little fuel and they lived close to a railway line that is often bombed. On top of that she has to find room for evacuees and Germans who demand a billet. I'm also sometimes amazed at the things that did still work, like delivery of letters, even from Wim in his prison camp in the Ukraine.

Sunday, 21 January. It was exceptionally beautiful in the be-snowed woods and even though we constantly heard heavy artillery fire in the distance, and now and then the bang of a V-1 or V-2, it was still beautiful, almost in a holy way. I've now wrapped each of the children in a blanket in a little nest, with a fur coat around their feet. It's terribly cold in the bedroom."

"Tuesday, 30 January 1945. Today we heard all of a sudden that we have to make do with our bread ration for two weeks instead of one. This means that we have 500 grams per person per week, Gerard 400 grams."

"Wednesday 2 May, But who can describe how overwhelmed we were when, just after that, five of those huge birds (airplanes bringing food) flew right over our little house? We screamed, waved, jumped, cried - what all didn't we do? The emotion was indescribable; it is as though a little window opens and one can again see a house of peace."

During the last months of the war they are often in the firing line, and many houses in the village are destroyed. After the German surrender Madzy still has to wait and hope for Wim to come home. In the end he returns on the 5th of June. In one of the final chapters Wim tells the story of his years in captivity.

In a postscript daughter Mariane writes: "Madzy had intended to give the diary to Wim when he returned, but she never did; he only read it after her death. It's easy to guess why she made that decision. (...) Very probably she felt that he (Wim) should not be exposed to the grimness of some of what she had written in the diary, that the best way to heal would be to look forward rather than back. Before post-traumatic stress disorder became more widely understood, this was what one did." Marianne then tells the story of the rest of Madzy's life. On emigrating to Canada she says:" It's hard for us in this time to imagine how little Wim and Madzy knew about their destination. Other than (as it turned out) misleading and romanticized information from Peter and Enid, they knew virtually nothing because there were no sources of information." Life on the farm in Terrace seems to have been more primitive than Madzy would have us believe in her story in Land for our Sons. After a visit in 1952 her mother reported to people in the Netherlands that her daughter was living in a "hut."

Madzy died in 1984. Her three children have all had interesting careers: Marianne became a historian and writer, find information on her here. Gerard became a wood engraver and maker of books, his website is here. Her third son Joost, born after the war, is known as Jock in Canada. He is a social entepeneur and inventor. An interesting article about him can be found here

I can recommend this book if you would like to know more about life in an occupied country during World War II. There are two other titles which I loved and which might be of interest to English readers: I Was a Stranger by Sir John Hacket, republished by Slightly Foxed , the story of General Hacket's escape from hospital during the battle of Arnhem and his stay with the sisters De Nooij in Ede. Because I grew up in a neighbouring village I knew that story long before I read the book. I also recommend The Cut Out Girl by Bart van Es, published by Penguin, a story of a young Jewish girl in Holland during World War II, who hides from the Nazis in the homes of an underground network of foster families, one of them the author's grandparents. Part of this story takes place in the village where I was born.

Glad Wild Rooster?

 

 

What's this? A new species? A new song by the Rolling Stones? No: it is " slippery cattle grid" in Dutch! We came across it on a recent cycle/camping trip. We went to Oostvoorne, a village on the coast south west of Rotterdam. Apart from a few stretches, we cycled on separate cycle lanes, like the ones in the pictures. After a very wet month of May we now have sunshine at last. As most local authorities don't mow the grass verges any more there were lots of wild flowers to admire and there was the wonderful smell of cow parsley, hawthorn and other plants I don't know the English names of. Best of all was the  bird concert we heard from dawn to dusk. Living in the centre of Rotterdam all we hear is a blackbird, pigeons, seagulls and magpies, so this was a real treat.

Back home after only three days, the plants on my balcony seemed to have exploded! You can see part of the watering system I bought last year. It is very nice having a large balcony and I do enjoy looking after the plants, but I felt I could no longer ask my neighbours to water them when we went away. It was a bit of a faff installing it, but now it works quite well. The hoses are attached to a timer on the tap, which turns the system on twice a day. As you can see I also have a water butt, but I use up all the water in a few days and it is now completely empty. Hoping for rain again! Some of the containers I found in the street: a large basket, rubbish bins, a laundry basket and a baby bath! They work just as well as regular plant containers (we drill holes in them) and are free.

Anyway: back to books! Next post will be about the New Forest.