OUD ROEST
DOWN UNDER
(The story of
the ex RIL, KPM & Nedlloyd personnel Reunions in Australia)
It was in 1985, now 25 years ago, that the idea of a get-together of people in Australia who had worked for, or were still employed by the KPM, RIL or Nedlloyd, came to fruition.
Willem Bras, ex RIL Engineer, and wife Kate came up with the idea and started to make enquiries to a number of Oriental restaurants in Sydney from which the Warung Indonesia was selected and booked for a Saturday night rijsttafel. Willem and Kate then placed advertisements in the Sydney Morning Herald and the Dutch Australian Weekly and found them selves flooded with responses straight away!
Retired Captain Wim Schröder had read Willem Bras’
request and called Willem Bras.
Wim Schröder had kept in touch with many ex KPM, RIL and Nedlloyd people and
also maintained contact with the Sydney Nedlloyd office. The Nedlloyd office
offered their mailing list of ex personnel and together with Wim Schröder’s contacts a list of some hundred names was
produced.
Willem Bras managed to get the company he worked for at the time to print and
post the convocations and 80 invitations were sent out for the first reunion.
After the third reunion the Nedlloyd Sydney office offered to print and
post the invitations.
P&O Nedlloyd continued the tradition until the
take-over by Maersk, from there on we received financial support and help with
our mail out from other benefactors, namely Bob Kemp, formerly Director Total Maritime Logistics and
General manager P&O Nedlloyd Australia, Nick Slikker, until his early
retirement Franchisee of TravelScene Carlingford
and recently from Fred & Jenny Burger of NeedleGraphics.
We have
received other support in the form of gifts or vouchers for “Lucky Door Prizes”
(Tombola) from the Australian National Maritime Museum, The Fortune Village
Chinese restaurant, Bruce & Tilly Polain, Hans van Weel, and others.
The first Reunion was a huge success, and it became clear that many eligible
people were disappointed not to have been invited. It was then decided to
publicise future reunions on the S B S Radio Dutch language program, in the
Dutch Australian Weekly and at the same time open the reunion to others who had
been closely associated with KPM, RIL and Nedlloyd. As a result the mailing
list grew to double the size and included many names from interstate.
Our largest number of attendees was 136 in 2005 for our 20th Sydney Reunion, which was sponsored by P&O Nedlloyd and held on board the S.S. “SOUTH STEYNE”, the floating restaurant at Darling Harbour.
On the average we have 75 people attending the Sydney Reunions, apologies received are always in the order of 15 -20.
We are fortunate to have ex C.E.’s and their wives attending, to name a few - Herman Wever, Christiaan Moes, Anton Jansen and Bob Kemp.
We are not registered as a Club or organisation; proper records are kept however and are open to scrutiny by fellow reunionists, over the years the actual organising and administration has been done by two Convenors.
Willem and Kate Bras did the organising for the first three reunions, Wim Schröder took over from them and since 1990 I have been working with Wim Schröder as co-Convenor until Wim’s untimely death in October 2003.
Finding another person willing to give his or her time was a rather difficult task but Warwick Abadee came to the aid in 2004 and since then we have, as a team, sailed this ship successfully!
Many of our reunionists have served with other Dutch shipping companies or associated organisations, for that reason we have changed the banner of our letterhead from “Sydney Reunion - Ex KPM, RIL, P&O Nedlloyd Employees and Associates” to “Annual Dutch Shipping Reunion – Sydney” to reflect our diversity.
The annual Sydney Reunion is always held on the last
Saturday in May. Over the years our
reunions have been held in Indonesian, Malaysian or Chinese restaurants. We
have had four very successful Harbour cruises but made the decision to hold the
venue in the City and close to public transport for the convenience of our
aging friends..
The reunion itself is informal; goodwill has always been the main object. There
is a formal opening and welcoming, housekeeping announcements and we do also
invite speakers to give a short address during the luncheon on a number of
subjects of interest.
For a number of years our fellow Oud Roest Down Under reunionists in Melbourne have been organising their own annual get-together which is held in October every year. Although smaller than the Sydney Reunion their reunion always has a good number of people turn up. At the Sydney Reunion we have regular visitors from Melbourne and we make the journey to Melbourne on a regular base.
We sometimes refer to ourselves as Oud Roest which in colloquial Dutch means, scrap iron or scrap heap, but don’t let the name fool you! Each and every Reunion has been shiny! The number of people that have been attending our reunions regularly over the years proves that!
As a group we do encourage our friends
to tell their stories and keep them for posterity.
We feel that this
is important, for instance, there are very few accounts written in English that
give an insight and background of the Dutch involvement in the Pacific War as
was seen through the eyes of people like Lieuwe Pronk, Jack Thorpe, Dick
Ullett, John Helfrich and Pieter Cordia, to name a view.
To allow others
to read their stories I have created a website that I have called “Oud Roest
Down Under”, not only are there over a hundred stories to be read but it also
gives News and Updates, Links to other websites, a Dutch Connection page
and Sydney and Melbourne Reunion pages
with accounts and photographs of the reunions. The website is viewed regularly
and has proven to be a good idea; besides the website we also exchange
information with our “sister” organisations in The Netherlands such as VOP
KJCPL and VOP KPM.
To view this website go to:
http://members/optusnet.com.au/johnpapenhuyzen .
Besides organising
the reunion Warwick and I have a great personal interest in maritime history,
particularly the Dutch maritime involvement in Australian History.
Warwick and I are
not only Members of the ANMM but we are also active as Volunteers at the
Museum. Through our association with the ANMM we have been able to organise
displays of Dutch maritime items at the Museum and thanks to John Helfrich and
Brian Hinwood we now have models of the “TJIWANGI” and the “STRAAT BANKA”, two
RIL passenger ships that were very popular with Australians at the time, that
will be donated to the ANMM at our 25th Annual Dutch Shipping
Reunion – Sydney.
John Papenhuyzen
Convenor Annual Dutch Shipping Reunion – Sydney and Webmaster Oud Roest Down Under
Sydney
18 January 2010