Agfa Clack.
There must have been some spare money about but when about twelve or so I had a Kodak box camera given by my parents. It was a simple box and had two little mirrors in which to focus on the subject. The film was wound on an empty spool two and a half times and then inserted in the camera; the box would be closed ready for the 8 or 12 photos that it then could take. What a glorious gift it was. The photos took about a week to get developed and sleepless nights would be followed by euphoria when the big day would arrive to get the photos. Money for the development was earned by collecting old newspapers and rags after school.
After the go-a-head for migrating I had spotted a camera far advanced to the Kodak Box. It was an Agfa Clack. Forty five guilders. A small fortune. Many times I stared at the shop window. As I remember, it had two apertures and two shutter speeds and was flash capable. The approval to migrate coincided with parents taking me out of school in order to work to help and fatten the communal Oosterman wallet. Something at least for the totally unforseen and unfathomable future.
It was all a bit shaky and nervous during that time. Friends would be left. No more handball games on a Sunday with girls and budding breasts…. Eric Nanning, Anton Van Uden, Louis Gothe, all would disappear within a few months. The same for our street, the ice cream (between crusty wafers) shop, and hot ‘patat de frites’ as well, soon be gone. What need for a good camera, etched the good times in photos’ eh?
The job was delivering fresh fruit and vegetables to the very top of The Hague’s society and its burgers, Including royalty and most embassies. The delivery was done by carrying the goods in a huge wicker basket fastened above the front wheel of a sturdy and large steel framed bicycle. I peddled like one possessed. There were lots of orders and the boss was strict. No loafing and it was winter.
The stingiest of tippers are The Hague’s wealthiest, the best tippers the staff of embassies. They all had jars of money to be tipped to deliverers of goods. The US embassy was unbelievably generous. My earnings were always tipped into the parental wallet, ‘for our future,’ I kept being assured. All tips were mine and at times they eclipsed earnings, especially after a delivery of imported black grapes to the Yank kitchen at the back of the Embassy, the tradesman entry… A ten guilder tip gave me almost a quarter of the Agfa Clack in one scoop. Not bad, considering I had filched a couple of those grapes from the delivery. Geez, they were those black ones as well.
I soon came to that glorious walk to the camera shop and bought my camera. A couple of weeks later, a leather case with carry strap. Soon after that a battery operated flash with 6 globes. Even sooner came the day, just after Christmas on a bleak and rainy day that it came about, that we all walked the dreadful walk up the gangplank and boarded our ship to Australia. Goodbye all. And that was that. My Agfa around my neck.
Window Dresser's Arms, Pig & Whistle 
Pingback: Agfa Clack « Oosterman Treats Blog
I remember the science experiment by taping down the button to get longer exposure and then see the star trails when developed.
LikeLike
To take a pic,
I click and click,
With my old Agfa Clack,
this takes me back,
I’m buggered if I know where to….
LikeLike
To Buenos Aires with salsa,
fashion and shoes on the rack.
and on Avenida de Mayo
that we stepped to a tango
these were the times
of those thursday mothers
with fotos and chimes
of those sons and fathers .
Time will not bring them back.
LikeLike
I’m riding my bike,
On a Hague street,
I earned money, life is sweet,
Another boy, another bike,
It’s not my finger that stopped the dyke….
LikeLike
I love ‘I pedalled like one possessed’. I have an image in mind of a skinny kid with a big responsibility giving it his all in every direction…people in the district would have seen the boy go by on his delivery bike and commented, nodding and talking about your project. Word probably spread fast. ‘New delivery lad. It’s young Oosterman. My, he’s giving it his best shot.’ What a strange world we live in that once you were part of the landscape in that place and then you weren’t so people would have addressed others along lines, ‘I haven’t seen that young chap. I don’t suppose he came to harm do you think riding that bicycle around like there was no tomorrow.’
LikeLike
Shoe:
Skinny is right but sinewy as well. Some of those rich customers were mean. “Just leave it near the door,boy.” It saved them a tip!
I remember pinching beautiful grape-fruits. After cutting in half and sprinkling with brown sugar, scooped out with a tea spoon. It had its rewards.
LikeLike
My first camera was a hand-me-down box brownie. Later it was a hand-me-down Zeiss. Both used to hang around my neck too. What year did you arrive in Australia Gerard? Which port? I’m curious.
LikeLike
We arrived February 1956 in Sydney after a five week trip on a boat called The Johan Van Oldenbarneveldt. There was severe flooding around the Scheyville Camp near Windsor NSW preventing people from venturing outside the camp. Except for a cunning Pole who with a clapped out car knew to get around the water and for a modest fee would transport people to the nearest rail station..
LikeLike
Many of your countrypeople wound up at Bonegilla (near Albury/Wodonga) and many never left. We have lots of older people still with their German, Dutch, Austrian, Swiss etc accents and we have benefited from a real continental butcher until very recently when the son retired. He passed on all his recipes for the smallgoods so all is well.
LikeLike
Pingback: Agfa Clack « Oosterman Treats Blog
I think sometimes about my grandmother getting on a ship in London to go to Australia. It’s not finite like a trip on a plane. You are going there and probably not coming back. That must have been quite a difficult journey.
LikeLike
Well, Leahan, you are the brave one, you went to live in Japan!
LikeLike
No, I went on a six month working holiday. I thought I was going back. I would never have been brave enough to get on a ship knowing I might never return. I always propped myself up with the idea that if things got bad, I could always go back pretty easily. And for the first 5 years or so I always had a return ticket anyway.
LikeLike
It still is but getting better. 🙂 How is yours going?
LikeLike
My journey, Gerard? Impossible, it’s impossible. Where is Oprah? I’ve tried believing it will work out, and it doesn’t.
LikeLike
I have an old yashica, though, it’s about 65, and a wonderful thing. It always give me at least one nice picture in a roll, but often stops at #8 and refuses to wind. So I have to be very careful with the film and not waste it. I like that.
LikeLike