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The picture above is of my paternal grandparents wedding, back in the 1890’s or so. The tall rather forbidding looking man on the right at the back is my Grandfather, sitting next him, his lovely bride with the gown, my grandmother. A rather sombre looking bridal party. In those days taking interior photos must have been difficult. Perhaps the party was fed up with posing and wanted to get stuck in the vino and food. One of the males seated at the table is Huib Luns. He was the father of Joseph Luns, a future Government minister and Secretary General.
Picture number two is the house that I stayed in after the war, and can still smell the turps and linseed oils that my granddad used for painting. My grandparents had all their six children there and lived there during their entire life.
Next a photo with buckets of idealism; granddad seen through the window mixing a palette of colours while grandma is seen in the garden carrying some cups. I suppose there were quests seated in the garden. I feel granddad is posing here. He like to smoke and lived to an old age.
The last photo is them in old age. They both wear slippers and are now stooped.



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Hey Gerard, what is on the shelve behind you?
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I think they are cricket bats or perhaps instructions for dealing with brimful pull-ups.
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Gerard, reading your stories is like reading a travelogue written by a Dutch Dr Who… a journey in time as much as in space… fascinating!
🙂
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Hi Asty,
Thank you for your kind reply. Glad the pictures spoke to you as they were meant to. My father grew up in that house together with his three sisters and two brothers. After he migrated with my mother and also 6 children in 1956 , we stayed first in a Nissan Hut, then shared a derelict house situated on Woodville Rd, Guildford NSW, amongst a huge timber yard with hordes of rats, a three legged German shepherd ,a 1949 Chevrolet Ute on three wheels and of course the daily early morning ritual of bucket pissing by the daughters of a Dutch migrant family that we shared the house with and whose bedroom was next to a flimsy partition.
My dad never saw his parents again.
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It’s to his credit that he was able to forgive the two countries primarily responsible for his situation: Germany and The Netherlands. The rest of Western Europe coming a very close third. He was really unlucky with the timing of his move though. I think it wasn’t long afterwards that The Netherlands made a complete financial recovery from WWII , with the help of billions of American dollars.
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It is to her credit that she has some knowledge of European history but the date of his departure was 1956 while the American Billions for the whole of western Europe had long since stopped flowing in 1951. It’s pleasing to know that she seems to know even more about that family that he does.
Has he taken Hung’s place?
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Oh well, it was shortly before he left. Which makes the timing even more unlucky. My assumption that he forgave those countries is based on your own comments about them. My apologies if I am mistaken.
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It’s terribly sad that your grandparents were so poor they were forced to live in a large house with a garden and, OMG, a FENCE. How embarrassing. Instead of being able to live in a lovely small dwelling in a crowded neighbourhood like civilised people do in The Netherlands. No wonder a horror of large houses, gardens, and fences, haunts your writings to this day. I only hope for their sake that they didn’t have to bear the additional shame of actually owning it.
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Nobody is saying that they were poor, Voice. After the war many people were poor and some of those migrated to Australia.
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At times I have great trouble getting to the bottom of what you are trying to say, no matter how long I ponder over your chosen words. Your apologies are gracefully accepted even if I don’t quite get ‘what for’.
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Gez, what an amazing clutch of photographs. Many thanks for this peek into the Oosterworld of yesterday.
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The Oosterpast?
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Very nice photos, Gez. Of course Blaricum is one of the most sought-after places in Holland these days. Your Aunt Marthe’s house there was beautiful.
One of your granddad’s children, your uncle Jan Oosterman also became an artist, but in ceramics…you are such a creative lot of people. What happenened to his place in Auvergne in France when he passed away?
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