We lived in Holland for about 25 years, and it obviously suited us, the way they were organised suited us as was the way they approached life obviously suited us, in other words, we enjoyed ourselves.
When we arrived in Holland (Het Nederland) we were confronted by all manner of strange behaviour in the streets, people behaving weirdly all over the place and performing excitingly all over the place, it was a time of street theatre and other things……. So we were at home.
We had become used to street theatre living as we were in England, our lives were structured around street theatre, and we were well used to it in all its manifestations. I had both of us had worked in Interaction, which was all about Street Theatre.
Aside from that, we were really happy to be living in Holland for a load of reasons, the way life was led appealed to us, in all manner of respects. That is why we lived there for such a long time, longer than anywhere else in the world, including the UK.
The way they arranged elections appealed to us, they had a system of Proportional Representation, in other words they had elections where the Cabinet reflected the way people actually voted, rather than one party ruling the roost. So politics was a reflection of how people actually had voted (which seems like a really good system), so politics was really dull and boring, but reflected the way people had voted. I wish more countries had that system!!!!
Other than that, we were really happy in Holland. I made a living as a model maker and Lotty as a teacher in the International School of Holland (Amsterdam), which we enjoyed.
I worked at the Nederlands Theatre Museum as a free-lance as a model maker. In the Nederlands Theatre Museum I worked as a well-paid restaurateur of their huge collection of stage set models which I have covered in another post, and also worked with a Natuurmonumenten which was fun! Making models of the Dutch landscape, which was intriguing, as I learnt all manner of things about how and why it was so.
In between this I also worked as in various theatre museums in Delft and Rotterdam making models for them, all sorts of models, including one in Lego, which was fun!!!! I well remember how buying the sets of Lego I was stared at by a small boy, who was insanely jealous of the amount I was buying… Stacks of Lego.
In between whiles I made models for all manner of people, including Architects. Which was a bad thing for me, as the architects insisted on rapid delivery and paid really slowly…. So I avoided working for architects. Like the plague!!!
I offered a whole range of models to architectural accessories to architectural modelmakers-Trafficast. They consisted of various scales of models, cars, vans, many scales of people, washing machines, and loads of things and trees….. Loads of trees! Unfortunately they were made of lead, so the market for them was limited.
OZTHOUGHTS 