Mid-80s

I discovered a photo album I wasn’t aware of. It contains photo’s I made when I was about fifteen. The year was 1985. I was very much into the New Wave of British Heavy Metal. Heavy metal in the UK provided the working class youth with an alternative to punk music. It was less political than punk and more geared towards escapism. The lyrics of Iron Maiden, for instance, were purely romantic and often referenced 18th century romanticism. The black and white photo above was made in 1986 when we went to see either Dio in concert in Zwolle, or Iron Maiden in Leiden. Metallica I saw in concert in 1988.

I wasn’t working class by any stretch of the imagination but still, it was my kind of music. The other music culture was New Wave. New Wave was big, but at the time I found it rather boring. The energy of metal fitted well with the high levels of testosterone I experienced (suffered would be a better word). It would take another six years before I got close to a girl and metal was the way to let off steam. And cycling. After school I would often cycle as fast as I could on the dusty unpaved country roads, not until I was tired but until sunset.

I did photograph a few hard rock bands in small local venues. I can’t remember the names of those bands. The music wasn’t particularly good, but it was a good antidote to boredom.

School

I went to the VWO (which translates into pre-university education in English) in Aalten. This school was also known as the ‘atheneum’, named after the ancient school founded by Roman Emperor Hadrian. I followed Latin for just one year but this wasn't a required exam subject. Today I would be lost in Ancient Rome.

These years were the most awkward years of my life. Most of my class mates were still being dressed by their parents, I think, and life was excruciating boring. I’m eternally grateful I never have to relive the 1980s again. I am not in the photo below because I took the damn class photo. Presumably there exists a version with me in it on the far left side, made with the 10 second self-timer on my Nikon camera. Al least one of my class mates from ‘85 is dead now. The guy below the black arrow is probably thinking: “for fuck’s sake”.

After school I would listen to the British Forces Broadcasting Service (BFBS) for the Armed Forces in Germany on my little radio. The BFBS broadcast BBC news and rehashed British comedy shows like The Goon Show, Just a Minute and Dads Army adapted for radio. The BFBS, unlike Dutch radio, had great music shows: Tony Jasper’s Heavy Metal Show and Rodigan’s Rockers with the best of 80s reggae. I would tape the HM Show on music cassette to play again and again and again. I never ever listened to Dutch radio.

Luckily I also discovered Led Zeppelin around the time, which led me to listening to blues and folk music.

“Been dazed and confused
For so long, it’s not true
Wanted a woman, never bargained for you
Lots a people talkin’,
Few of them know
Soul of a woman was created below”

— Dazed and Confused, Led Zeppelin (1969)

On television I liked The Young Ones, which capsulated the vibe of the 1980s perfectly. The Chernobyl disaster would occur in 1986 and added a sense of 80s doom, which didn’t bother me much at the time. Neither did the arms race between the West and the Soviet Union. In 1983 U.S. President Ronald Reagan labeled the Soviet Union an "evil empire" which was a defining moment. The same year more than half a million people protested the placement of 48 Tomahawk cruise missiles in The Netherlands. I was pretty much apolitical and spent most time dreaming of a life beyond secondary school.

We received more German television channels than Dutch channels so a fair amount of time was spent watching the Krimi’s Derrick (1974 - 1998) and Der Alte (with Kriminalhauptkommissar Erwin Köster, 1977–1986) on ZDF. With a murder to solve (almost) each episode both crime series delve into the psychological mindset of post-war West Germany at a time of high unemployment rates.

A Tomahawk cruise missile en route to its target on the Tonapah Test Range in Nevada. April 16, 1983.

Trainspotting

Apart from music the only exciting thing in daily life was the railroad track leading to Arnhem and beyond Arnhem to the bright lights of the big city: Amsterdam. Sometimes I would hang around the track and photograph the trains. The red DE-2 multiple units were built between 1953-1954. In 1985 the trains were over 30 years old and still running the original AEC diesel engines. You could hear these trains leave the station seven kilometers away.

And yes, even my mother would still buy my clothes in 1985. She also probably made this photograph.

Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme

The teacher inquired softly of the student, “There is a big stone. Do you consider it to be inside or outside your mind?”

The student replied confidently, “In Zen everything is an objectification of the mind. Therefore I would say that the stone is certainly within my mind.”

The teacher smiled. “Your head must be very heavy, if you are carrying a rock like that in your mind.” The two walked the rest of the way in peaceful silence.

I’m quite pleased with our choice for the headstone on my mother’s grave. It’s a beautiful piece of stone. It took almost a year before the grave was finished. Instead of a cover plate I chose for a rectangular edge covering the whole grave. The grave itself becomes a small garden.

I’m conflicted about something as permanent as a grave. My father wanted a reference to the Johann Sebastian Bach Cantata BWV 140 - 6 on the headstone.

Mein Freund ist mein!
Und ich bin sein!
Die Liebe soll nichts scheiden!

My mother probably didn't have much connection with Bach or any Aria for that matter. When she was young she loved Jacques Brel. Her wish was to be buried and return to nature.

Whenever I see a stone I have to think about the zen koan The Stone Mind. “Your head must be very heavy, if you are carrying a rock like that in your mind.” Remembering the dead is for the living.

“Nous étions deux amis et Fanette m’aimait
La plage était déserte et dormait sous juillet
Si elles s’en souviennent les vagues vous diront
Combien pour la Fanette j’ai chanté de chansons

Faut dire
Faut dire qu’elle était belle
Comme une perle d’eau
Faut dire qu’elle était belle
Et je ne suis pas beau”

— La Fanette - Jacques Brel

Ditzum in East Frisia (Germany).

Kees Andréa

As long as I can remember my mother would paint. Only after she passed I learned that in her twenties she took lessons from the at that time well-know painter Kees Andréa (1914 - 2006) at the Vrije Academie voor Beeldende Kunsten (Free Academy of Visual Art) in The Hague. Andréa was also a member of Pulchri Studio.

Cornelis (Kees) Andréa combined fragments from reality into a surreal reality “in which a hesitation arises between the observable and the imagination”, according to an art critic.

Now I am looking at the paintings of Andréa and wondering if I can learn something about my mother through his work. Can we really know the life of our parents before we were born?

‘De Haan’

Kees Andrea - lithograph - 'Wounded horse'' - 1949

‘De Dreiging’

Kees Andrea (The Hague 1914 - 2006) Spring landscape with rain Signed l.l. Titled and dated 1960 on the stretcher Oil on canvas, 60.3 x 80.5 cm N.B.: The work depicts the view from the studio of Andrea in Loosduinen.

Miste 1970s

After ignoring the family photo albums for decades it is finally time to digitalise our old photographs. These photos were taken by my mother in or around our family home in Miste-Winterswijk, a small hamlet near the border between The Netherlands and Germany.

Austin Mini

My father drove a Mini until the last available model he was able to buy was scrapped in 1996. The first model I remember was a Mark II and produced by Austin (BMC). In Qatar he owned an Austin Mini Countryman Mk II (launched in 1967).

The naming convention of the Mini is confusing at best. The Mini was launched in 1959 by British Motor Corporation Limited (BMC) which was formed by merging Morris Motors and the Austin Motor Company. Both companies retained their corporate identity and the Mini was both marketed as the Morris Mini Minor and the Austin Seven, the latter was rebranded in 1961 as the Austin Mini. In 1968 British Leyland was formed by merging BMC (called British Motor Holdings from 1966) and Leyland Motors. The Mini Mark III was therefor a British Leyland Mini.

Austin Mini de Luxe
While many Shell employees drove their car home from Doha, Qatar back to The Netherlands or the UK (roughly 6.500 kilometers) my father took an airplane to Schiphol because he thought the long road trip was too dangerous for a young child. He sold the Mini Countryman.
In May 1970 he bought an Austin Mini 850 de Luxe in The Hague. Year of build 1970. The original invoice has the British Leyland logo but the car is clearly named “Austin Mini 850”. In 1970 they were apparently still selling the Mini under the Austin brand name. The colour was Sabbia Grey with black interior and cost 5.504 Dutch guilders after 12% tax and including a roof rack. This is € 12.514 adjusted for inflation.

He never had a love for cars and to him it was just a cheap and practical car. In hindsight it was a damn cool car.

His third Mini was probably a Mark IV (produced between 1976 - 1983) in olive green and his fourth and last Mini was probably a Mark V in red. He drove his cars until the mechanic deemed the car too expensive to repair. Those Mini’s didn’t last very long.

The Mini Cooper was a sportive version and the result of John Cooper, designer and builder of Formula One cars, collaborating with Mini-designer Alec Issigonis. Famously the Mini won the Monte Carlo Rally in 1964, 1965 and 1967. The race was held between several European cities and Monaco.

Leyland Mini advertisement 1977. This was four years after United Kingdom's membership of the EEC. Note the Red Ensign on the ship.

My father’s first Mini in Qatar. Back in The Netherlands he bought an Austin Mini 850.

Our 1970 Austin Mini 850 Mark II in Sabbia Grey. Photo: 1973 or 1974.

After some digging in my fathers files I learned he bought his third Mini in 1976, which means the sabbia grey Mini only lasted 6 years! The olive green Mini was sold in 1985. On the invoice of the fourth Mini it is stated the old model he handed in was “defective” after only 9 years and was scrapped. His fourth Mini was a Mini 1000 model 1985 in “red” for the total sum of 11.850 guilders, which is € 10.589 corrected for inflation.

The red mini lasted only 11 years and was scrapped in 1996. In 1996 the Mini wasn’t available on the Dutch market. He bought a Daihatsu Cuore Life Style in white. In 2010 he bought this final car, another Daihatsu Cuore.