In the previous blog post I never mentioned why I left this country in the early 1980's and went to live in the Netherlands. Two reasons really. I couldn't bear to live in a State that had effectively murdered ten Irish Republican hungerstrikers. As if that wasn't bad enough it was clear that there was no chance of a job for trouble-making dossers like me in the Thatcher times.
The Netherlands was good to me though. I recall the first Dutch joke I ever got. "De Amerikanen hebben Ronald Reagan, Bob Hope en Johhny Cash, de Britsen hebben Margaret Thatcher, geen hoop en geen kas." A literal translation is "The Americans have Ronald Reagan, Bob Hope and Johnny Cash. The Brits have Margaret Thatcher, no hope and no cash."
Quite literally I was never a day out of work. I worked on the docks. I worked as a firewatcher in a shipyard standing over welders with a fire extinguisher in case anything went up in flames. I ended my working career in the Netherlands as a night shift ganger on the cleaning squad in McCains Oven-Ready Chip factory near Schipol airport.
All the jobs that the Dutch didn't want to do in fact. One day I was sitting in an Uitzendburo, (an employment agency) filling in some paperwork having got another shift down the docks when a Dutch guy walked in the door and asked the staff "Have you work for me?" The woman behind the counter didn't even look up when she heard the guy's Amsterdam accent and said "Nee". The guy persisted and having overheard me chatting in English with my mate pointed out that they seemed to have work for foreigners.
The woman simply said "Alleen voor buitenlanders, ongelooflijke vies". "Only for foreigners, incredibly shitty". I looked her in the eye to let her know I had understood and she never even had the grace to blush.
We knew our place for sure.
Life was good though. I was living in an area of Amsterdam called Stadsliedenbuurt. I was squatting of course, simply because there was absolutely no chance of ever affording rents on our wages. This must have been about the high water mark of the "Kraakers" (squatters) movement. There was an uneasy stand-off with the "Schmeeris" (as the cops were known). The landlords wreckers were also our sworn enemies. The "Sloopers " were employed to wreck vacant housing stock by developers to discourage folk moving in and making a home to live in.
There was also very much a feeling of community and common interest. The local squatters committees held surgeries or "spreekuurs" to assist people who needed somewhere to stay. These spreekuurs were held in a squatted shop which was basically made into a community cafe bar. A squatted pub if you like. In Scotland we would call them shebeens if they were ever tolerated long enough to build up a clientele.
The committee gave access to advice, support, and assistance. I managed to borrow a "Bakfiets" for the day. A Bakfiets is like a flat-bed truck powered by a bike at the back. If you needed furniture for your squat, you borrowed the Bakfiets and rode up and down the streets of the Vondelbuurt and other more salubrious areas on bin day. It was amazing what people threw out. I and many like me furnished our houses that way.
There was a squatters pirate radio and squatters pirate TV. A squatters magazine called "Bluf" and many many squatted pubs. I used to frequent Willem's in Tweede Palmdwaarsstraat. I also used to nip into the "Koevoet" (Crowbar) on Haarlemmerplein. There were many more. My local was in Van Hogendorpstraat. For the life of me I can't recall the name it had. As there were lots of foreigners there, the local squatters committee organised Dutch language lessons for us all.
We opposed evictions, we acted against hard drug dealers evicting them and moving in a family in their place.
I realised that people working together could achieve almost anything and make it work and provide mutual aid for each other. Of all the lessons I learned in the Netherlands this is the one that I have always cherished the most.
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