Winter In Amsterdam

Two weekends ago, Amsterdam, a most sophisticated European city, halted as snow fell and the canals froze over. On Friday all was hushed, traffic crept along the canal sides and bicycles were parked up, along bridges, by curbs, marooned.

We picked our way along slippery cobbles, over treacherous bridges and through narrow icy streets to warm museums, steamy cafes, or to eat in an almost empty restaurant close to our hotel where we watched comings and goings, to and froings, to a comedy club opposite.

There was no evidence of gritting the roads that day. In fact, there was a marked absense of snow ploughs. It meant that the city retained a pristine beauty that felt like we had slipped back in time. Tall houses built during the seventeenth century during Europe's mini ice age and Amsterdam's Golden Age have never looked more enchanting.

The Golden Age in Holland is still present on the network of city canals that expanded during the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries. Gabled houses, so tall and narrow that each posesses outside hoists to lift furniture up and in through the windows, belonged to Amsterdam's wealthy Burghers. Many a merchant realised fabulous fortunes in shipping and trade. Amsterdam's history is preserved in the Historical Museum and in a museum dedicated to the adventures of the V.O.C., (the East India Company). Amsterdam began as a small medieval town during the twelfth century, simple medieval homes built up on piles in the marshland that bordered the Amstel river. When the river was dammed at the river mouth to create a harbour the town got its name and trade boomed.

On a harbour tour we caught a glimpse of a replica of a V.O.C. ship, and, later, as our boat ploughed through ice and into the city's canals the noise of ice breaking was deafening. In contrast, unpreturbed, ducks and swans glided gracefully and effortlessly around miniature ice flows. By the end of the weekend the canals had iced over. The adventurous were skating or participating in games of ice hockey. I imagined how colourful and exciting the frost fairs that were held on rivers and canals throughout Europe during the seventeenth century must have been.



At night street lights glimmered on the ice and snow hung amongst pollarded trees and covered statues on squares with a glistening coat. We passed a pleasant evening in Boom Chicago where the  nightly stand up satirical comedy shows are in English.

During the day we visited art galleries and museums. Of particular note is the Church in the Attic, a Catholic church that was established in secret in a tall house during the seventeenth century after Holland had embraced Protestantism. The house is now undergoing restoration and is, itself, a museum. One of my favourite places in the city is the Begijnhof (founded in the twelfth century) which was home to a medieval religious community of unmaried women, though not an order of nuns, who looked after the sick. It is still and hushed and it is one of the oldest courts in the city of Amsterdam, atmospheric and secluded, especially so in quiet, wintery weather.







This February the five villages skating race may happen. It takes place in Northern Holland but only when the canals freeze over and the last occurance was thirteen years ago. It reminds me of a magical long-ago journey. The first time I visited Holland was as a child, and before we set out on our great one month adventure from Belfast to Amsterdam in our black Morris Oxford car, my mother read us traditional Dutch stories including that of Hans Brinker and his skates and so numerous trips later I to this day remain utterly enchanted by this beautiful Northern European city, its buildings, museums, parks, snowy scenes and frozen canals.

An Eye for Fashion, Photography by Norman Parkinson 1954-1964

Last weekend I took a stroll into the past. I was delighted to receive an invitation from our friend Angela Williams to attend the launch of an exhibition of original vintage prints by fashion photography Norman Parkinson. Angela was Parkinson's assistant during the early sixties. When he left his Twickenham studio she asked if she could have his surplus vintage silver prints. And so, decades later, thanks to Angela's efforts to save and preserve them, we were standing looking at an exhibition of wonderful photographs exquisitely displayed at the M Shed in Bristol's redeveloped dockland. The exhibition runs until 15th April and is worth a visit especially if you are writing in the period, if you are interested in the history of fashion or you simply enjoy lovely photographs well displayed. After April the photographs will travel to the U.S.

Another opening, another (special) show....

Entrance to exhibition at M Shed, Bristol

Angela

Michael, Angela's partner

Models (mannequins) wearing clothes from the period set off the photographs. Period wallpapers are tastefully chosen as a background for the models.

21st century meets 20th

Price label reads £3.10 shillings

Sixties tweed

Viewing

Retro

Art in photographs

Angela and her partner hosted the opening and it was busy. The guests were almost, but not quite, as superbly dressed as the models in the photographs. How could they compete? None the less, the guests all looked beautiful having made a salute to the era with their own dress style and with their own individual accents. Dancers and singers were hired for the occasion. Canapes and cocktails were served in the rooms adjacent to the gallery there was a continuous buzz of enthusiastic conversation.

Get down

Hipster family

Classic Parkinson model

Bristol Gothic

Angela is the focus of attention under Parkinson's gaze

Sophistication

See exhibition caption below

Quite

A contrast in fashions

Baby Doll, Carol Baker

"Vicky Strevens wearing Slimma skirt with a Netawear top"

Then, of course there is the after show party which took place in The Living Room, a modern building in the clubbing and partying section of the redeveloped Docks. The finishes look expensive, and inside, the upper level is spanned by an interior bridge which allows unusual perspectives for people-watching. Incongruously, a white Baby Grand piano has on its lid a laptop computer from which the resident DJ orchestrates the cacophonous beats which target every nook and cranny like eardrum seeking sonic missiles. They make impossible any conversation which is more nuanced or intelligent than simple pick-up lines.

We retreat outside to the patio and in the glow generated by the infra-red heaters and the strong cocktails we gather around a few tables to review and discuss what was a fabulous evening.

The visit to this show was just the tonic for a chill January evening. It made me reflect on post-war optimism and the innocent fun associated with London during the Sixties. There were no mobile phones, TV had for most of the era two channels, videos were unheard of, and DVDs and personal computers were for the future. Yet, when I look at these photographs I feel the positivity of the era emanating from the background to many of these shots. The exhibition was for me, a keyhole into a past decade and now I feel like hunting out photographs of my own mother and looking closely at those hats and shoes and the little 1940s/ 1950s Jaeger suits she once apon a time wore. And perhaps, it is because of her that I , too, have always loved 'style' her term for fashion.

An Eye For Fashion, Norman Parkinson Photographs, British Designers 1954 - 1964 runs until 15th April.

http://mshed.org/

The Memsahib of Ooty, A Passage to Kerala, part 2.

E.M Foster's Passage to India is not simply about the domination of the Raj, it is, more importantly, about human relationships. When Foster writes in his other famous novel, Howard's End,the words, 'only connect', he emphasises that it is the connections between human beings that matter most in his writing. As I sat on the Nilgili mountain railway with our suitcases shoved under my seat I felt a connection, with India and with my fellow passengers. We were thrown together for the slow haul up the mountain on a train that could have carried Miss Quested into the hills decades earlier and after five hours of extremely slow travel, stunning scenery and various stops, we were laughing and talking to each other in the relaxed manner of happy travellers as if we had been in each other's company for longer than a few hours. Since the train needed to have frequent stops to replenish the water tank we tumbled off onto platforms to take photographs, side-step friendly monkeys and on one occasion to drink masala tea and eat samosas served in old issues of The Deccan Chronicle.

The Engine

.

One of the many water stops

The engine pushes rather than pulls the train

A well oiled machine

Getting ready to leave

 At Coonoor I shoved along my seat to allow an intrepid traveller called Cecilia to join us. She has come to India every year for twenty years and she knows regions that, to me, are still names on a map. Cecilia is an elegant, older, switched-on and delightful lady who was that week visiting her friends at an organic nursery near the race track in Ooty. Then, there were the Indian students in the next carriage who sang songs for us all as we climbed higher and higher up the mountain, their harmonising voices eventually disappearing into the steam that trailed behind the train. And finally in the front carriage sat a friendly Australian family whom we saw again in Mysore whizzing by, piled into an auto rickshaw.

A young couple on the Coonoor platform

The Cameronian future

Tea plantation seen from the train

Udagamandalam or Ooty was once a Raj hill station and we stayed in a Taj hotel that had long ago been a private school. Its grounds boasted rhodadendrons and hydrangeas that are familiar in Irish gardens. The hotel menu included memsahib dishes such as Dak Bungalow Chicken which I hope never ever to experience again as it is over cooked chicken in luke-warm gravy, boiled vegetables accompanied by tasteless rice. Sticking with Indian food was seriously more successful. In the hills, the temperature drops at night but when the dining room wood fire is lit and the honky tonk piano player bangs out old songs, I feel myself transported into the past of cool lawns, tea gardens, clubs, evening dances and the entertainments of a bygone time. For a moment I become the memsahib of Ooty.

Main building Taj Savoy Hotel, Ooty

Sunset over the Savoy

Tea Shop

Mysore Palace

The Sunday night illuminations are a social event

Now returned to England from my third trip to India, I look at my photographs and remember all the train travel, the porters who carry suitcases on their heads, crossing tracks to reach the other platform, the friendly young of Kerala who want to talk and practise their English, the jovial manager of a silk factory in Mysore and the workers in a sandalwood factory where the expensive perfume was so subtle I wanted to trap its unique scent for ever in a sandalwood box. India is chaotic but there is order within the chaos. There is a spirituality, of course, too, that in EM Foster's novel is personified in the character of Professor Godbole. And so, as winter continues here and I return to my writing, I look out on a landscape of bare trees that scratch steel-grey skies, recharged by the colours and energies of India and dream of connecting with this wonderful continent another day.      

A crepuscular Cochin

The Chinese nets at Fort Cochin