Story Winterswijk2007

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Ok, so this year things are going to be a bit quiet! We would only be meeting Oscar and Emiel at the show ground, Ann and I decided that we would spend longer in Holland and visit more places.

We decided to take the night boat over on Wednesday and then make our way down from the port, via a number of different ferries, around Rotterdam and slowly down to Winterswijk sight seeing on the way.

After the show, we planned to leave on the Sunday afternoon and travel up to Northern Holland and stay in that area for a few days. It was in the late 1980’s when we had last spent time here. Of course it would have to be Golden Tulip Hotels all the way!

So it was an early start away from The Hook van Holland and out onto the roads taking us around the port of Rotterdam to our first ferry across the Maas. My navigator had set herself a target to see how many ferries we could cross in a day and the first one just had to be the BIG one that Henk had introduced us to on our last trip. Its really impressive as the ferry crosses amongst large tankers and cargo ships even this early in the morning.

We meandered through the country roads, through scenery that is more, as we have been lead to believe here in England, what people expect in the low lands. The countryside is flat and criss-crossed with rivers and canals. Ann was taking us to Kinderdijk with its traditional windmills.

It was still fairly early and it seems we were the first to arrive in the car park. A slightly surly café owner slammed the open toilet door shut as we wander towards the café for our first cup of coffee of the day. Must have though we were after a free -! And where are all the windmills we expected to see? The morning is still a bit grey so we drink our coffee and decide to follow the signs to find them. More bikes outside for hire and the track leading away from the café are full of cyclists. We take our walking sticks and set off down the track.

A GOAT!! On a haystack in the middle of a canal? There are times when I wish we could understand a little more of the language.

As we walk further down the road we got our first sighting of the mills. Some of them date back to the 1700’s. It seems strange that in a country so flat, all these mills can be hiding because they certainly cannot be seen from the road as we entered the village.

It is so calm and peaceful here. The ideal start to a break away from the bench and all those tiny parts and wires.

We spent a long time in this beautiful place. It was not over warm but the sun did finally break through as we made our way back to Rover and resume our journey.

The next stop is Dordrecht

“Sandy will find these pictures of interest,” I think as we walk through the town and cross the many canals. The Dutch are very rich!! There must be thousands of Euros tied up here.

This is the ancient crane used to lift boats out of the water.

Walking through this town re-enforces our love of Holland. The day turned out warm and sunny. It never rains when Ann and I visit!!

Off we go again to find another ferry. This time it takes us into the Biesbosch, a wild marshy area that is very like our own fens here in Norfolk. There are many similarities between Norfolk and Holland but our fens do not have beaver!

A timely reminder just over the brow of a hill!

This is a wide piece of water and quite a number of cars seem to be using the ferry.

It’s a lovely day to be out on the water. For some reason Ann does not trust boats and me. It all goes back to a holiday in Scotland many years ago when we were camped by Loch Long, a tidal loch. We hired a boat for the day and spent the morning close to the shore. All was going well until we decided to

cross to the other side. Not a long way by any stretch of the imagination, just a few kilometres. We set off in high spirits. The two boys in the front, Ann in the stern and me rowing in the middle.

The current was running strongly in the middle of the loch but it was no problem and we were enjoying ourselves until I “caught a crab”, fell backwards off the seat and let go of the oars. They took off like a flash and left us sitting in a strong current running out to sea with no motive power. My name was mud as we drifted. Luckily we nudged a buoy in the centre of the channel and one of the boys grabbed a rope hanging from it. That gave us time to look round and weigh up our situation. All was not bad. At least we were not heading for the Americas as this loch opened up into the Atlantic.

Then a passing motorboat hailed us. The men had seen what happened and had chased our oars and recovered them. We were very grateful to them. It seems the person who hired out the boat had given us one with very worn rowlocks and no latch to hold in the oars. So that is why I am only allowed on boats when someone else is in charge. I keep telling Ann it did not help the people on the “Titanic”.

It is strange walking round the displays in the Biesbosch Museum as they are so like the ones we have in our local fens and marshes. The fenmen lived in this harsh environment in small huts and fished and shot the wild birds for food. Their lives must have been very painful in old age as the dampness used to bring on rheumatism and ague. Pain in their joints must have been a constant problem. Imagine lying in the bottom of a long narrow boat with a massive gun, waiting for a skein of duck to land in range. You had to get it just right because you only got one shot.

Spending hours with a rod and line, or up to your waist in water working nets was not an easy life.

Tools like the eel fork with its barbed tines and the scythes were all familiar to me. When you here people talking about how good the “Old Days” were they are looking back with rose coloured glasses. My father and his old boss used to tell stories of those days as we milked the cows in the mornings or evenings in the unheated milking sheds. This was in the 1950’s when I should have been at home studying or doing homework from school. They drilled into me that food production is a hard business and in the past it was a very short, hard life.

We marvelled at the skill of the people who wove the figures from the willow strands and the vast willow mats used for land reclamation. These skills are being taught to children at the Ecotec Centre in Swaffham near our home. There they are shown how to weave shelters from the living willow and allowing them to grow.

Tired and happy after our first day in Holland we drive to our first hotel in Zoltbomel. We have taken a meandering route but so what, we are on holiday.

Friday dawns bright and windy. Tonight we will be in Winterwijk but first we will visit Nijmegen. This was where my father spent some time and he always spoke of it so it has become a bit of a pilgrimage. We find a rooftop car park after a trip down a street that was being dug up! This was to become a recurring theme on this holiday!

We visited the shopping centre here and marvelled at one large store with its vast range of take away salads, pizzas and other goodies. We put on weight just looking!! Its really impressive how the new areas have been blended in to the old buildings. We even see familiar names on some of the big stores like C and A and Marks and Spencer.

Leaving Nijmegen we made our way to Winterswijk. On one of the roads we see a vast cloud of smoke approaching, it is a “Big A”, the huge spreading machine that is now part of the Agco empire. This one is simply tearing along leaving a vast cloud of black diesel smoke behind it. The smoke blanks out our carriage way and rolls across the fields. It is worse than a Power Major pulling hard with the excess fuel button jammed in. We expected, any minute, to see a police car rushing after him but he disappeared into the distance in that black cloud.

The hotel at Winterwijk is just as fine as it was last year and on Saturday morning Oscar arrives to go with us to Meddo. After a leisurely cup of tea and a chat we set off for the showground. It is another lovely day, not quite as hot as last year. Oscar’s eyes light up as we get onto the field as the first thing we see is this

and then this

I have a feeling that he would like to take both home with him.

The Meddo Show is very relaxed on Saturdays and we wander round looking at all the tractors and machinery on view. I was amazed at the variations in the models. International is a case in point, as they seem to have made a different model for every day of the week.

All have different names and different engines or controls. The tractor parts sales must be a store-mans nightmare. I spot one with a familiar piece of equipment on the back. A crop sprayer made by one of the companies that I still work for.

Oscar liked the look of this one. He said it was a “proper” tractor with lots of really big levers to pull.

Looks a bit like driving a railway signalling box to me but perhaps that is why Oscar likes it. It reminds him of his first love. Trains.

I was impressed by the six cylinder Majors. The sump must have been built especially for them. I think it was a Ford dealer in France who converted a number of tractors to the six-cylinder 590E truck engine to give them more PTO hp. The same dealer replaced the 5000 engines in later years and this was the idea for the Ford 8100. The 8100 were actually built by County Commercial Cars at Fleet in Hampshire, England for Ford.

In the afternoon we found Emiel and his father who warmly welcome us to their exhibition and we made our way over to the beer tent. I have brought a couple of books with me on ploughs to show Jan who we met last year and who worked for a Ransomes dealer in Holland but he did not come this year. However Emiel’s father found them very interesting.

Much refreshed, we made our way to some of the other exhibits. One that catches our eyes is the BIG Eicher. I have only seen little ones pottering around the field of Austria but here is a big beast.

Unfortunately the owner was not interested in talking to us about the tractor and not prepared to start it up for us to hear running. A real shame.

I loved some of the little tractors on show. In England, at ploughing matches there is a class for “walking” tractors, the ones you control by to handles whilst walking behind. My first “owned” tractor was one of this type, a BMB. It was always said that it would pull your arms off if you let it and you certainly had to hold on when you engaged reverse. The torque wound the handles way over your head and picked you off the ground as it powered its way backwards.

The men and women who plough with these types in competition, really are skilled ploughmen. I still use the small rotovator and that is hard enough. I have a bigger one with a 12 hp engine that is waiting attention and of course, my small one threw the connecting rod through the block last year.

The more civilised small tractors are the “ride on” ones and Meddo has a great selection.

All these are names and tractors not seen here in England or anywhere else in the world I would guess. I certainly cannot imagine them on the plains in the US or the wide-open spaces in Australia. But they are fantastic little machines and are very well presented at this show.

The day comes to an end. Oscar makes his way back home and we go back to the hotel for the evening meal.

Sunday is a totally different day at the Meddo Show. The car people arrive and more stalls open up with a variety of things for sale from spares to food. This year was a bit special too as ELVIS was there in his PINK CADILLAC!!!

What a machine! With “Hound Dog” blasting out of the stereo too!

Not all of the cars on show were as big as the Caddy. When I was involved in amateur dramatics in the middle 1960’s, we used to put on shows peculiar to England called pantomime. These are comedies where men dress as women and nubile young ladies play the male roles in tights and short tunics. All good fun and especially for the children as most of the stories are fairy tales.

The show in question was “Cinderella” and I played the father of the two “Ugly Sisters”. We had to go to the ball in one of these cars. The “Sisters” were played by two good friends of mine (well you had to be good friends in that car)! Steve is just over 2m and thin as a rake, Robin was just under 2m and shaped like a rugby player and then there was me. In those days I was a lot slimmer but with all our makeup and the “Extensions” to the other twos chests it was a bit of a tight fit to get us all in the car and for us to get out of it after we had been pushed to the centre of the stage in front of two hundred screaming children and their families!

This is another beautiful tractor not seen in England.

And there were ones not often seen in mainland Europe. The little sister to Nuffy. This one is a 3/45 and I think they arranged it there for me so I would not feel home sick.

On Sunday there were also more machines at work. This one was a fascinating thing to watch, a barbed wire maker.

The only comment I would make about this exhibition is that in England this would never have been allowed to be seen working. The Health and Safety people would not have allowed it to run and that would have been a great pity as it was very interesting to see the action of the machine.

The time was quickly passing and it would soon be time for us to move off to our next hotel but not before we bought some of the great dried meat on sale to sustain us through our journey.

Oh! And I nearly missed something. Although I tried very hard it would not fit in my pocket! So I had to make do with just the hat. But have no fear I will be back!!

The Guldner!!

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