First Memories

March 10, 2026 pier Leave a comment

The vicarage wasn’t hard to find, even though it looked like any of the other houses in the village. Just like those, it faced the endless canal that stretched away in both directions alongside the – aptly named – Canal Road. What gave it away, was its location right next to the protestant church – one of those modern buildings where they seemed to have forgotten about the bell tower. A row of cherry blossoms lined the path leading up to the church, pink petals pooled below the trees as reminders of last winter’s snow. A car slowed down in front of the vicarage, then stopped. The handbrake rasped. A man and a woman got out, dressed as if they were ready for Sunday service – but it was only Saturday. They weren’t locals, or they would have come on foot, or by bicycle. Or a tractor, even. Heading straight for the vicarage, whispering to each other, hesitating for just a moment, it was the man who gently pulled the old-fashioned bellpull, as if their arrival should be announced quietly.

The door opened almost instantly, as if the house itself had been waiting for this moment. A young woman dressed in black held the door open for two elderly ladies who were obviously just leaving the house. The newly arrived couple stepped back, the man lifting his hat,

“I’m sorry, we can come back later,”
“Not at all, we were just leaving,”
“Hello, please come in,”
“We will see you tomorrow,”
“Did it take you long?”
“Thank you so much for coming.”

The woman at the door gave a small wave to the departing guests, while the new visitors stepped inside. “Paul, Anne,” she said, “so good of you to come, can I take your coat?”

The hallway was bright and spacious, with doors on both sides – living room to the right, the reverend’s study to the left, both overlooking the front garden and the canal beyond. The door to the kitchen at the end of the hallway, and stairs on the right, with a return halfway up, the staircase swinging left and back on itself, out of sight. On the bottom step sat a little boy of three and a half, with blond curls and big brown eyes.

“Uncle Paul! Aunty Anne!”
“Hey Jimmy, how’s my boy?”

“It’s going to be Mark’s birthday, he’ll be ten!” said Jimmy, holding up both hands with splayed fingers. He was excited by the arrival of his aunt and uncle and wanted to tell them a lot more – but they didn’t seem to be very interested in him. They were whispering and aunty Anne was sniffling. Then his mammy opened the door to the living room, next to the stairs where he was sitting, and she said, “You’re a good boy, Jimmy, will you just stay there for another little while? Mammy will be out in a few minutes.” The grownups went inside, the living room door closing silently.

A few minutes seemed to be an awful long time. When those other people who just left had gone inside, Mammy had said they were going to be a few minutes as well, and that was ages ago. It was just as well he had the big yellow digger that Santa had brought him for Christmas, or he wouldn’t know what he’d do. All the same, there is only so many times you can scoop up the handful of Lego bricks and move them up the steps of the stairs and back down again.

On his hands and knees, he climbed up to the return, halfway up the staircase. He sat down on the edge of the second last step and leaned backwards until his bum started sliding down to the next step. If he hooked his elbows on the step behind him and stuck his feet out front, he could slide down the steps one by one. “Aaaah,” he said, and at every bump on the next step his voice would make a hiccup sound, and that was funny, “Aaa-haaa-haaa!” But then he remembered that he was supposed to be quiet, and he quickly put his finger to his pursed lips – “Shhh!”

He landed on the floor beside the living room door and listened intently for a few seconds. Whispering, murmured voices, a spoon tinkling in a teacup. He’d love to go inside, but Mammy might get cross. Best to go back up the stairs and think of something else to do. He clambered up to the return clutching the digger in one hand, and decided to leave it at this halfway point, its bucket leaning on the first step to the landing. The doors to the bedrooms were closed, too. Jimmy’s room was just beside the top of the stairs, and his big brother and sister, Mark and Wendy, shared the bedroom at the far end of the landing, at the front of the house. Mark had stuck a note on the door. Of course, Jimmy couldn’t read it, but it had something to do with Mark’s birthday because it had pictures of flags and balloons on it.

A small window at the end of the landing overlooked the road and the canal in front of the house. Jimmy squashed his left cheek against the glass and, looking along the canal into the distance, he could just make out the bridge that went across to the other side. Beside the bridge was the shop, he knew – he’d been there loads of times. The lady in the shop was very nice, she always gave him a sweet when he and Mammy went there to buy stuff. The other day he was playing in the front garden, and felt that he was big enough to go to the shop by himself. He told the lady that his mammy wanted a packet of tea. He brought the tea back home and decided to go back to the shop to get sugar. But then, when he went back again a little while later to get milk, the lady asked him to hold on just a moment. She telephoned the vicarage, asking the reverend if he had sent Jimmy to the shop to get tea, and sugar, and milk. That had been the end of his shopping spree – but he HAD managed to earn three sweets in one day. Daddy had thought it was funny, but had told him he should always ask Mammy first to see if she needed anything.

Daddy didn’t always think that what Jimmy did was funny. Jimmy’s friend Billy lived across the water, on the other side of the canal, where his daddy was the boss of a place where they had loads of tractors. When Jimmy and Billy were playing in the front garden of the vicarage one day, Jimmy thought of a new game. The garden was full of small flowers called crocuses, and the game was to step on the flowers until they were all lying flat in the grass. Billy didn’t think it was such a good idea, but Jimmy said it was fine, and soon they had both managed to flatten all the little flowers. Daddy looked out of the window of his study and he seemed very cross. That was because he WAS very cross, and Billy had to go home, and Jimmy was sent up to his room. Jimmy had been crying, afraid that Daddy would stay angry forever, but he didn’t, and Jimmy promised that he would never ever step on any flowers again, in anybody’s garden, but in a field was OK when you couldn’t help it. Sometimes it was hard to remember all the rules.

Just when he was thinking of Billy and the flowers, he saw Billy’s mammy and daddy walking up to the house. That wasn’t so strange, because Billy’s daddy often came to visit and talk about things to do with the church, only usually Billy’s daddy came by himself. The doorbell rang – much louder this time – and Jimmy hurried back down to the return in the staircase and peeked through the balustrade, as Mammy came out of the living room to open the door. “Hello Jimmy,” said Billy’s dad who spotted him straight away. Jimmy was hoping that maybe his friend would now arrive too, “Where’s Billy?”, he asked. “Sorry Jimmy, Billy will come over to see you soon, OK?” It seemed to Jimmy that “soon” and “a few minutes” were things that lasted forever.

Earlier that afternoon, Mark and Wendy had gone off to stay with neighbours, and at the time Jimmy didn’t want to go with them, but now he was sorry. He didn’t understand why all those people kept arriving, it must have something to do with a surprise for Mark’s birthday or something. And now Billy wasn’t even coming. He slid back down to the bottom of the stairs and lay down on his back with his legs reaching up the bottom steps. He pushed himself up the stairs backwards, until he could tilt his head back and look down the hallway. The front door was upside down, that was weird, and also a bit scary. Just as he started to push himself further up the steps, he heard a change in the voices behind the living room door, rustling, footsteps. The grownups were coming to the door, they were probably leaving. The door opened and the smell of tobacco smoke wafted out, it smelled like Billy’s daddy. Jimmy rolled off the stairs and stood looking up at the adults, moving around each other, shaking hands, buttoning coats, donning hats, saying goodbyes. “Bye Jimmy!”

At last, the front door closed, finally giving Jimmy the chance to get his mammy’s attention, who was still standing there, looking at the door. “Mammy, Mammy, can I go and see Daddy again? Please?” Jimmy pulled his mammy’s hand and she smiled at him, ruffled his hair, “You’re a very good boy, Jimmy.” She bent over and lifted him up under his arms, then settled him on her right arm, “You’re getting heavy, you’re eating too many sweets”, “Am not!” With her free left hand she opened the door to the study.

The room was dull, the curtains half drawn. The desk in front of the window had a notebook, diary, pens, notes on tomorrow’s sermon, bible open at Psalm 107. The desk chair empty. Jimmy looked down at his Daddy in silent wonder. He looked strange, in his suit instead of his pyjamas, and with his glasses on even though his eyes were closed. Hands folded on his tummy. Mammy had explained to him that Daddy had gone to heaven and was now with the Lord Jesus, but that seemed a bit strange because Jimmy could see that he was still there. Then he heard Mammy sniffle, and he could tell that she was sad. “It’s OK Mammy. Mark and Wendy and I will look after you.”

Outside, the light was fading. The lamp-lit windows of the houses along the canal reflected in the water, but the window of the study in the vicarage remained dark.

In memory of my Dad – 1923-1967.

Family, History, Holland, Human Experience

If The Walls Could Speak

November 8, 2025 pier Leave a comment

The 8th November marks the anniversary of my uncle’s arrest by the Nazis in 1944. I wrote this story featuring the event earlier this year.

Of course I know who you are. You’re the youngest of the family that lived here the longest. People come and go, especially in this part of town. Everyone here rents their home, as they’ve been doing since these houses were built, about a hundred years ago. The people that live here now only moved in recently, you wouldn’t know them. But your family somehow managed to pass on this home from one generation to another.

This is a nice part of town, or at least it used to be. It was even a bit famous for its forward thinking at the time. Some city planners in the early 1900s felt that working class people should live in proper homes, with running water and little gardens front and back, imagine that. When you moved in here you were only a little boy and everything must have seemed a lot bigger then, even these little gardens. As it happened, you were already familiar with the place, because your grandparents lived here, and your mother had grown up under this very same roof. Well, not quite the same roof, because it had more chimneys then, because of the coal fires.

But why are you here, anyway? Not to visit your family, that’s for sure. You’ve all moved on and your family were never really from this city to begin with. Your grandparents were one of the first to arrive here, that must have been in the early thirties. I guess it was a bit tight, four bedrooms for two adults and six children. But they came from a rented three bedroomed terraced home from another part of town. So they managed to trade up, without the trading.

Maybe you’re trying to remember this place as it was when you were a child, when you came to visit your grandparents. It was magic, you’ll have to admit that. There were nooks and crannies and secret rooms and doors and strange cabinets, wooden floors with dark red rugs and rough hessian carpets that would hurt your knees when you crawled under your grandfather’s rolltop desk. In wintertime, the only place that was warm was the living room, thanks to the big shiny black stove. In the rest of the house you had to make do with electric bar heaters that always smelled of burning hair. And at night time in bed you’d have a metal hot water bottle, with a wool cover handknitted by your grandmother, so you wouldn’t burn yourself.

There were trees and shrubs and hedgerows everywhere, it didn’t seem like you were in the city at all. And not only were the houses made of redbrick and matching red roof tiles, even the streets themselves were paved with the same red bricks. There was a tram that ran through this very street, they replaced that with a bus route in the early seventies. That was a disaster for the brick paving, the buses were too heavy and ploughed furrows beside the curbs at the bus stop. Yes, the stop is still here, right at the front door. The furniture would shake and the windows rattle every time a bus came by, but you never noticed, because you were so used to it.

But I have seen more than just buses and trams going by these windows. The greengrocer and the milkman passed by here on their rounds, with horse and cart. The neighbourhood policeman on his bicycle. Wedding cars parked right in front, on the occasions of happy couples tying the knot, including your own parents. An ambulance pulled up to take your grandmother to the nursing home, and later your grandfather, and at one stage your mother, when she had appendicitis and you were afraid that she would die, as the paramedics struggled to get her down the narrow stairs on a stretcher. Cars with prams folded in the boot and baby seats in the back, cars with bicycle racks on top, cars with tow bars and caravans, I’ve seen them all come and go over the years. There’s been hearses too, but that’s to be expected when you’ve been around as long as I have. And of course the moving vans, in all sorts and sizes. The big truck when you moved in with your family. The van belonging to a family friend when you moved away from home to study and explore the world.

And one day, when your mother was still a girl, the armoured cars arrived, and the motorbikes with sidecars, and marching soldiers with their boots pounding the redbrick roads. Dozens of dark propellor planes droned overhead. Your grandmother shook your mother awake that morning, “Wake up! It’s war!” Your grandfather was not going to let these brutes take over his town without taking firm action. Jumping on the brand new bicycle he’d won at a raffle a few days earlier, he set off towards the river. Less than ten minutes later he was back at the front door, on foot, his bicycle unceremoniously confiscated by an enemy paratrooper at the bottom of the street.

Your grandfather was well known and respected in the local community – after all, he had made sure the garden village got its own church, which was built before the war and where he laid the foundation stone. You should go and have a look, that stone with his name engraved on it is still there, hidden behind some bushes.

Life continued as the war rumbled on. Your mother moved away to work as a nanny, your uncle Jacob got married, and then your aunt Jitske. Ids, the second oldest in your mother’s family, got a job at the greengrocer’s and I watched him go by on his rounds with the horse and cart.

Ids was your mother’s favourite brother, not two years older than she was and full of life and mischief. Always in the thick of things, messing with his brothers, annoying your grandmother. A hard worker, with a heart of gold. Through the youth club at the church – yes, the same church your grandfather helped to build – he got to know other young people who were just as upset by the occupation as he was. The grocer’s cart became a mobile meeting point for members of the underground movement. He was deemed too young to take part in armed resistance, but he helped with the distribution of illegal newspapers. Almost every day, under cover of carrots and potatoes, he provided real news to likeminded people in the area.

That night, when there was a knock on the front door, he was sure it was his friend Peter, coming over to listen to the radio. “Calm down, I’m coming, I’m coming,” he shouted down the stairs as there was another loud knock. He was standing on the landing with the radio in his arms, when your grandfather opened the door. “Now we’ve got you,” said the uniformed stranger as he pushed past him and headed straight up the stairs. Three more soldiers burst in after him, loud and large and violent and angry.

Of course they knew who he was. He had been betrayed by one of his own, the grocery cart had sprung a leak. They dragged him and your grandfather off to the local police station, your grandmother sick with worry. Your grandfather came back here after a few hours. He last saw Ids in the corridors at the police station. “Dad, I take responsibility for everything”, he heard Ids say as soldiers pushed your grandfather out the door.

Your mother didn’t know any of this. She was living in a part of the country that had been liberated a few weeks earlier and contact across enemy lines was impossible. It wasn’t until the end of the war, six months later, that she learned the news from a letter your grandparents managed to get to her. They had lived through a horrific winter of fear and hunger. Every day, your grandfather had searched the city, looking for his son. Making enquiries with the occupiers. Looking among the civilian victims of yet another reprisal execution. And when the war was over, he placed ads in the personal columns in local and national newspapers. Has anybody seen my Ids?

His body was found a year later. He had been shot the day after he was arrested and was buried in a mass grave. He was twenty-three.

A few decades later you came to live here yourself, with your mother and your brother and sister. Your father had died, and your grandfather was living here all by himself, after your grandmother had had to move to a nursing home. Your mother had come back home, but for the three of you this was an entirely new beginning.

You each had your own bedroom – not like your mother when she was young, who shared with your aunt Jitske. And two of your uncles were in that one bedroom that became your grandfather’s study later, hard to believe. Your uncle Ids and uncle Jacob shared the bedroom at the back of the house – the one that later became your room – until Jacob got married. It had a bar heater set in the corner, it was still there when you moved in. Remember that time you decided to redecorate that room? You started stripping the wallpaper off the walls down to the plasterwork, and to your surprise your handiwork revealed large black letters. “Ora et Labora” was written in impressive Fraktur script across the full width of the wall – “Pray and Work”. Your mother was amazed. She told you it had been painted by Ids, before the war, and although it sounds like a humourless motivational slogan, it was simply the name of that youth club at the church where he went every weekend.

It’s my duty to provide shelter and security, and that November night at the end of the war, I failed. Your family didn’t hold it against me, though. The ugly scar above the bedroom door, where a soldier jammed his bayonet looking for a secret hiding place, was still there when you were doing your decorating. Your mother would often point it out, as a memorial to the past. It’s now long gone and long forgotten. The house was renovated in the eighties and everything is much roomier, lighter, brighter. There’s a proper kitchen now, and a proper bathroom with a shower. But some small signs from the past are still there, although I’m probably the only one who knows where to find them.

You’ve stood there long enough, looking at me. Go on, ring the bell and ask if you can take a look at the wall outside the back door. If you look closely, you’ll see that some of the bricks along the edge of the doorpost are strangely smooth. That’s because your grandmother used to sharpen her kitchen knives there. You see? Not all scars are ugly.

Human Experience

Occupational Hazards

September 17, 2025 pier Leave a comment

My job requires me to sit at a desk and stare at a computer screen for most of the working day. That’s bad for my back and my eyesight, but it’s not going to kill me. The odd time I’m asked to attend a site meeting, which involves donning a high-viz jacket and a hard hat, standing around with a bunch of people to talk about renovation work to be carried out in some supermarket in the country, somewhere. The rules are strict – no jacket and helmet, and you’re barred from the meeting. Doesn’t matter if there isn’t actually any building work going on at the time. Safety first!

We live in a time of health and safety, mindfulness, welfare at work, GDPR, workplace relations, and what not. It really is quite difficult to do anything dangerous nowadays. Not so back in the good old days! Everybody knows the famous picture of a bunch of lads casually having their lunch, sitting on a steel beam suspended at a dizzying height, with the New York streetscape far below them. Not a hard hat in sight. Although the “Lunch atop a Skyscraper” was a staged photo¹, it does bring back memories of a time when jobs that are now ruled by health and safety regulations were once a matter of life and death.

Lunch atop a skyscraper – staged, sadly.

Take typesetting for example. That used to be a job in the print business, before PCs and desktop publishing moved the craft to a computer screen. A family friend had been a typesetter, back in the sixties. He was a balding man with prominent scars on his forehead and one on his cheek – the result of molten lead splashing from the Linotype² machine as he was working the keyboard, and a line of type (you wonder where they got the name from) was recycled back into the machine with a bit too much vigour. He was lucky not to have suffered from lead poisoning, which was another risk of the trade.

Taxidermy may be a bit of a macabre job, but otherwise harmless enough. After all, the animals being stuffed are dead. In the good old days however – until the 1960s in fact – the skins were preserved with arsenic soap³, and handling these could result in taxidermists suffering with open sores or going blind. There was still a sting in the tail even after the animal’s demise, as it turns out. To this day, stuffed animals in museums have to be handled with care because of the poison.

What about working in a wine cellar, looking after countless bottles of champagne slowly maturing under layers of dust? It would appear the only danger is that of getting drunk too often. But no! Champagne riddlers are people whose job it is to constantly go around turning the bottles to move the sediment – and back in the early 19th century they ran the real risk of bottles exploding unexpectedly. So much so, that they wore iron masks as protection. Apparently it was not uncommon for exploding bottles to trigger a chain reaction that resulted in the loss of up to 90% of the stock⁴ – and the health of the unfortunate riddler.

Surely watch making is a job that is devoid of any physical danger. The tools of the trade are so tiny, you couldn’t hurt a mouse with them. Dials are painted with tiny brushes, the tip moistened between the lips to make a nice sharp point for extra accuracy. The only problem, back in the 20s, was that the American factory girls were told to use radium paint for those fancy new glow-in-the-dark watches. Not only did these women become sick with radiation poisoning, more than 50 had died by 1927⁵.

Certain jobs will always carry risk, of course. Chasing armed criminals, reporting news from warzones, or playing rugby, are some of the things you can do to guarantee trouble ahead. Or flying to the moon in a rocket. I reckon the reason they stopped doing that is not because the money ran out, but because NASA introduced normal health and safety standards. We’re just not allowed to have fun anymore.

History, Ireland

A Funeral Fit for a Duke

May 9, 2019 pier Leave a comment

Rummaging through a pile of old newspapers, kindly left behind in the attic by our home’s previous owners, I came across this little gem in the Evening Press of Friday, 10th March 1972. In the light of my well known interest in all things Napoleonic, I see it as my duty to re-publish the article here in full for you all to enjoy, 47 years after it first (and until now, last?) appeared.

A funeral fit for the Duke
by Andrew Marsh

THERE’S some doubt as to whether the great Duke of Wellington was in fact born in the family’s town house, No. 24 Upper Merrion Street (shown in our picture) but all the circumstantial evidence points to his having been born there at the end of April or the beginning of May, 1769, and not in the family’s country seat, Dangan Castle, near Summerhill, Co. Meath.

But there’s no doubt as to where he died. Early in the morning of September 14 1852, when he was staying at one of his official residences, Walmer Castle, on the Kent coast, he suddenly called for his valet, murmured ‘Send for the apothecary,’ and expired. He had suffered a severe stroke. He was aged eighty-three. England was thrown into a flap. Wellington seemed always to have been there and as if he always would be there. He was a national institution and respectable folk are always upset and indeed somewhat indignant when a national institution vanishes suddenly. Their sense of stability and security is threatened.
Wellington in his later years was Britain’s supreme national institution. Things had got to the stage when the Government couldn’t buy a new mop for House of Commons charwoman without consulting ‘The Dook’. When the enormous glasshouse known as the Crystal Palace was built for the 1851 exhibition, the pet project of Victoria and her Albert, the place became infested with sparrows. The little birds were no respecter of persons below and couldn’t be shot for fear of damaging the glass. Victoria consulted The Dook. ‘Try sparrowhawks’, he growled, and Victoria was so overwhelmed by the simplicity of the solution that she hadn’t the presence of mind to ask him how the sparrowhawks were to be got rid of after they had got rid of the sparrows.
Naturally so remarkable a man had to be given a Sate funeral, and Victoria and her Albert decreed that it must be the funeral to end all funerals. Albert took a hand in designing the funeral carriage. It turned out to be the size of a combine harvester, was made of cast iron, and was embellished with military trophies of truly Victorian splendour.
Had The Dook been there to comment upon the carriage he would have acidly pointed out that it was so heavy it would be bound to sink in the first bit of soft road surface encountered. Which is exactly what it did. Officials also discovered at the dress rehearsal that it was too wide to go through the special ceremonial arches that had been erected.
Many days elapsed between The Dook’s death and his burial in the crypt of Saint Paul’s Cathedral, so England had time to pull itself together and to remember that it was the nation of shopkeepers.
Accordingly vintners began advertising ‘The Duke of Wellington’s Funeral Wine’ while bakers produced ‘The Duke of Wellington’s Funeral Cake’ and the tailors, with astonishing lack of humour, announced a ‘Funeral Life Preserver’. The happy owners of houses along the funeral route offered front row accomodation on first floors ‘with use of piano.’ The prices were steep.
‘THE DUKES’S FUNERAL – To be Let a shop window with seats erected for about 30, for 25 guineas. Also a Furnished First Floor with two large windows. One of the best views in the whole range from Temple Bar to St. Paul’s: price 35 guineas. A few single seats one guinea each.’
A reminder that England is also the land of the hypocrite was provided by a pious Fleet Street householder who offered four front seats at £1 each to clergymen ‘upon condition that they appear in their surplises.’ The householder’s other seats were 40s., 30s., 15s. and 10s.
The there was the widowed lady who offered for sale ‘a Lock of Hair of the late Duke of Wellington… cut of the morning the Queen was crowned.’ Someone else offered ‘a waistcoat in good preservation, worn by his Grace some years back, which can be well authenticated as such.’
But the gem of the collection was a copy of ‘The Death of Napoleon’ alleged to have been torn up by the Duke and thrown by him from the carriage windows as he was riding through Kent. The pieces of the book were collected and put together by a person who saw the Duke tear it and throw the same away. It was offered to the highest bidder of over £35.

Evening Press,
10 March 1972

Andrew Marsh was a pseudonym of John O’Donovan (1921 – 1985), a Dublin playwright who wrote a weekly column about Ireland’s past entitled “Time Was” in the Evening Press during the 1960s and 1970s.

History, Ireland

1916 Pub Crawl

April 20, 2016 pier Leave a comment

There can hardly be a better way to celebrate the centenary of Dublin’s Easter Rising than by going on a pub crawl. Those who know me would say that’s typical of me, but they will have to admit that buildings with a connection to alcohol feature prominently in the story of the 1916 rebellion. From distilleries and breweries to hotels and pubs, Joyce’s puzzle of how to cross Dublin without passing one of these was even more difficult to solve in 1916 than when he wrote it in 1922, when many of these buildings had been destroyed in the fighting and some were never rebuilt.

For those who don’t know: 24th April of this year sees the 100th anniversay of Ireland’s uprising against British rule – but the country has already celebrated/commemorated this over the Easter weekend, since the fact that the Rising took place during Easter takes precedence over the actual calendar date. The good news is that we now get another opportunity to mark the occasion.

The Gravediggers in Glasnevin. Great pub, but not a 1916 qualifier. — The Gravediggers in Glasnevin. Great pub, but sadly not a 1916 qualifier.

Of course the idea of a 1916 pub crawl is probably not very original, but what I’ve found on the Interwebs so far seems to lack a certain level of authenticity. Many of the pubs that are mentioned in the context of the Easter Rising appear to have had very little to do with the events at the time. The fact that they are located near one of the rebellion’s flash points or are named after a 1916 hero hardly makes them qualify to be included in the roll of honour, at least in my opinion. The Gravediggers in Glasnevin for example, is without doubt one of Dublin’s finest pubs, located next door to the final resting place of countless heroes of that fateful Easter week. At the time, however, nothing much happened here at all, from what I have been able to find out.

So what makes a particular watering hole qualify as a genuine 1916 participant? I decided to draw up my own set of criteria:

Pint: The building need not necessarily be a pub, but you must be able to enjoy a pint of Guinness on the premises.
Story: There must be a story associated with the buillding that puts it at the heart of the action at Easter 1916.
Place: The list of premises must be representative of different areas in the city where fighting took place without over representing a particular hotspot.
Walk: Since it’s a pub crawl, it should be possible to complete the task on foot and without completely falling over if a pint is consumed at every stop.

That last point may be tricky for those who decide to follow the trail but are not seasoned pint drinkers — we will allow them to sneak in the odd glass instead. Even trickier is to come up with a list of establishments that match my own stringent criteria — and the result (so far) is a fairly limited number stretched out along a 7km walk. More crawl than pub, in other words. In any case, it is time to get down to business.

The Portobello

Facing the Grand Canal beside Portobello Bridge at the corner of South Richmond Street, the Portobello was known in 1916 as Davy’s Pub. This is where we start our pub crawl, just as some of the first activity on the morning of the Rising occurred in this area, with members of the Irish Volunteers and James Connolly’s Irish Citizen Army marching from the city towards Rathmines.

Among them was James Joyce – no, not the one of the puzzle, but a barman at Davy’s, who took the opportunity to resign from his job while taking over his employer’s pub in the name of the Irish Republic. The building soon came under fire from English troops who emerged from the nearby Portobello Barracks and proceeded to spray the building with machine gun fire. After two hours, the British noticed that nobody was shooting back and they presumed the occupiers had all been killed. However, with intimate knowledge of the building and its surroundings, Joyce had helped his comrades to escape through the cellar of the pub into adjoining laneways, having succeeded in their task to keep the English soldiers from advancing into the city centre – where the GPO and other buildings had now been taken over by the rebels. The photo gallery of the Bureau of Military History tells us:

Davy’s Public House was occupied by a small section of men under the charge of Lieut. Thomas Doyle. Their orders where to delay the British Forces approach to the City for a certain period and to fall back on Harcourt Street Station where the main body of their company were operating.

The nearby barracks where Francis Sheehy Skeffington was executed two days later also still exist, but have been renamed Cathal Brugha Barracks, after the 1916-and-beyond rebel commander.

Delahunt

Delahunt of Lower Camden Street is now a restaurant rather than a pub – but with a full bar licence it still qualifies to be included in the 1916 Pub Crawl. Until recently, this Victorian gem was home to Carville’s off licence, but the new owners have lovingly restored both the premises and its original name. Keep in mind that at the time of writing, the restaurant is closed on Sundays and Mondays.

As with the Portobello, the 1916 story of Delahunt’s features its own barman – this time a certain George Heuston of “E” Company, 2nd Battalion, Dublin Brigade, Irish Volunteers. According to irishmedals.org:

Born on the 17th of August 1892 died on the 28th of October 1962 aged 23 years old at the time of the Rising. He was employed as a Shop Assistant in Delahunt’s, Camden Street, Dublin. He fought in the Delahunt’s Public House, Camden Street and Jacob’s Biscuit Factory, Bishop Street areas. George Heuston escaped from capture following his participation in the 1916 Easter Rising.

The same source (irishmedals.org) mentions John Brien (23) and Francis Brady (19) as two other young volunteers out of a total of six who occupied Delahunt’s until it was surrounded by British soldiers on 27th April.

The Swan

I have to admit that I’m not entirely convinced of the accuracy of the 1916 story associated with the Swan. There are plenty of websites that all refer to the same anecdote — a witness statement by Michael Molloy, one of the printers of the legendary Proclamation of the Irish Republic:

At 9 o’clock on Easter Monday night we were withdrawn from outpost duty in the block of houses to Jacob’s biscuit factory. We were posted to different positions all over the factory covering approaches along Bishop Street and the entrance to Bride Street which runs alongside Jacobs and Remond’s Hill. Orders were also given that we were to burrow through from Jacob’s to a public house at the corner facing Aungier Street. We had two masons in our party and the burrowing was made easy. Strict instructions were given that no Volunteer was to take any drink from the public house. And although I am not a drinking man myself I must say that this order was strictly obeyed.

Great story – but the problem is, it doesn’t mention the Swan by name, nor does the Swan’s website mention the story. Also, one would hardly burrow across a street, especially where theSwan faces Whitefriars Church and not the old Jacob’s Factory (now DIT). Still, it’s a classic pub and I haven’t yet found proof that it is not in fact related to Michael Molloy’s statement.

The Tap

Our next stop, at the junction of North King Street and Church Street, was called Reilly’s in 1916. Today, The Tap is unlikely to win the Pub of the Year Award, but at €4 a pint we won’t complain. There isn’t much to remind us about what went on around this area, but rest assured that this is a good place to reflect on the events of a hundred years ago. (Incidentally, there is a plaque beside the entrance commemorating the capture of Kevin Barry in the War of Independence.)

Fighting in the area around this strategically located pub was so intense that it gained the nickname “Reilly’s Fort”. Sean Cody of “G” Company, 1st Battalion, Dublin Brigade, describes the dramatic events in his witness statement:

It's no beauty, but the history of this place is something else. — It’s no beauty, but the history of this place is something else.

On Thursday the British advanced from Bolton St. up North King St. firing from all directions, and severe fighting was taking place at the barricade near Reilly’s public house which held Lieutenant Shouldice’s men, and immediately north of this post we of “G” Company and others were burrowing our way through party walls of houses to come nearer to the junction of North King St. and Church St. We pushed out windows and under the shining example and command of Paddy Holohan kept up a terrific fire on the barricade through which the British were advancing. On several occasions there was a temporary cease fire shouted by Paddy Holohan to allow the British to remove their dead and wounded.

Later that Friday the British had manned the barricade but were driven off by our concentrated fire, in which the Howth Mauser rifles did great work, and the British suffered many casualties in dead and wounded and left behind a number of rifles which were quickly collected and taken into Reilly’s pub (Fort).

By now we were cut off and after a consultation between ourselves we decided to fight on. At this time the British were in possession of Reilly’s Fort, practically next door to our position. We could hear revolver shots in the Fort and as is now known the British shot a number of people who were found in the Fort, all of whom had no connection with the Volunteers or the fighting.

The events referred to in that last paragraph became know as the North King Street Massacre and is a particularly grim reminder of the horrors of war.

The Oval

Our visit to the Oval is representative of so many pubs destroyed (along with everything else) in the 1916 Rising. Many were never rebuilt, have since changed names or are no longer pubs. Owned by a JohnJ. Egan at the time of the Rising, the Oval was popular with members of the Irish Citizen Army and the Irish Volunteers, who would pop in for a pint while waiting for their trams. Its proximity to the GPO meant that its fate was pretty much sealed as the fighting intensified during that Easter week.

Eventually things came to a catastrophic head when the HMS Helga sailed up the Liffey and started shelling the GPO and surrounding buildings — the Oval was completely destroyed. When the dust settled, John Egan rebuilt his pub and the building where we now enjoy our pint opened its doors once again in 1922.

Wynn’s Hotel

There is little doubt as to which side of the conflict the owners of Wynn’s Hotel were on in 1916. The hotel is now famous as the birthplace of the Irish Volunteers, who held their inaugural meeting here in November 1913 (four of those who attended —Padraig Pearse, The O’Rahilly, Sean MacDiarmada and Eamonn Ceannt— lost their lives in 1916), followed by the founding meeting of Cumann na mBan in April 1914. Two brass plaques commemorating these events can be seen in the building’s Saints & Scholars Bar.

When the GPO was taken over by the rebels on Easter Sunday 1916 and fighting got worse during the days that followed, the hotel found itself in a no man’s land of sniper fire and bombardments. The hotel’s website tells this story:

Wynn’s was set on fire by incendiary bullets. A rebel volunteer on the roof of the GPO later recalled how he saw men and women “sitting in the windows of Wynn’s Hotel in Lwr Abbey St, watching the battle as from a theatre seat”. Then, what began as entertainment for the guests turned dangerous. Under bombardment from British artillery, Wynn’s caught fire, the fire spread from the barricade to the timber facings of the hotel and when guest and staff lives were threatened, they left the hotel under the protection of a makeshift white flag. As Dublin was under siege, fire fighters were unable to save the hotel and Wynn’s was burned to the ground. It took 10 years for the gutted Hotel to reopen.

In his witness statement, Monsignor Curran tells us how on the Thursday, the fourth day of the Rising,

Fr. John O’Reilly had a narrow escape attending a Volunteer brought into Wynn’s Hotel.

All that remained of the hotel at the end of Easter week was an empty shell, gutted by the raging fires that destroyed most of Dublin’s city centre.

Shelbourne Hotel

The distinguished Shelbourne Hotel on St. Stephen’s Green ended up taking quite a different side on the day of the Rising, although it wasn’t given much of a choice. As Michael Mallin and his men and women of the Citizen Army occupied St. Stephen’s Green, they proceeded to build barricades and dig trenches, soon joined by Countess Markievicz. They took over the College of Surgeons on the Green’s west side, but left the Shelbourne alone.

This provided the British with a perfect opportunity to take on the rebels, and a certain Captain Andrews was in charge of the 40 soldiers who positioned themselves in the windows of the Shelbourne and started firing on the rebels. Later during the week, they positioned a machine gun on the roof and sprayed the College of Surgeons with bullets.

One of the more endearing stories of Rising relates to the Shelbourne’s “front garden” and can be found in the newsletter of the DSPCA:

Note the “waterfowl” in the pond.

Nevertheless, things weren’t so bad for the park’s feathered inhabitants. The Times History of the War recorded that St Stephen’s Green “was well stocked with waterfowl, and the keeper, who remained inside all the time, reported that his charges were well looked after and fed by him, and were very little perturbed by the bullets flying over their heads”. The park-keeper’s name was James Kearney – every day he would enter the Green to feed the ducks, and every day the opposing sides would cease firing to allow him to do so.

The Schoolhouse

At the time of the Rising, the Schoolhouse on Northumberland Road was in fact — you’ll never guess — a school. We can enjoy a pint in the last stop on our 1916 pub crawl in this silent witness of the greatest slaughter of British troops during Easter week — at the Battle of Mount Street Bridge.

On Easter Monday the school was taken over by four Volunteers who started barricading windows and doors. On Tuesday, however, it was decided that the building was of little strategic value and its occupiers left to join de Valera in Boland’s Bakery further up the road. A few other buildings around Mount Street Bridge were occupied by only a handful of Volunteers when, on Wednesday, more than 1,000 soldiers of the Sherwood Foresters Regiment came marching parade-style from Kingstown Harbour (Dun Laoghaire), some in the belief that they had landed in France.

When they arrived at Mount Street Bridge they first focused their attention on the empty schoolhouse. In a bizarre display of an antiquated military tactic of repeated frontal assault against the rebels’ guerilla ambush that followed, 30 British soldiers were killed and more than 200 wounded – compared to 4 deaths on the rebels’ side. Volunteer William Christian was in the parochial hall across from the schoolhouse and describes what happened:

…because of our favourable position we could see what was taking place around whilst being safely out of the line of firing. As the British troops drew nearer, the bullets fell on the roof of the school opposite like a shower of hail. Excitement gripped us and we braced ourselves for the encounter. Because of our position we had to wait until the British troops actually passed us before we could fire on them; and then they came — hundreds and hundreds of them — stretching right across the road — and so intent were they in gaining their objective — the capture of Clanwilliam House — they completely overlooked our post. We opened fire and men fell like ninnypins.

And so we’ve reached the finish line of our 1916 Pub Crawl, ending up once again on the banks of the Grand Canal. If anyone has any suggestions for pubs that qualify for inclusion (remember, Pint, Story, Place and Walk), I’m all ears.

Happy birthday, Ireland.

Sources

1916 Easter Rising Coach Tour
The Battle of Mount Street Bridge Project
Bureau of Military History
Come Here to Me
DSPCA
irishmedals.org
The Journal
The Oval Bar
An Phoblacht
Wikipedia
Wynn’s Hotel

History

The Chicken, The Egg, or Napoleon

June 8, 2015 pier 1 Comment

Apart from the fact that they were both famous monarchs, you wouldn’t think that Napoleon Bonaparte as Emperor of the French had a lot in common with England’s King George I — especially when you consider that George I (1660-1727) died more than 40 years before the birth of Napoleon (1769-1821). But as it turns out, they share an experience that involves… eggs.

After he escaped from Elba, Napoleon made his way towards Paris through the Haute-Provence. When he came to the hamlet of La Clappe on the morning of 4th March 1815, he decided to take a break, and was served two eggs and a bottle of wine by a local innkeeper. When presented with the bill, Napoleon exclaimed, “Eggs must be very scarce around here!” — “No, eggs aren’t scarce,” the innkeeper replied, “but emperors are.”¹

This story pops up in various reports about Napoleon’s return from Elba and it appears that La Clappe is the universally agreed location of the event. There is another version however, reported by Alain Pigeard in Le Souvenir Napoléonien,² in an article about Napoleon’s visits over various years to the Bourgogne area of France. The timing of the story is similar in that it deals with the emperor’s return from Elba, but in this case it is said to have taken place in the town of Tournus on 14th March. The innkeeper justifies the inflated price for a single egg with a smile and the remark, “that isn’t too expensive, I don’t have the honour to serve the Emperor every day.”

Since it seems unlikely that two people share the same opportunity to demonstrate their wittiness in front of such a distinguished guest within 10 days and more than 400km apart, I thought I’d try and find the truth behind the legend. It seemed that Uncle Google would quickly tell me if there were other sources who place Napoleon in Tournus while feasting on his overpriced egg. And so I did come across more egg stories — with a twist.

A French version of the myth of the innkeeper with the egg appears in a number of publications, often as part of a language course — in a column entitled Hablo Francais in a Californian newspaper³ from 1931 for example, as well as the book French Conversation and Composition by Henry Vincent Wann⁴ from the 1920s.

None of these (red top pun alert) eggspensive eggnecdotes make mention of Tournus as the location, but what’s more, they don’t even mention Napoleon. Instead, the protagonist is England’s King George II (1683-1760), who consumed his eggs about half a century prior to the Emperor of the French. The language exercise appears under the heading L’occasion fait le larron — opportunity makes the thief.

More recently, we find the story in Bartlett’s Book of Anecdotes,⁵ originally published in 1985 (revised in 2000). Here, the event is attributed to George III (1738-1820), a contemporary of Napoleon’s — but other than that, it’s a literal translation of the earlier French versions:

The keeper of a village inn at which King George stopped for a brief meal served him an egg, for which he charged a guinea. His Majesty smiled and commented, “Eggs must be very scarce around here.” “Oh, no, sire,” said the innkeeper, “it is kings that are scarce.”
GEORGE III (1738–1820), king of Great Britain and Ireland (1760–1820).

In any case, it appears that Napoleon’s experience in La Clappe (with Tournus ruled out through lack of evidence) has in fact been recycled from an earlier — and similarly unlikely — anecdote involving a king called George. What’s interesting is that the most recent version links it to George III, whereas the older French version — that clearly served as the source — talks about George II. But it gets better.

There are even older publications where the innkeeper presents his costly egg, and once again we see a corresponding shift in regal generations — all the way back to King George I this time, while on a visit in Holland. One publication is the Encyclopédiana, recueil d’anecdotes anciennes, modernes et contemporaines⁶ from 1848 that places King George I in Alkemaer (Alkmaar), while a language tutor⁷ from 1838 reports the setting as Helvoetsluys (Hellevoetsluis). Same innkeeper, same egg, same exorbitant price.

The final nail in the coffin of the Napoleon-and-the-Egg legend comes in the form of L’Improvisateur Français⁸, published during the Emperor’s own reign in 1805 — ten years before he would stop off in La Clappe. This book appears to be a precursor of the Encyclopédiana and displays the story of George I in Alkmaar in all its glory (my translation):

George I, King of England, who had during his travels to Holland experienced several times how expensive things were, was determined not to enter a single inn in this country. So one day as he passed Alkemaer, he stopped at the door of “The Sheep”, while the horses of his carriage were changed, and ordered three fresh eggs. The monarch had no sooner eaten them or he asked the price. Two hundred florins, the innkeeper replied. “What!” George cried, astonished, “two hundred florins! eggs must be very rare in Alkemaer?” “Oh! No,” replied the innkeeper, “eggs are not rare; but kings are not very common here.”

After reading this, not even the most fervent supporters of Napoleonic legend can uphold the authenticity of La Clappe’s inkeeper anecdote. The only question that remains is, when did the myth first get transferred from George to Napoleon? To find an answer, it’s a case of tracing “the source of the source” several times over, insofar as anecdotes and legends mention their source to begin with. Thanks to a well-referenced article in the History of the Alps⁹ from 2001 by Régis Bertrand, I’d like to think that I’ve come close enough to identifying the culprit: a certain monsieur Bonnet Denis.

The Chapel in La Clappe. Photograph © Hans Sterkendriec, Panoramio — The Chapel in La Clappe. Photograph © Hans Sterkendries, Panoramio

The Annales des Basses-Alpes¹⁰ was a journal published by the Société scientifique et littéraire des Basses-Alpes in Digne. Its June, 1915 edition was dedicated to Napoleon’s return from Elba and the Hundred Days on the occasion of the first centenary of the event — and of course the location of our egg legend, La Clappe, is right in the heart of the Basses-Alpes, which is now the Department of Alpes-de-Haute-Provence.

On page 239 of this journal the account reaches the point where Napoleon sits himself down at La Clappe and the innkeeper serves him the two eggs and the bottle of wine — Chabrières, to be precise. A footnote then provides the juicy details that ultimately led me on this quest (again, my translation):

We owe some information about this event to monsieur Bonnet Denis. His father, who was still young at the time, had seen the emperor and knew the details of the event — details that have been recounted countless times on long winter evenings. According to him, when it came to paying for the lunch, Napoleon found that he was charged 20 francs for the eggs. — Eggs must be very rare here! The emperor is said to have cried. — No, eggs aren’t, but emperors are! the innkeeper is said to have replied. — We put the story here for what it’s worth. Another common version in the area has the inkeeper charging the emperor 300 francs for the same eggs.

I strongly suspect that monsieur Bonnet Denis Sr. had a copy of L’Improvisateur Français sitting on his bookshelf. His family appears to have managed to recycle an old anecdote and preserve it for future generations, but I would take his honesty like I take my eggs — with more than a grain of salt.

Notes

Let’s Trail Napoleon’s Hundred Days by Pier Kuipers (yep, that’s me), Amazon 2014
Napoléon Bonaparte en Bourgogne by Alain Pigeard, www.souvenirnapoleonien.org, retrieved June 2015
The Samojac, Santa Monica Junior College newspaper, 21 October 1931
French Conversation and Composition by Harry Vincent Wann, 1920
Bartlett’s Book of Anecdotes by Clifton Fadiman, Andre Bernard. Hachette UK, 1985
Encyclopédiana, recueil d’anecdotes anciennes, modernes et contemporaines. Paulin, Libraire-Éditeur, Paris, 1843
Méthode pratique: ou, L’art d’apprendre le français by L.A. Coupelier. Smith and Elder, London, 1838.
L’improvisateur français, Volume 14 – by Sallentin. Goujon et Fils, Paris, 1805
L'”invention” de la Haute-Provence, jalons pour une recherche: l’épisode napoléonien by Régis Bertrand, Histoire des Alpes Vol. 6, 2001
Annales des Basses-Alpes, Bulletin Trimestriel de la Société scientifique et littéraire des Basses-Alpes; Imprimerie Chaspoul, Digne, 1915

History

The Birth of a Book

May 14, 2014 pier 7 Comments

On a Saturday morning in February 2013 I was listening to Marian Finucane on RTE Radio 1. She was talking to Fiona O’Doherty who explained her plans for a new publishing venture involving travel guides that “follow in the paths of great lives”, Let’s Trail. Having written the first guide herself about the life of Caravaggio, following his trail around Italy, Sicily and Malta, Fiona was now looking for authors who would be willing to contribute an issue to the series about their favourite famous person and their travels.

With vague memories of New Year’s resolutions still lingering, I had just read “6 Harsh Truths That Will Make You a Better Person” by David Wong on cracked.com. This inspiring get-up-off-your-arse rant was enough to make me decide to contact Fiona, and so I sent her an email:

Dear Fiona,

I was listening to the Marian Finucane show this morning and heard your piece on letstrail.com. Very interesting idea, and I see that you are looking for people to get involved.

I would love to offer my services, assuming the idea is taking hold and my contribution is worthy of the concept. Let me explain what I would like to add to the Let’s Trail series :-)

From a young age I have been fascinated with the life and times of Napoleon and the (military) history that surrounds him – I read a lot about the Napoleonic wars, etc. Recently I blogged about the most cataclysmic event in Napoleon’s life (and not just his), the battle of Waterloo.

To write a Let’s Trail issue about Napoleon would be a monumental task – the man is associated with almost every place in Europe. But I would like to think that it’s perfect timing to publish a travel guide-style thing as per your project, about “Napoleon and the Hundred Days” – referring to the time leading up to the battle of Waterloo.

In June 2015 it will be the 200th anniversary of the Battle and there will be an enormous interest in that event and the locations involved.

Napoleon escaped from the Island of Elba off the coast of Tuscany and landed near Cannes. He travelled from there in the direction of Paris, increasingly gaining support, finally arriving triumphantly in Paris as King Louis fled. From Paris he marched North to meet the threat of Wellington and his Allied troops, culminating in the famous battle.

Anway, you get the idea – my proposal for a Let’s Trail issue would coincide with the anniversary of a very well-known historic event, I have a great interest in the story, and it’s a trip that people can actually make – and see the landmarks that still survive.

Let me know what you think and I’ll be happy to provide more information if needed.

Thankfully, Fiona was delighted with my suggestion and we had our first author-agent meeting in the beginning of March in my local pub, the Goat. Her enthusiasm was infectuous, but she made it clear that the main purpose of the Let’s Trail project was to have fun doing it. As a clinical psychologist, it wasn’t her professional experience that fuelled Fiona’s foray into the world of publishing, but rather a desire to start something new. That was fine by me, and my new agent started by providing me with a suggested structure that would be common to all issues in the Let’s Trail series.

In the case of Napoleon’s Hundred Days, creating the initial timeline and list of places of interest along the trail wasn’t all that difficult. I already had a number of anecdotes in my head, but needed accurate references and dates to build a proper story. And of course the Trail needed a context – Fiona proposed that an introduction would outline the events leading up the Hundred Days, so that’s pretty much the story of Napoleon’s entire life and times.

From March 2013 onwards, there wasn’t a single book about Napoleon left in Dundrum’s Carnegie Library – I had borrowed them all. More books were borrowed from other libraries (much-quoted David Chandler’s work on the Hundred Days came from Waterford), from my historian brother who introduced me to all things Napoleonic, and bought on Amazon.

Of course Google also provided a wealth of information, and the number of websites dedicated to Napoleonic history is staggering. Judging by the activity and passion on various discussion forums, you would think that Napoleon is actually a current public figure.

Even the notoriously unreliable Wikipedia has its place in early research – and the folks at Harvard should know. However, I quickly discovered two things about Wikipedia: its quoted sources are often relatively recent and rely on earlier references themselves, and different language versions of the online encyclopedia are not mere translations, but provide an entirely different set of articles. Take for example the Wikipedia page for La Belle Alliance: the French version provides far more information than the English one — and some topics may exist only in one language. I made some corrections to Wikipedia entries myself, and although I made these in good faith, they have gone unchallenged and I’m no historian – underlining the fact that Wikipedia can never be an authoritative source for anything.

More than half of each page of Rossigneux's "Un Étape de Napoléon 1er" is taken up by footnotes — More than half of each page of Rossigneux’s “Une Étape de Napoléon 1er” is taken up by endless footnotes

So I dusted off my French and started reading – both online and print. I became intrigued by the inner workings of references – if I pull a particular bit of information from Chandler, I may find that he actually got it from Guedalla, etc. I read some works from the early 1900s to get closer to the source, and then I discovered that some of the historical writings from these days were so chock-full of references that their stories became almost unreadable.

A subject like Napoleon and Waterloo has the added complication of legend and political ambiguity. Many so-called historical factoids have their origin in the writings of Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas and others, and the celebration of the Allied victory at Waterloo is still viewed in a different light by the French, even today.

I did my best to find at least two different printed (as supposed to online) references for the historical data in the text of my emerging book. Plans to include footnotes with sources were abandoned in the spirit of a relatively lighthearted travel guide, however. When it came to references about locations, admission prices and opening hours (where applicable) of the points of interest, the web is of course indispensible – and Google Streetview allowed me to visit parts of the trail I have yet to see for myself. Wikimapia is a site with sometimes far more detailed (crowd sourced) information and sharper satellite photographs than Google Maps, and allowed me to pinpoint the location of the ruins of the Chateau de Broundet near Seranon where Napoleon spent the night on his way back from Elba — it wasn’t in ruins then, of course.

Maison Bertrand - before and after — Maison Bertrand – before and after

I found an old photograph of the Maison Bertrand in Pont-sur-Yonne, another one of Napoleon’s stops on the Trail. When Google Streetview wasn’t able to show me the house, madame Nathalie Loyer at the local tourist office kindly took a photograph of the empty spot where it once stood.

Commuting to work, I spend at least three hours a day on public transport. Painful as that may be, in this case it provided me with the opportunity to google, read and write to my heart’s content. All of the main text of Let’s Trail Napoleon’s Hundred Days was typed on an iPhone; only the final formatting, the maps and the index were produced on a laptop.

The book finally started taking shape at the beginning of 2014. For the introduction, I managed to summarise Napoleon’s life in less than 5,000 words – but Fiona felt that this was too long to be at the start of a travel guide – targeted readers would want to get to the point. She suggested we move it to an appendix, and she was looking for a much shorter overview of the Trail to replace it as the introduction. Although I could see her point, I was reluctant at first, because my story of Napoleon’s life introduced characters that featured later on in the Trail. We compromised by including a Dramatis Personae at the start, so that the main characters would be ready for use whenever they popped up.

Look! It's a real book! — Look! It’s a real book!

Twelve months after our first meeting, Fiona and I met once again in the Goat, where she handed me the first printed proof of Let’s Trail Napoleon’s Hundred Days. The title still had the number “100” rather than the spelled-out word, which is one the things we tweaked before the book was finally published on Amazon in April.

It’s been a pleasure to work on something tangible, and full credit goes to Fiona for motivating me and for taking on the publisher’s role with Amazon. Without her, the idea of writing a book would have remained just that. And of course, like any real book, it has a dedication.

For my mother, who brought us on our first trip to Waterloo, way back when…

Let’s Trail Napoleon’s Hundred Days is available on Amazon in paperback and Kindle.

History, Holland, Human Experience

Motherlode

May 10, 2014 pier 2 Comments

Seventy-four years ago today, Holland witnessed the outbreak of World War II. I posted about this topic before, in a Letter From my Grandparents to my Mother. That post was spotted by Carolyne van der Meer from Canada, who was in the middle of writing a book about the Dutch experience during that dark period. She asked my permission to use my post – or rather my grandparents’ letter – as a source for her book – a request I could hardly refuse.

Carolyne’s book was published in January of this year under the title Motherlode, is well worth a read, and available on Amazon. I’m proud to quote the poem that was inspired by my grandparents’ letter:

Today, margarine fell from Allied airplanes.
Last week, we got
one hundred grams of oil and two kilograms of barley flakes
from the Janssens,
a tin of milk
from the Vissers, and
half a loaf of dark bread
from the Altenas.
Just last night,
Marinus brought
two kilograms of barley
and Cas another
kilogram of oatmeal.
Bitter when we mix it
but we get a good-sized pancake.
With the borrowed milk,
we got to have a nice cup
of coffee substitute
last Sunday.

There’s been an outbreak
of typhus,
some suffer from
hunger edema.
But us,
we are managing.

History

Branded

February 12, 2013 pier 1 Comment

Anyone who has been to an Irish cinema in recent years — and who managed to get there before the movie had started — will be familiar with the image of a red hot poker in the shape of a star being pulled from the flames and thrust at the viewers. Carlton Screen Advertising announces the start of the commercials that precede the movie we came to see, using imagery that harks back to the days when cattle were branded with these unpleasant instruments to identify their owners.

The term “brand” stems from the old Norse and German word for “fire” or “burn”. The Dutch for a “branding iron” like the Carlton one is “brandmerk” — and no, the Dutch do not “merk” their clothes. The English language refers to car makes as “marques” instead of “brands”, whereas the Dutch word for a “brand” is “merk”, when we talk about consumer goods. You gotta love etymology.

In any case, it’s clear that the concept of a brand has its origins in a rather primitive and cruel custom. We now live in a world surrounded by innumerable consumer brands, where the price we pay for one product or another varies greatly depending on the label attached to it — even if the items themselves are identical. After all, a 2 litre bottle of Avonmore Milk is not so much better than Linwood’s which sells for more than 1 euro less; and that’s just for starters.

Cosmetics, clothes, cleaning products, cars and thousands of other things not necessarily beginning with C are all available with different logos attached to them. Each comes with a promise of quality, value, style, power and even happiness — whatever it is that will convince us to by this brand rather than that one.

Sometime in the early eighties I was privileged enough to take a trip to Soviet Russia with my best friend René. We were amazed by the omnipresent avalanche of party propaganda, with Lenin staring at us from every public surface, encouraging us to do whatever it was that good communists were supposed to do in those days. How terrible, that those poor Russians were exposed to such relentless indoctrination.

Upon our return to the West however, the billboards and neon signs of our decadent capitalist society had taken on a slightly different feel. I wondered if Lenin was all that different from Lancôme or Lexus in the way they insist we absorb their message without thinking.

Many brand names have their origin in small localised beginnings, often taking the names of their founders or original owners. This can become an issue when the brand grows and crosses borders, and a perfectly normal Friesian name such as Douwe Egberts becomes a tongue twister for English speaking consumers – or airplane manufacter Fokker raises eyebrows. Does anyone really know how to pronounce Daewoo or Hyundai? And do you say Nohkia or Nokkia? Everyone I’ve ever heard talking about our German friend Lidl pronounces the name as an Americanised version of something small — only the voiceovers in the commercials talk about “Leeeedle”.

To make brand names shorter, easier to pronounce and more recognisable, they can just be abbreviated. The Swedish “Hennes & Mauritz” becomes H&M, “Bayerische Motoren Werke” becomes BMW, “Coöperatieve Centrale Raiffeisen-Boerenleenbank” becomes Rabobank, “His Master’s Voice” becomes HMV — and then disappears altogether. And of course there’s the Dutch “Door Eendrachtig Samenwerken Profiteren Allen Regelmatig” which first became DE SPAR and eventually just SPAR — Dutch for “spruce”, which explains the tree in their logo.

Not easy to find this one – http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055974190

Brands often fight among each other, and this gets worse as more and more brands spill across borders around the world. In 1990, AIB was still called Allied Irish Bank and its logo was a circle with a three-pointed star. “Hey, that’s ours!” said Mercedes, pointing to their own star. “No it isn’t,” said the bank, “we got there first. Our star is an ancient Celtic symbol and we’re keeping it.” Only they didn’t — later that year they became AIB Bank (which, strangely, stands for Allied Irish Bank Bank) and dropped the star in favour of an equally ancient Celtic boat.

Should Nazi Germany have prevailed, as fictionalised in Fatherland by Robert Harris, I’m sure that the regime would have had a problem with Swastika Laundries in Ballsbridge. Its chimney emblazoned with this uncomfortable symbol still towered over the Shelbourne Road in 1986.

Powerful symbols are a surefire way to increase awareness of a brand, not only across international borders, but crossing language and even literacy barriers as well. It is said that the McDonalds “Golden Arches” logo is recognised by more people worldwide than the Christian symbol of the cross. Interestingly, Christianity went through its own rebranding exercise in the 2nd century A.D. when the cross replaced the fish they had adopted as their logo initially.

We recognise brands by their shape and colour even if their name is different in other countries or if it changes for some reason — Snickers was Marathon, HB is Ola, Bulmers is Magners, Cif was Jif and so on. Changing a brand identity can have disastrous consequences (for the brand owner’s pockets, that is) or even cause a public outcry — Kelloggs were forced to drop the name “Choco Crispies” and revert back to “Coco Pops”.

Some brands have become so engrained in our society that their names have come to replace the name of the product itself. Hoover is of course a classic example that has even become a verb — so you cannot dyson the house with a Hoover, but it’s OK to hoover the house with a Dyson. Sellotape is the name given to all brands of sticky tape, but not if you live in America, because over there they call it Scotch tape. And a JCB (bet you didn’t know that stands for Joseph Cyril Bamford) is any big yellow digger holding up the bypass.

The movie industry gets funding for its films from brand owners who are queueing up to make sure that their products are clearly visible in high profile productions. Every car manufacturer dreams of James Bond choosing one of their models for that amazing car chase, and are willing to pay handsomly for the privilege.

But it gets really interesting when a movie portrays the brand in a less flattering way — such was the experience of Budweiser when Denzel Washington was shown to be too fond of their brew. Copyright law protects brands from being hijacked by other companies, but it does not give brand owners the right to decide how their products are “placed”. However, my friend David Slater tells me that “Abercrombie and Fitch pay the producers of ‘Jersey Shore’ so that the actors DON’T wear their clothes”.

When the last commercial has screened, just before the movie starts, the glowing star of the Carlton branding iron pops up once more before it fades into darkness. Sic transit gloria mundi.

History, Holland

The Windmill

January 24, 2013 pier 2 Comments

Marsummer-Molen — The windmill near Marssum

One of the things that happen when you live abroad for a considerable length of time, is that you begin to see your native country through the eyes of a tourist. When going on a visit back home, you do things you would never do when you were still living there. Parisians don’t climb the Eiffel Tower.

I remember my uncle Meinte coming over from the US to visit us when I was still living in Rotterdam. He had been based in Springfield, Massachusetts, since the 1950s and spoke Dutch with a distinct American accent. One of the things he wanted to do during his stay in Holland was to go and see the “bollenstreek” — the famous endless fields of tulips in the West of the country. It struck me as strange that anyone who is from Holland would want to go and see something so blatantly touristy.

Although I have yet to visit the bollenstreek, I have in fact fallen in the homecomer’s tourist trap on several occasions — but this is not a Bad Thing. Like uncle Meinte before me, I have discovered the joys of being presented with experiences that are beneath our fellow country men and women, who assume they know all there is to know about our native land just because they live there.

Recently our little Irish family were driving through the wide open landscape of the Friesland province, my ancestral home in the northernmost part of the Netherlands. As we passed a lone wind turbine, my son remarked how he would like to see “a real windmill” sometime. No sooner had he said that, than his wish came true. We spotted an old fashioned — “real” —windmill some distance from the main road. Unlike the many other windmills we had spotted in the Dutch landscape over the years, this one was actually working, its blades rotating with surprising speed.

We turned off the main road and headed for the windmill, which turned out to be located outside the tiny village of Marssum. There was no big sign, car park or interprative centre — just a footpath hidden between a few houses, leading up to the mill. We parked the car and strolled up the path, which led past a field the size of a football pitch, with floodlights in the centre and deliberately submerged under water — in anticipation of the frost that would turn this setup into a fabulous public skating ring.

A group of men stood in front of the windmill, chatting in their native Friesian language. One of them asked us if we would like a tour — free and for nothing, the mill is operated by volunteers from one of the associations whose members look after these striking monuments.

Since the entrance to the mill was blocked by the swishing blades that almost touched the ground (categorising this type of mill as a “ground sailer”), the millner — our guide — first had to stop the mill by applying some sort of handbrake at the back of the building. A mill will always have two entrances on opposite sides, just in case the position of the blades blocks one of them and stopping the mill is not desirable.

Our mill was one of those classic types you see on Dutch picture postcards, a thatched octagonal construction with four white blades – a so-called “smock mill”. The head of the mill can be rotated a full 360 degrees to position the blades facing the wind, whichever direction it may come from.

The blades themselves are usually fitted with canvas sails, stretched across the wooden frame only when the mill is operational — and like on a sailing ship, sail cover is increased or decreased to suit the strength of the wind. This is of course a laborious process, requiring the mill to be stopped as the sail on each blade is adjusted. The windmill in Marssum is different — its blades are fitted with so-called “patent sails” which are like wooden venetian blinds and can be opened and closed to suit the wind without having to stop the mill. Incidentally, the proper term for a windmill’s blades is actually just that – sails.

Dutch monuments are as easy to date as Irish cars – the year of construction is prominently displayed. I presumed we were looking at something that was built about 200 years ago, and was surprised to see “1903” painted across the top of the building. The millner explained that the mill is a water mill, built in an era when steam powered pumping stations — which have become historical monuments in their own right — had already become the norm in maintaining most polders in the Netherlands. At the time, the polder near Marssum was deemed too small to justify the construction of such a modern pumping station, and the local authorities decided on the cheaper option of a traditional windmill.

At the back of the mill, a large cast iron Archimedes’ screw constitutes the actual pumping mechanism powered by the mill. Its function is now of course obsolete, the water levels in the modern day province are maintained by hundreds of pumps and a network of drainage canals that divert the water back into the sea.

The actual mechanism of the windmill is simple but very impressive. The power of the rotating blades is transferred by gigantic wooden cogs to an equally massive axis that runs the full height of the building, where at the bottom it ultimately powers the Archimedes’ screw.

We were allowed to view all of the different levels inside the mill — where the first level can be booked as the registry office location for weddings. Just below the roof level, a string with large lumps of what looked like meat was hanging from the ceiling. Pork fat, as it turns out, is used to grease the wooden cogs — mineral oil would destroy the timber.

Another method to preserve the wooden mechanism is the use of different timbers for the pegs of the interlocking cogs. The difference in the density of the grain of different types of wood ensures the longevity of these components as they constantly rub against each other.

That the power of this massive wooden machine should not be underestimated was highlighted by the sign at the steep ladder leading into the attic, warning us of “mortal danger”. Even though the mill had been stopped, we were slightly apprehensive as we crawled around where the blades transfer the power of the wind to the mill’s vertical axis, inside a space that can itself rotate in any direction.

Our guide did not speak English, so I acted as interpreter for my family. Funny enough, he regularly broke into Friesian, which was obviously his native and preferred language. Lucky for me, my grandparents — born before the Marsummer Mill was built — endowed me with at least a passive command of that language by exclusively speaking Friesian to their grandchildren.

Now that global warming, rising sea levels and renewable energy have become hot topics, we may yet see the mill in Marssum and its colleagues around the Netherlands come out of retirement. In fact, if that famous quote from around the time the mill in Marssum was built — Everything that can be invented has been invented — had turned out to be accurate, we wouldn’t have ended up with that mess to begin with.

The Portobello

Delahunt

The Swan

The Tap

The Oval

Wynn’s Hotel

Shelbourne Hotel

The Schoolhouse

Sources

Notes

Musings of a Dutchman in Dublin