In the late eighties I worked for a German commercial vehicle dealer in Manchester. We took over premises formerly owned by a different manufacturer and the first thing to do was to rearrange the place to our own specifications. This meant that, for a while, the place was full of builders and every morning there was a wall where there hadn’t been one before, or an unexpected hole that could catch you out if you weren’t fully awake. We employees turned up to work in jeans or even shorts as the weather was nice and there was no point wearing a shirt and tie just to get all dusty. Time went by, the building took shape and we planned an opening ceremony to which various customers and suppliers were invited along with, naturally, several representatives of the manufacturer from Germany. We all spent many hours cleaning and tidying our new offices and departments, uniforms were ordered and most of us planned to take a shower and change our socks for the big event. The boss turned up a few days before the opening for a look round and thought that some of the office walls looked a bit bare and could do with livening up. Rather than waste money on frippery, he decided that he’d lend us a couple of pictures from his house. After he’d made a quick ‘phone call home, two people were instructed to follow him to his mansion in a van to collect a couple of paintings that he’d chosen for them. They returned two hours later with tall tales of butlers, maids and peacocks on the lawn and we unveiled the items, interested to know what kind of taste our owner had and were a bit surprised to say the least. I’m no connoisseur, but they were very nice, obviously well-painted by someone who knew a paint brush from a toilet brush and had a good idea of what he was doing; however, it was the subject matter that concerned us. One was entitled “Preparation for War” and showed RAF Biggin Hill in 1940. Lined up on the runway were a dozen or so Spitfires with Ginger, Biffo and the other pilots sat on deckchairs, smoking pipes, reading newspapers, awaiting the call to take to the air and give the dirty Hun what for. We unwrapped the second one, sure that it couldn’t be any worse. Unfortunately, it was. This one was called “The Sinking of The Bismarck” and depicted just that. In the centre of the canvas was the German battleship, upside-down, belching smoke and flames, the water full of debris and floundering sailors.
Now we were in a bit of a quandary. Bossman, seemingly oblivious to the subject matter of the paintings, reckoned that the best place for the pictures was in main reception, where they’d be seen by everyone who arrived; we reckoned that the best place was the skip in the back yard, but nobody wanted to tell him, so we waited until he’d gone and stuck them both in a back office out of the way. The big day went very well indeed, although we were all on tenterhooks trying to make sure that our German visitors were steered away from what they would surely have considered to be offensive items. Maybe they saw them and were too polite to say anything, we never found out for sure, but we were delighted to send them back to the boss and even happy to agree with him about how lovely they were. |
Written by Witzl (1585 comments posted) 26th January 2007 | I bet your boss, the sly old dog, had been wanting to show those paintings to some Germans for ages. Poor fellow: thwarted so cruelly.
Years ago, I lived in the dormitories at San Francisco State University. Another dorm resident, a Jewish kid whose parents had done time in Auschwitz, had for his roommate a young German from a town close to the Polish border. Is that not weird? Both of these lads had very German-sounding names, so perhaps whoever paired them thought that they shared ancestry and would accordingly find it easy to get on. They did actually become friends. The German lad got invited to his roommate's house for Chanukah; I wish I'd been a fly on the wall.
Interesting, well-written story, B-Bill, and I am waiting, as always, for more. | enjoyed this
Written by johniebg (553 comments posted) 26th January 2007 | Nicely unravelled was waiting for the punchline and was desperately let down when you decided to hide the pictures. Every German I have ever spent time has been nothing but penitent about the war, even the new generation now (we had a 20 year old intern at work) have guilt. Mostly though they return good humour with the same.
... was in Manchester myself recently, what a place that is becoming, looking up at the new Hilton gives me vertigo juts looking up at it.
Good stuff tales of normal life that strike a chord, you could possibly embelish for the sake or the art  |
Written by Witzl (1585 comments posted) 26th January 2007 | Reading this, I just remembered something else I was going to write. When we were running our B & B, we had some wonderful German guests, the Kanmeyers. They were in their seventies and their English was not perfect by any means, but they came to Scotland every year and always enjoyed talking to the people they met. We got to talking with them about politics once and they told me that they both hated Bush. 'Not good man. Too strong,' said Mr Kanmeyer. Then he hesitated a little and said, 'And I am a German. I think I can say something about leaders who are too strong.' I just loved that.
My experiences with Germans are similar to JBG's. I know that there are holocaust deniers and I know that there are still Nazis in Germany, but on the whole I have found the Germans remarkably open and candid about the war. |
Written by Phil (6838 comments posted) 27th January 2007 | Enjoyed reading this. For comic effect it would have been nice for the pictures to be seen, but I don't suppose that's what the non-fiction forum is about. Well written piece.
Phil. |
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