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June 27, 2017The ice-box.
June 27, 2017
I remember the ice-box. In fact I used to collect the ice block from the ice-house on my bicycle. The ice block would get wrapped in a hessian bag. On the ride home the evaporation rate of the hessian was slowing the melting of this ice block till it reached the safety of the ice-box.
In 1956, electric fridges were rare. It was unknown and not really needed in the cooler climates of Northern Europe. After our arrival in Australia mid-summer, we had to find ways to keep food from spoiling. We quickly bought an ice-box. From memory, this box was made of wood with a internal lining of galvanized sheet metal. It had some shelving to put the food on. The ice block was placed on the top shelves with the melting water drained directly in a dish on the floor.
The top model ice-box was the Kelvinator. People used to gather around the kitchen and praise the Kelvinator. Now the discussions are about ‘Smart TV’s.’ We did not have the Kelvinator ice-box with its brash studded snappy locks and hinges. I think we had a hessian rag hanging in front of the ice-box. It worked well. My mother kept the beef-mince, butter, eggs and even bread in it.
After a year or so using the ice-box our family made a giant leap forward with a fridge that used a small kerosene burner underneath the fridge. It was called a ‘kero-fridge’ and the envy of many a migrant family. At the yearly outburst of a suburban unrestrained jollity at ‘bon-fire night,’ (Guy Fawkes) some neighbours, after a couple of outside beers, confided they too managed after years of struggle to get a ‘kero-fridge’. It did not take much to make for happiness then.
“Remember, remember the fifth of November,
Gunpowder treason and plot.
We see no reason
Why gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot! (bon fire jollity and Guy Fawkes)”
The kero- fridge used the heat of the burning kerosene underneath its solid bulk to cool the inside of the Frigidaire. This type of fridge worked remarkably well. If the fridge was in a good mood it could even freeze the mixture of milk, sugar and vanilla powder into an ice-cream. Dad used to be very chuffed when that happened. He sat in a chair in front of the fridge, smoking away while waiting and staring at this fridge to perform this ice-cream miracle. Again, entertainment was home-made. Who to-day would still watch a fridge making ice-cream? Not many, I reckon. Most walk around in a daze watching IPhones or Blue Teeth. Who would have thought that the world’s people now spends most of its time watching a phone with blue tooth capabilities?
It’s different now.
The Paris daisy.
June 22, 2017
The Paris Daisy
There is just nothing more comforting than a single, little and insignificant flower. I say ‘insignificant’ in its beauty being so shy and modest. It’s not like a brutal rose for instance, with its hostile thorns and short flowering duration. The only rose daring to raise its head in the garden is our Iceberg, bravely defying neglect and lack of attention. We do not like the rose, in spite of Shakespeare. No, give us the sun of a Paris daisy.
It is strange how last year our Paris Daisy bush had hundreds of flowers lasting weeks. Their obstinacy in clinging to stay the top-flower in preference to the majestically towering Bay trees and Royal Hydrangeas is remarkable, surely worthy of lofty praise and curtsying respect!
I mention their strangeness, because ever since their copious flower-show last year came to end, it all stopped. Not a single bud since its flower explosion six months ago. Was it some form of protest. Was it trying to tell us something? We raised it lovingly from a cutting we took from our next-door neighbour, Harley. We asked for it and he gladly gave his blessings. His Paris daisy fronts the street and gives passers-by so much beauty and pleasure. All free. All it might want in return are a few kind words, something in the order of; ‘oh, what a lovely plant,’ or even ‘great little yellow daisy, isn’t it?’ It doesn’t mind being called pretty or even described as a ‘pretty bush.’ It’s rarely insulted by people not really knowing it is a daisy. Milo lifting its hind led is even tolerated by this Paris Daisy. Isn’t that proof of symbiotic relations? No wonder its flowers so profusely.
We had a friend many years ago who named every flowering plant under the sun a pretty tulip. He knew I was Dutch and thought it safe to show some horticultural insights. He might also have thought he was witty. I prefer this last summation and showed my pleasure with accompanying laughter, which often takes me a considerable effort. There is nothing wrong with boosting the ego of another person. Things are often so frail and precarious amongst us, and an encouragement is the least I ought to practise and ‘share.’
Have we noticed that this verb ‘sharing’ has become very popular? We are knee-deep in the West with our ‘sharing’. It is particularly popular amongst those that practise psychology or hold alternative health certificates with a preponderance for prescribing herbal medications including Bach remedies to Gurdjieff followers and his teachings of The Fourth Way.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Gurdjieff
The taking of the Paris Daisy photo above was irresistible. Isn’t it beautiful? It stopped me in my tracks. I have been watching its tiny bud over the last few weeks. This morning it opened. Is it trying to make amends? Helvi told me she had trimmed it last year, but that was at the very end of its flowering and should not have minded the daisy at all.
Nature has a way to do things on its own accord and we should just let it get on with giving us its beauty.
Isn’t that such an act of sublime generosity?
Putin for President?
June 19, 2017
Last night’s TV watching is what I could do with every night. Forget about all those Master Chefs or Building UK modern houses, or even those new incomprehensible English crime shows, which are so lost in loud music and serious and significant sideway cast glances by main actors, that any attention the viewer had intended to give, is soon surrendered over to despair. The Putin- Oliver Stone interview was rivetingly watchable. Not a stir-fry in sight nor a double glazed window. A different kettle of fish.
Of course, Oliver Stone is not known for loving the Republican side of US politics. His keen-eyed movies and scripts never fail to impress those who are inclined to be cynical about much of what the US is purporting to stand for. i.e. ” US style Democracy.” A short version of which is, ‘if you are not with us you are against us,’ and we will hunt/bomb you down mercilessly, and find ways to fill up more of our privately run prisons. I suspect that Oliver Stone might well have been put under scrutiny in the US more than once.
There is a bit of a story attached to Oliver Stone. We actually met him many years ago. Our daughter was working for RoadShow which at the time of the mid eighties promoted and featured upcoming movies. Our daughter, Susanna, was charged with people associated with a particular upcoming movie, to be looked after. This often included booking accommodation for interstate or overseas people associated with a newly released movie. It was a demanding job but she was very good at it. During the mid eighties, one of those overseas guests was Oliver Stone who had just finished making ‘El Salvador.’
We had already seen Midnight Express of which the script was written by Oliver Stone in the late seventies. At the time that movie was already controversial and even banned in Turkey. With the arrival of El Salvador in 1986, his skill as both scriptwriting and film producer were already well established. We we were not al all familiar with many films but we did go to movies occasionally. Our daughter managed to sometimes get free tickets and so it was with the showing of El Salvador at a theatre in Paddington, of which I have forgotten it’s name. Perhaps it was called The Dandy, or some similar silly name. Both our daughter and us decided to see that movie on a weekday. A normal day.
As we queued up for the tickets, Susanna was poked in the ribs by someone behind her. When she turned around, her gaze was met by Oliver Stone whom she apparently had me at the Roadshow office several times already. She laughed and after a bit of a talk with him, introduced us to him. “These are my parents, Helvi and Gerard”, she must have said. The exact details of word order might well have been a bit different. It could just as easily have been; “This is Oliver Stone, these are my parents.” It has been so many years ago! We shook hands, he had large hands.
Anyway, we sauntered in. ( ‘sauntering in,’ is what people do, slowly entering cinemas or church services but not train carriages. We ‘enter or push into’ rail carriages. The movie was very terrifying of how things can go so badly wrong from one moment to the other. We exited the cinema in a haze of incredulity. How could that have happened? We did not see Oliver Stone ever again, except through his movies. He must have got out earlier. He perhaps wanted to find out how his movie was received in Australia with a different audience.
The interview with Putin is what really made me ponder the pity of it all. Why not have a Putin for US president? Such erudite reasoning. Oh, those direct answers. No aggrandisement nor pursing of lips. And above all, his understanding of the US. At one stage seemingly knowing more about US trade deficits than even Oliver Stone.
On the other hand, Oliver Stone does enjoy the freedom of critical exposing the US in his movies. We know so little about Russia, much of it mangled by US propaganda. I was in Russia for a short period and loved it.
Even so, a Putin for US president would be a way forward compared with the present one.
In a blaze of Patriotic fervour.
June 14, 2017
Our arrival in Australia 1956
You would have to feel sorry for our Prime Minister. Ever since he took over from the previous PM, Tony Abbott, because of an endless row of negative Polls, Malcolm Turnbull’s popularity is worse, obstinately stuck in the same drift sands of his predecessor. No matter what the policy, or how he twists and turns, it all turns to an uninspiring porridge of lukewarm indecisions. The light is slowly being turned off.
His latest attempt to pull his Government out of the never never of political defeat, he turned once again to his voters assuaging the idea that we need all to become far more “patriotic’, far more ‘Real Australian.’ In this endeavour he is clearly appealing to the largest denominator, grabbing some good old fashioned Aussie values. The values that stood the test of time. Bradman Cricket, Phar Lap, the Mother tongue of English language, the spirit of Anzacs and standing up for flag and National Anthem. Oi, oi oi, Aussie, and all that stuff.
There is now feeling of desperation seeping in. With latest poll showing our Turnbull to be seven point behind the opposition, he wants to take the wind out of his adversary, Tony Abbott’s sails with a good old fashioned appeal to ” True Australian Values.” and sharpening this by making the rules of obtaining citizenship harder. Migrants will need to wait for a number of years and have a good grasp of English together with doing a test on a suitable understanding and uncritical acceptance of all things “Australian,” before they can apply for citizenship.
It will also make a handy appeal to the One Nation Party of Pauline Hanson and possibly filch voters away. I feel this latest from Turnbull is racially tinged, and aimed at making migrants feel inadequate or less than equal by hinting that Australian values are somehow so much better and, that any feelings by migrants of their homeland’s cultural values ought better be left behind. We need you to totally fall in line with us, or go home, is what our PM. Turnbull seems to be saying.
When we arrived none of us spoke much English, and it took a while to realise that English was even spoken in Australia. It took persistence to accept the foreign slang as actual English. It wasn’t all that rare even then, that in public, migrants were told to speak English only. My father was told in the bus once to stop talking in yabba, yabba, yabba (Dutch) and speak bloody English. My parents never lost the love of their home-country. How could anyone even loose it? They always felt that Holland was their home-country but they also accepted Australia as their new home. It takes time. When my father retired they decided to go back home. Why not? Don’t many Australians make England their new home or Holland, the US? Over a million Australians live permanently overseas.
The appeal to becoming Patriotic is just silly and will make Australia look even less tolerant. One wonders what the loyalties of the only real original Australians , the aboriginals, ought to be pitched at, their killer overlords?
How we still cling to those Anglo ideas of the past, loyalty to a foreign Queen, despite most of us now having been born elsewhere. Why are we still a monarchy? What is it about the ‘value of fear’ that we so love? What about encouraging change, move forward? Future Australians are now coming from everywhere, including The Sudan, Nigeria, Somalia. They too, in time will also become ‘real Australians’ and add to this wonderful mixture of all that we call home, Australia. I can’t wait for their national dishes to appear in our Cafes and restaurants. Do people still eat that soapy Kraft Cheddar embedded in silver foil, or Tasty cheese, Heinz tinned spaghetti?
How much better if our Prime Minister had used the opportunity for ‘tolerance, acceptance, and greater empathy towards others, instead of this silly national pitch for drum banging and ‘patriotism’.
Moving About.
June 11, 2017
Our daughter ‘moving.’
I still remember the day we left Holland to sail to Australia. We went on-board with a bewildering number of suitcases and four trunks in which my parents stashed the most essentials. Some items were posted separately, destined to arrive after arrival in Sydney. These included my father’s ‘comfy chair,’ mother’s ‘Singer’ foot pedal sewing machine, our electric Westinghouse wooden barrelled (oak) washing machine with other odds and ends. I remember mother being quite snobby about having an electric washing machine. It might well have been the first electric washing machine in the whole of The Hague if not in the street. It weighed a tonne with an enormous motor which made the lights dim when switched on. The wringer too was electric with rubber rollers grabbing anything in-sight. My mother came close to being strangled on several occasions when a loose fitting garment or her dangling necklace were mercilessly grabbed by these revengeful rollers. One had to quickly push a roller-release lever after which the rollers reluctantly released the hapless victim.
My father’s easy chair facilitated smoking more than repose or rest, or at least that is what I had surmised in my toddler’s years. “Gerard, leave your father at rest, don’t disturb him”, was my mother’s oft repeated refrain. For some reason Dad needed a lot of rest. At that early age I associated resting with blowing curls of smoke. My mother could never have been that tired, at least I never noticed smoke escaping from her mouth. Yet, when dad was at work, she would often sleep in his chair, especially after recovering from doing mountainous loads of washing with an occasional escape from attempted wringer strangulation.
My father’s smoking was a ritual which involved a packet of Douwe-Egberts tobacco, some cigarette papers, and a lighter that contained a wick infused with petrol. To light the wick one had to push down a little lever that would grind a small wheel against a flint stone which in return would then ignite a spark thus flaming the protruding wick. This device had me intrigued for years. Later on in his life his choice of tobacco inexplicably changed over to Rotterdam Shag tobacco.
During the war, especially towards the end, no tobacco was available. The only people still smoking were those that risked life in clandestine smuggling or by those that had swapped and changed national loyalty with the German soldiers. My father’s forced rehab from smoking made life unbearable for my mother. At times, I would be urged to go out and scan the footpath for any cigarette butts which my dad would gratefully receive and somehow unpick and re-roll to relieve his nicotine addiction by a few puffs. Oh, Gertie ( that was my dreadful given name during the war) can you go out and find some butts for your father. The problem was that other boys were sent on similar errands. I remember a bigger boy from the same street ‘Anton van Uden’ who stole three butts that I had spent 2 hours in finding around the bombed out streets. Oddly enough, later on we became the best of friends. After migrating to Australia I visited this friend back in Holland and found him to be in a very sad state. He was unhappily married with two young children. In great confidence he told me “never get married, Gerard.” We went out that night to a dance-nightclub whereby another man was threatening me with a surly drunkenness out on revenge, urging me to fight him. My unhappily married friend got up and sorted him out in seconds. The friend was a military policeman.
My daughter is now moving closer to the city, ‘where all the action is.’ It reminded me of our move back in 1956 to Australia ‘where all the action was also much in vogue’. My parents left with suitcases and four trunks, six children. My daughter with two teen-age boys has enough stuff to fill an entire boat. It is not as simple as it used to be. It will take days. We are helping her move and she will hire a ‘Truck with two men.’ Good luck.
The marvel of the life-giving cabbage roll.
June 6, 2017
It seems the privilege of the old to shamelessly bore endlessly the young with tales of the past. We already know of my parental desperations when claiming not to know ‘where on earth did Gerard come from?’ It is of little consolation now that my little boy search for my real parents by scanning sea’s horizon did not bear much results. No boat with my real parents ever appeared. I just had to reconcile myself with going home with wet shoes and accept the ones who at times seemed to disown me.
Another one of those memories refusing to lay down are those of a more edible kind. The war-time cabbage. I am here now because of the humble cabbage. Towards the end of the war it was the most covetous food item in my birth-city of Rotterdam. Even today, when I try and light the gas stove, the smell of the escaping unlit gas reminds me of war and my mother’s search for food. About the only food that could be had, if one was lucky, were cabbages.
It was during pensively resting in my fauteuil yesterday that one of those fleeting memories came to the befuddled fore. Heaven knows why they appear? I decided to try and make cabbage rolls. Helvi too became quite enthusiastic. Some month ago there was a rather elaborate Baltic & Polish food sale on at Aldi’s. We discovered a huge jar of pickled cabbage leaves and a culinary inspiration got to us suddenly. We took it home and put the jar to rest amongst the Dutch Herrings and Italian tinned tomatoes. Occasionally I would stare at this jar of cabbage leaves and would proffer to make something of it, but both decided to relegate this delicacy for consumption to a future date. The cabbage leaves all looked so pale and withered all drowned in the vinegar. I was happy to notice that the vinegar was an honest marinade and just that, and not the dreaded Balsamic version. The best thing it had going for it was the fact it was imported from Macedonia. Macedonia has such an exotic almost melodic ring to it. All those vowels.
Of course, cabbages is what used to make the world go round. From China through Russia and Europe, including Great Britain. What would England be without their beloved cold cabbage, consumed while standing up in a draft? The Koreans make the five-star Kimchee. A soul food if ever there was.
One only has to visit the old Eastern European towns and cities, where through the centuries of cabbage-food cooking, the very stucco, bricks and ancient cellars of the streets are impregnated with this pungent smell of the cabbage. Who has not walked through old Vienna or Budapest not to smell this delectable vegetable permeated into the very soul of these so musical societies. The very waltzes of Johann Strauss were conceived after generous ingestion of cabbage.
So, yesterday I finally opened this large jar. Helvi remembered she made the humble cabbage roll many years ago. It is made from raw minced beef mixed with whatever one wants to mix together with a handful of boiled rice. She urged me not to overdo it with spices. ‘Just try and be a bit subtle this time, don’t muck it up,’ she urged kindly, but with some authority and deep husband knowledge.
I followed her urgings but when I momentarily and in a latent fit of wild adventurism thought of Kimchee I chucked in a small quantity of chilli flakes. The whole mixture was then kindly wrapped into the jar-released cabbage leaves. It filled the entire baking dish with two neat rows of nine each, totalling a rather large quantity of eighteen rolls. With its red-coloured tomato marinade it looked very beautiful and enticing. Enough for an entire Austrian regiment.
After baking and allowed ‘to rest’ I made a nice dish of mashed potatoes and spinach. It was a nice dish but the chilli made the rolls too hot and spicy. I should not have added it. Helvi heartily agreed that I had mucked it up a bit.
‘When will you ever learn to contain yourself and not overdo things?‘ She said, adding. ‘Where do you come from?’
Where does all this dust come from?
June 2, 2017
Me after the war in Belgium for fattening-up.
‘We don’t know where Gerard comes from?‘
This was a rather alarming statement for a nine year old to comprehend. My assumed parents used to utter these insidious words in total despair. Once again I had come home with clear evidence that I had been playing in the sea. A white ring of salt water clearly visible around the top of my leather shoes. ‘It is ruining your shoes and your father worked so hard to pay for them’, my mother added. I never told them that I fostered the hope that one day my real parents would turn up on sea’s horizon on a large and luxurious boat. It never happened. Years later we did go on a large and luxurious boat. We were all on-board migrating to Australia. A decision still open for debate today.
It wasn’t all that long when friends confessed having heard similar foolish utterings from their parents. With another three brothers getting born after me and a sister, they too received similar statements apparently in total contrast to the harsh reality that the real parents were so keen to disown. My mother used to throw her arms up in forlorn hope we would all disappear. The long summer school holidays were total torture. My mother, bent over the scrubbing board, used to enrol us in an organisation with the cruel name ‘Holiday Fun.’ All this entailed, were long laboriously boring walks around The Hague with a whole tribe of other kids whose mothers all connived to have rid of them during the summer holidays. Having six children would drive anyone to drastic measures, if not also dump them in orphanages or put up for adoption.
Seventy years later, we too utter similar words but not to our off-spring. Fair crack of the whip, it is their turn for despair. WE are now enjoying the freedom of retirement. No, we have a set of different criteria to complain about. Now it is ‘where does all this dust come from?’
Anyone intimate and so close to vacuuming as I am, could not help but come up with that question. I now have two at my disposal. One, is a Norwegian vacuum cleaner, the other a cordless with lithium battery. They get a work-out every week. It never ceases to amaze me about the enormous quantity of dust. I can’t wait for the vacuuming to get finished in order to peruse the volume of dust in its container. I know Australia is a dusty country. Compared with Thailand or Indonesia, our near neighbours, Australia far outweigh in the dust department. Is this why so many have breathing problems? I don’t know but thought of throwing up the question to you, dear readers. We now have reverse cycle air conditioning which I hope will suck some of the dust out of the air into its return inlet filter.
Helvi and I are amazed each time we empty the vacuum cleaner. In a special light during early morning or afternoon with the sun streaming in at a certain angle, one can see dust particles dancing around the lounge room in a rather taunting fashion. I have to restrain myself not to get up and start vacuuming the very air we are breathing.
Where does all this dust come from?
Early Television.
May 30, 2017
It was surprising that, after our arrival in 1956, Australia had yet to welcome Television. The Dutch introduced black and white television in 1951 with Phillips being the first to manufacture the television set. It wasn’t till 1989 that the Dutch Government even allowed public broadcasting of commercials on the radio and television. Even today Holland seems fairly modest in public display of advertising hoardings. Thank goodness for that. On TV, it is however just as hellish with advertising in Holland as in Australia. One reason we never watch the commercial stations, except for SBS channel. We are now experiencing another form of movie watching in Netflix. I bet it too will include advertisements urging us to add and buy enhancing lifestyle products.
My early impression of TV watching was in Holland standing in front of radio shops. The introduction of Television was of such national interest that people queued up in front of electrical shops selling the first of television sets. Even just the flickering of the screen was greeted by many Dutch burghers being mesmerized by it all, sometimes standing ten deep in front of those shops. When the weak transmission signal came good and actual images were produced the crowd broke into an applause sometimes even shouting ‘encore’ as if in a life theatre.
When the event of the television came to Australia around the late fifties, it immediately was accompanied by advertisements. Favourite advertisements were for electric Sunbeam fry-pans, Omo soap powders, Camel cigarettes and of course the much desired TV sets made from wood veneer and standing somewhat forlorn on splayed legs over which many a family member would stumble. Now of course there are whole jungles of electronics available. Most would now be regarded as lifestyle accoutrements. Sooner or later though, no matter what form of electronic device one buys, it will be loaded with advertisements.
One early advertisement still etched belatedly in my fading memory during those heady early TV broadcasts in Australia was the advertisement of Kellogg’s Cornflakes. It was shown on TV with the help of a beautiful woman seated at a luridly coloured laminex table with similar splayed legs. She was seductively eating this wonderful crunchy Kellogg’s breakfast with the promise of making her ‘regular’. I foolishly confused her outrageous claim to regularity with being in time. I thought that this breakfast was making her come in time for her work, taking children to school or appointment with the hairdresser, and never thought it had anything to do with the delicate state of her bowels.
In fact, during those early years almost all food advertisements were pitched at making women achieve good levels of regularity. It was years later when I learned that women were keenly addicted to head-ache powders containing phenacetin. Apart from the resulting obstinate persistence of cemented bowels, many suffered kidney failure in later life when those particular pain killers were banned. It must have caused many to suffer from bouts of unimaginable constipation. In factories, canny Medicine moguls installed coin operated headache powder dispensers. Women would flock to put in a penny and get and APC or Bex powder. I was perplexed that so many would queue up to buy those powders. I asked and one woman told me it would ‘pick her up.’ The expression ‘having a cup-o-tea, a Bex powder, and a good lie-down’ came from that period
I don’t know if Kellogg’s cornflakes helped those utterly confused female bowels. The TV did promise so many things. For some reason, men were not shown to suffer bouts of irregularity on TV. Perhaps it lacked masculinity. No doubt with their enormous beer consumption, the male bowel was in robust health all the time.
Our early years in Australia were used productively in a fast ‘learning curve.’
