Saturday 8 December 2007

Archive relief

Shocked, bewildered and frustrated. My feelings on seeing the door bolted at The London Metropolitan Archives on Wednesday. All archived up and nowhere to go.

What could I do? When would I see an archive again? My son Andrew reminded me that Amsterdam has an archive, too. An excellent one.

He has a vested interest. The Nazi occupation. Hunting for NSB members in the police archive. Stadsarchief Amsterdam has shedloads on Dutch Nazis. Their material on brewing is more limited.

We payed a brief visit there today. Followed by a rather longer sojourn in Wildeman. I looked at brewing details from Heineken Rotterdam and papers from the Dutch brewers' organisation. Price-fixing agreements and complaints of brewers labeling low-gravity Lagerbier as Pilsner. They wouldn't do anything like that now, would they?

Andrew took the photo. It really is very plush inside. Honestly, it makes the LMA look like a shed. My shed. Which is on the point of collapse. They have lamps over the reading desks, too. Little things. And a pub inside the building. It's worth a look inside even if you couldn't give a toss about old documents.

2 comments:

Alan said...

Do they still burn the hotel wherever the tiny Dutch Nazi party tries to have its meetings. When I was living in Aalsmeer in 1986, it was on the news and the family I boarded with went to great lengths to explain the fine points.

But architecturally, that room appears to be a 1972 vision of the future. Are you living in the future?

Ron Pattinson said...

Mmmm Dutch Nazi party. I try not to pay too much attention to what they get up to.

The archive is in a beautiful building built around the time of WW I, if I remember correctly. The photo does make it look a bit Alphaville, but isn't really representative of the building as a whole. I hope to spend much more time in its wonderful ambiance.