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Bram Bosch:Skipper and paper cutter.
For years I have known that my great grandfather from my mother’s side, Bram Bosch (1865-1943), was a skipper and a paper cutter. On the wall of my study hangs a news paper cutting from the Rotterdams Nieuwsblad dated 20 march 1931. "An artist in his trade" the heading reads. It shows Opa (granddad, as we still cal him in my family) Bosch cutting figures from paper at the Rotterdam Shipping Exchange."Many people join him, looking on as his quick scissors zip through the paper resulting in typical pictures. It reduces the waiting in this time of slackness", the journalist wrote in the caption.
My mother also gave me a page from the shipping weekly newspaper "Schuttevaer" from September 1962 with a story about the Paper cutting Museum in Roden (now disappeared) managed by W.Tj. Lever. In this article the now deceased Lever (himself a paper cutter of fame) asked for information about Bram Bosch. A few weeks later Schuttevaer published a portrait of my great grandfather with a few of his paper cutting.
Story teller
Initially my mum could keep my interest going only by stories about him, her days as a youg girl with him on his boat. He transported wood, coal, grain, sugar beats and bricks through the Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany. But in the summer he also transported artists to fairs.
Opa Bosch was a great storyteller and practical joker. He had a knack for dialects and imitations. He asked for a piece of paper and started cutting and telling a story while he worked. Sayings, folk wisdoms, ships, and scenes he saw on the shores, but he also followed current events, such as the soldiers and fighting from the First World War, the crisis and public employment in the late 1920s, the jump by Vlasbom from the Hefbridge in Rotterdam. "He cut those figures before your eyes and added text and colour later", my mum says. In the late 1930s he made a paper cutting of the execution of Marius van der Lubbe (accused of the Reichtags fire in Berlin). Unfortunately we don't have this picture.
German bombs
At home we didn't have any of his paper cuttings because my grandmother and mothers home went up in flames by the German bombs on Rotterdam on 14 May 1940. Opa Bosch's ship was also badly damaged. Only in recent years my mother received some paper cuttings from (old)aunts.
Among those cuttings was a new article in the Rotterdams Nieuwsblad in 1989. in which new information was asked about Bram Bosch, by Wim van der Ark, who is married to a daughter of W.Tj Lever, in whose name he has set up a foundation. Now I have 20 paper cuttings from Opa Bosch.
Published in Schuttevaer 1962
The W. Tj. Lever Foundation also send me copies of the correspondence to Schuttevaer from 1962. These letters were part of the collection of the Paper Cutting Museum, which was auctioned by Christies in 1987. With help of the Prins Bernhardfonds historian Van der Ark and Lever's daughter were only able to buy the part of the collection with the paper cutters from Rotterdam, among whom Bram Bosch.
I now also have the letter my aunt in Haarlem wrote to Schuttevaer in 1962. "He was very proud about the story with his cuttings was published in 1932. He went to a photographer and had a picture made with him cutting a figure and a set of his paper cuttings stuck on a blackboard" my aunt wrote. That must have been a few pictures, as we have one from a slightly different angle. We don't know where the cuttings from the 1932 pictures have gone.
Cat in the water
One letter from 1962 talks about Opa Bosch as practical joker. One time in Amsterdam his ship passed underneath one of the many bridges in Amsterdam, which had just been painted. Opa Bosch imitated the sound of a cat in distress. Passers-by looked alerted over the bridge to look for the cat. After the ship passed Opa Bosch laughed, a few of the people had paint on their hands and coats....A colleague skipper from Amsterdam wrote in 1962: Many shipping office headquarters in Rotterdam had proofs of his craftsmanship hanging on their walls".
This kind of prose makes my great grandfather more alive for me (born in 1947). I would like to find out more about him and hope that his paper cutting work has not ended in de dustbins. These stories also fed the fascination of historian Van der Ark who wrote about him: "a colourful man, a skipper, and one who had an unusual eye for cutting out news events on all sorts of paper".
Anyone having more information on Bram Boch, or any of his paper cuttings please contact me.
Dick. de Jong,
Uithoornstraat 33
1078 ST Amsterdam