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Papers: List of Papers 2002-09 |
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January Meeting |
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On Tuesday 9th. January '07 our monthly meeting was held in Keane's Bus bar. The speaker was Gerry besseling, who gave us a colourful and humourous description of his life from his birth in Holland in 1927 to the present day. His young life was hard, growing up during the Second World War. After the war Gerry was conscripted into the Dutch Army and served his time in Indonesia, then a Dutch colony. There he and three other soldiers had a staff of 500 Indonesians producing food for the Dutch Army who busied themselves at first combatting the remaining Japanese troups. This was a very interesting time and became dangerous when the Indonesians tired of the Dutch army presence. Gerry showed many interesting photos taken there in the late 1940s. All of Gerry's changes in life came about through knowing people. When teachers from the Agricultural School he was attending came to Dublin and stayed in the Hibernian Hotel they got talking to the manager and found out he was looking for somebody to produce flowers and vegetables for the hotel. Gerry had been planning to go to Canada but was now persuaded that Ireland was the place to work and learn English. Gerry went to work in Co. Wicklow but didn't like it very much. On a visit to Dublin he literally bumped into another Dutchman on O'Connell Bridge. This resulted in him finding his way to Mr. de Jong at Loughshinney and then to William Ruigrok of Rush. He met Joan Mockett of Skerries, dancing at Red Island and the happy couple were married in Holland some time later. |
Then the dream of going to Canada was realised but the far-away hills were not so green and Gerry was soon back working for William Ruigrok and managing the farm he had purchased, Blacklands at Ballykea. Here he managed a staff - up to 35 at times - producing flowers and exporting the bulbs to Holland. Because of the mild Irish climate they were 3 weeks ahead of Holland. The Besseling family lived at 47 Strand Street, Skerries.
After 14 years with Ruigroks it was time for another change. A chance meeting with a holidaying couple in Keane's Bus Bar, and an application form for Squibbs pharmaceutical firm in Swords came by post. Very soon he was working there and remained until his retirement in 1992. After some ill health Gerry made a good recovery and is leading a very active life now, bridge 5 nights a week, bowling twice etc. not to mention the almost 13,000 Euro collected for Fingal Association.
Stephanie Bourke expressed her appreciation to Mr. Besseling for sharing his admirable and most interesting life with the members and friends of S.H.S.
Our next talk "The Establishment and Development of Steam Railways in North Co. Dublin" will be given by John Redmond on the 12th. of February.
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