“When it’s Spring again,
I’ll bring again,
Tulips from Amsterdam”
TULIP FESTIVAL, PARLIAMENT HILL, OTTAWA
Once again a flood of Dutch tulips graces the environs of Ottawa and brings forth a wave of personal memories on this the 79th anniversary of the Victory in Europe.
THE MAN WITH TWO HATS
In the aftermath of WWII, Canada benefitted from a massive cohort of Dutch immigrants. No greater benefit could have been bestowed upon me than that of the Kramers, a childless Dutch immigrant couple who poured their love and attention on us Cub and Boy Scouts teaching us duty, respect and honour in our remote rural community in their new country of adoption.
This mutual attraction between Canada and Holland started with the liberation of the Low country by Canadian troops. In the above photo you have a physical manifestation in the heart of our tulip festival of the famous photo showing a Dutch man celebrating the liberation with not one, but two hats!! The starvation and tyranny were finally over.
Later in life I would live in London’s Eastend, just a few hundred kilometres from the tulip fields of Holland. My cockney landlady, Ada, would become my third grandmother and recount the horrors of the Blitz. In the Spring, I would labour in her old “Victory” garden, not for desperately needed food but this time to tend her colourful roses and tulips which she thoroughly enjoyed.
ADA & ME, BACK IN THE DAY, EAST LONDON
“Gimme me Max!
Gimme me Max!!“
That’s what Ada would say everytime she saw the old “Cockney Crooner,” Max Bygraves, come on the tele. Here he is belting out a tune that wraps it all together. My personal tribute to both Ada and the Kramers that I’m sure Max now does in person in a much better place.
God bless them all!