What am I in the eyes of most people — a nonentity, an eccentric, or an unpleasant person — somebody who has no position in society and will never have; in short, the lowest of the low. All right, then — even if that were absolutely true, then I should one day like to show by my work what such an eccentric, such a nobody, has in his heart. That is my ambition, based less on resentment than on love in spite of everything, based more on a feeling of serenity than on passion. Though I am often in the depths of misery, there is still calmness, pure harmony and music inside me. I see paintings or drawings in the poorest cottages, in the dirtiest corners. And my mind is driven towards these things with an irresistible momentum.
Vincent Van Gogh writing to his brother Theo on the 21 July 1882
Some who follow me will already know I spent a few days last week in Amsterdam. It was a visit based primarily around Art (although that didn't stop me from again popping into Amsterdam's oldest bar, the Café Karpershoek, established in 1606, for a beer). My primary intent, however, was to look at the beautiful artworks within the magnificence of the Rijksmuseum and, in comparison, the understated modern beauty of the van Gogh Museum and its treasures.
I have visited Amsterdam more than any other city outside of the UK. I was a young teen on my first visit with my family. And on that visit looked in awe at the Rijksmuseum. Up to that point, my experience of galleries and museums were those local to my home in the Northeast of England. However, I did visit Glasgow's Kelvingrove Gallery and Museum at the age of eight. To discover at that early age the emotional power of a painting (see my piece ‘Christ of St John of the Cross’ of a couple of years ago). But at fourteen, I had not seen a building with the magnificence that is the Rijksmuseum. Still reeling from looking at the outside, I had sensory overload when I saw such masterpieces as Rembrandt's 'Nightwatch' inside. Even today, the scale of that painting still causes me to catch my breath. Fifty-odd years ago, it took all my breath away. Then there was Vermeer, Hals, Steen, Mauve (with whom van Gogh had a falling out), and so many more.
After the Rijksmuseum, the Museum of van Gogh might seem modern mundanity with its glass and steel. But given what it holds within, it does not need to compete architecturally with its grander 'rival'.
I lost myself in the proliferation of Vincent’s works that the museum holds. I've seen many of these same pieces in other exhibitions and galleries. But curated as they are here moves those works to another level. And, of course, the museum offers much insight into the man through displays of other artefacts. The museum's inclusion of some pieces by Lautrec, Pissarro, Israel, Gauguin and Vincent’s other friends and contemporaries was also helpful in seeing their influence on Vincent and his influence on them. I've read many of Vincent's letters (from which people love quoting but usually move his words out of context), but seeing them 'in the flesh' is emotionally moving. They reminded me of a fantastic exhibition I attended at London's Royal Academy a few years ago that juxtaposed some of Vincent’s letters with the paintings he'd sketched or mentioned within them.
Interestingly the museum firmly states van Gogh's final painting was 'Tree Roots' undertaken hours before his tragic self-wounding. Some argue that point, but I'm going with the museum. And my favourite of his from what I saw must be 'Landscape at Twilight'. He was a masterly colourist, but that painting shines like a beacon. It held me spellbound. Painted the month before he died and, as with the other landscapes he focused upon from that period, devoid of people. It's a painting of intense burnished golden light. A metaphor for that man who burned twice as bright but only half as long. And if that painting held me, what twanged my heartstrings was seeing his palette with dried paint streaked across it. Might that be the very paint Vincent used for his final painting?
My many visits to Amsterdam have been both on business and pleasure. Indeed, I've travelled to Amsterdam for so long that I can remember the days before you spent as much time in the aeroplane taxiing to the terminal at Schiphol airport as in the air from the UK. And, of course, I've had various adventures on my visits. If I recounted them all, this piece would become a novella, so I offer only a few.
But which adventures do I include? Well, the first and the one that is by far the most important was my asking Sarah, my wife, to marry me in Amsterdam.
My (as it turned out, flawed) plan was to take Sarah away somewhere under the subterfuge of it being her birthday present and then ask her to marry me. We didn't have much time - just a weekend, so I didn't want to spend too long in an aeroplane. Amsterdam was, therefore, an ideal destination. The proposal was to happen during our stay.
As a memento of the event, I planned to give Sarah a copy of a favourite book of mine - 'A Man from the North' by Arnold Bennett. The first flaw in my plan was that I dated my inscription, which included "given on the day I asked you to marry me", with the day of our arrival. Therefore, Friday night had to be the night. I compounded the flaw by not booking a restaurant ahead. I don't know why. I'm a planner. I'm always looking ahead. In the days when we were together, my planning sometimes drove Sarah crazy. But for some reason, my instinct to plan went out the window on this crucial occasion.
So, we arrived in Amsterdam, travelled from Schiphol, checked in to our hotel, and sought a restaurant. As was bound to happen, having strolled the streets for a while, I found nothing suitable for a proposal (of which Sarah is supposedly blissfully unaware). After a little more time, I could sense Sarah becoming 'hangry', so now, under some pressure, I pointed toward an Argentinian grill house that, from the outside, didn't look too bad and suggested we go there. Of course, by this point if I had offered Sarah a McDonald’s, she would have said yes. So, into the grill house we went. I have never seen so much cowhide that wasn't eating grass in a field.
What was firm in my memory was the general advice that if one intends to propose over dinner, do not do it before the dessert course. If the proposal is refused then you won't spoil the whole meal.
So, I leave my seat and go down on one knee at the proper time. This action drew a look of concern from the waiter, looks of confusion from the other diners and one of disbelief from Sarah. Not disbelief over the proposal itself. She'd sussed that plan out as soon as I suggested the trip. It was disbelief at the manner of my proposal.
Anyway, despite the disbelief, she said yes. Her words actually were, "Get up, you silly fool"... I took that as, "Yes".
Many will already know of my close affiliation with Newcastle United Football Club. A few years ago, they were doing well in a European Cup competition. So much so that at the quarter-final stage, I felt so confident they would reach the final, hosted in Amsterdam, that I decided to buy tickets for my oldest son, Mark, and me.
As it turned out NUFC being NUFC lost in the semi-final to the Portuguese side Benfica. Leaving me with the dilemma of now who to support in the final. NUFC's conquerors or Chelsea, the other finalists. Many would assume, for patriotic reasons, it would be Chelsea. However, I couldn't bring myself to do that, so I did something I thought I would never do and rooted for a team that played in red and white. And it wasn't just me. It soon became apparent that many other overconfident Geordies had also bought tickets early, expecting a Newcastle qualification and had then decided to put their support behind Benfica. So, there we were a small Geordie Island in one corner of the stadium surrounded by an ocean of the Portuguese. Which, given many Newcastle fans wore NUFC black and white striped shirts, did confuse many of those around us.
But alas, such support was all in vain; Chelsea won 1:0. Some who do not follow English football might wonder why supporting a team playing in red and white was so alien to the followers of NUFC. Well, those are the colours of NUFC's local (and bitter) 'rivals', Sunderland.
My visits to Amsterdam have not just been for pleasure. My first business trip was some forty years ago. It was a visit there and back in a day, and I saw little of the city. A silly o’clock flight out of Heathrow. A two-hour drive from Schiphol across the Netherlands. The business meeting. A late lunch. The drive back to Schiphol. And the last flight back to the UK. Not the most glamorous of my business trips. But my experience is that very few are. Car, airport, flight, taxi, meeting, hotel, taxi, airport, flight, and car are more often the norm.
I've been pickpocketed in Amsterdam while on a birthday trip, and it still doesn't lessen my liking for the place; my interaction with the police station sergeant to whom I reported the theft endeared me even more to the Dutch. My opening line to him on entering the station was, 'Do you speak English?'. His twinkling-eyed reply in perfectly spoken English was, "Yes, and German, Spanish and French too. 'Now, how can I help you"? He then gently took me through the crime report offering several humorous asides as he took the details of the crime. On the report's completion, he made a great show of handing the document to a detective with a wink in my direction and a reassurance they were now "on the case". However, adding with a philosophical sigh that the chance of my wallet's return was not high. Nevertheless, his light-touch approach was just what I needed to put things in perspective and remind me there are far worse tragedies than a stolen wallet and passport.
That theft on my Amsterdam birthday visit was some nine years ago. Yet, I am reminded over it whenever I use my passport or show my driving licence. They carry the photograph taken in a photo booth in Amsterdam Centraal Station later the day of the robbery. The British Consulate in Amsterdam required the picture to issue me a temporary passport. Then the UK Passport Office and the DVLC used the same photograph for the replacement documents. Strangely enough, the image does not show me at my happiest.
Many years ago, a less traumatic but unsettling incident was while on a business trip. It was a one-day fly-in-fly-out trip to visit a company with whom my company were partnering. My colleague and I took a few Guilders (yes, it was that long ago) to cover the taxi fare from Schiphol to the partner company premises. The partner company's owner told us not to worry about a taxi back to the airport as he would ask his PA to drive us in his car—a very top-end Mercedes, as I recall.
However, even top-end cars need fuel, and what the owner should have told the PA and what she didn't notice was that the car had little in the tank. Just enough to get us to within about a mile of the airport, which we could see when the car coughed, spluttered, and elegantly came to a slow and graceful halt. That my colleague and I might miss our flight mortified the PA. While she called the office on the car's phone to rescue her, she urged us to wave down a passing vehicle that might take us to the airport.
The minutes ticked by, and all our attempts proved fruitless until a cab came along and pulled over. We told the driver our dilemma. "No problem", he said. The fare would be five Guilders. "Ah," said we, "how about two Guilders (all we had left - and the PA hadn't any money with her) and some Sterling?". With a smile, he replied, "OK, five pounds", That was circa twenty Guilders, but we couldn't argue in our situation, so we agreed to five pounds.
Five minutes later, we arrived at departures around 10 minutes before check-in closed (no online check-in in those days). I proffered the agreed fare to the driver. Who, with a huge smile, waved his hand at us and said, "No charge; hope you catch your flight". He summed up almost every Dutch person I've come across. They like a leg pull but are affable and warmly generous. So, did we make the plane? Yes, but unbeknownst to my colleague and me, the plane being delayed leaving England arrived an hour late in Amsterdam. We could have walked that last mile and still made it.
The Dutch and the English are intertwined peoples. For example, the Saxons, who, along with the Angles and Jutes, invaded Britain back in the 400s, came from areas that are now part of the Netherlands and Germany. And if we move on from those early invaders to Britain, the English and Dutch have sometimes shared an adversarial history.
Prominently displayed in the Naval room of the Rijksmuseum is the enormous wooden stern transom carving from the English Flagship 'Royal Charles', showing the arms of King Charles II of England. Dutch forces captured the ship in 1667, not in some glorious battle but in its home port of Chatham. The Dutch then towed the ship over the North Sea to the Netherlands. But not to take the ship into service. Instead, it was permanently drydocked as a public attraction, with day trips organised for large parties and foreign state guests. You can imagine that Charles II wasn't best pleased. Seeing it as an insult to his honour. Charles’ ignominy ended with the ship’s auction for scrap in 1673. As a conciliatory gesture, the Dutch returned a mirror from the vessel to Britain in 2012. However, they kept the carving to commemorate their extraordinary achievement.
Ironically some 20 years after the capture of the Royal Charles came 'The Glorious (or Bloodless) Revolution' that saw the brother of Charles II, James II, overthrown because of his Catholicism and replaced by his Protestant daughter Mary and her Dutch husband, William of Orange (who was then Stadtholder of the Dutch Republic). An event that changed the governing of England by giving Parliament more power over the monarchy and planting the seeds for the beginnings of political democracy. Although it is reported by some that despite being ‘invited’ to become King of England, William didn’t fully trust the English and used Dutch troops for his protection.
Many words in English come from Dutch. From 'Aboard' to 'Yankee' through 'Booze', 'Cricket', 'Santa Claus' and 'School'. But despite my many trips to the Netherlands, I find Dutch impossible to pick up. I find it hard to pronounce, the word order confusing. Then the irregular forms and exceptions just exacerbate the challenge. And then there’s whether a word is ‘de’ or ‘het’ one! Of course, one gets complacent when visiting the Netherlands as so many Dutch people speak English.
While in the Café Karpershoek that I mentioned earlier, I fell into conversation with Gary, a chap from Ireland who now lives and works in Amsterdam. Our conversation began when he heard me order a drink and asked if I was from the Northeast of England. When I said I was, he mentioned he left Ireland to attend University in Durham and then do his PhD in Newcastle. Like many who visit, he fell in love with the northeast, especially as he said the people reminded him of those in Ireland. That sense of community and camaraderie, the care for others, the friendly welcome to strangers, the ability to tell a story - especially over a pint and their downbeat sense of humour. Gary has worked for three years in Amsterdam and felt he was only now getting on top of the language. Not fluent, though. he felt that would take another two years. What surprised me was that Gary mentioned that many English-speaking people who now work in the Netherlands don't even bother to learn Dutch, given that so many Dutch people speak English. That seems sad in many ways, but again, typical of the tolerance of Dutch people in that they take no offence.
So, I'll bring this Dutch meandering to its winding close with a shout-out to DFDS, whose ferry service I availed myself as a foot passenger for my visit to Amsterdam. I'd mentioned in an earlier piece that the last time I crossed on such a ferry some fifty years ago, it was not a pleasant experience. However, the overnight crossing was everything I could wish for this time. A quiet cabin instead of a lounger for the night. A decent restaurant in which I ate rather than a greasy spoon cafe and a quiet bar in which I enjoyed a beer. While for those who desiring more excitement there was also a two-screen cinema, a 'nightclub' with live music and dancing and a cocktail lounge.
But best of all, being the non-sailor that I am, I was much relieved that the North Sea behaved itself.
Do you have an Amsterdam rijsttafel recommendation?
Thanks, Harry, for sharing all about your deep and longstanding connection with Amsterdam. Now I really do feel like I’ve been missing out and must arrange a short visit sometime soon. I would definitely love to visit the cafes and the art galleries. Go well! Will