Here is another post, by poet Eleanor Brown, about the Dutch nursery rhymes which our reader Julia Banks (b. 1939) learned with her children in The Netherlands in the 1960s.
For Sheffield’s 2019 Off the Shelf Festival, on 21 October, Eleanor and Imtiaz Dharkar are reading from their latest collections of poems, published by Bloodaxe Books. Eleanor’s poems, White Ink Stains, draw in part on the Reading Sheffield interviews. Click here for more information.
Here is the Dutch original:
Jantje zag eens pruimen hangen O! als eieren zo groot ‘t Scheen, dat Jantje wou gaan plukken Schoon zijn vader ‘t hem verbood Hier is, zei hij, noch mijn vader Noch de tuinman, die het ziet Aan een boom, zo vol geladen Mist men vijf, zes pruimen niet Maar ik wil gehoorzaam wezen En niet plukken; ik loop heen Zou ik om een hand vol pruimen Ongehoorzaam wezen? Neen!
Voort ging Jantje, maar zijn vader Die hem stil beluisterd had Kwam hem in het lopen tegen Vooraan op het middenpad Kom mijn Jantje, zei de vader Kom mijn kleine hartedief Nu zal ik u pruimen plukken Nu heeft vader Jantje lief Daarop ging Papa aan ‘t schudden Jantje raapte schielijk op Jantje kreeg zijn hoed vol pruimen En liep heen op een galop.
From the wall hanging which Julia made at the time
And here is Eleanor’s ‘mainly accurate translation’:
Johnny sees the ripe plums hanging Oh! As big as eggs they are. How he longs to grasp and pluck The fruit forbidden by Papa! “But,” he ponders, “neither Father Nor the gardener’s here to see: Who would miss just five or six From such a heavy-laden tree? Yet I want to be obedient… Mustn’t pick them…better go. Shall I, for a ripe sweet handful, Disobey my father? No!”
Off goes Johnny: but his father, Who has overheard it all, Catches up as he walks homeward, Stops him by the garden wall. “Come, my Johnny,” says the father, “Come, my darling little lad, Now shall you have plums aplenty, Now you’ve pleased your watchful Dad!” Father gives the tree a shaking. Followed, eavesdropped-on, policed, Johnny fills his hat with plums, And gallops off to have his feast.
Honesty or policy? Johnny’s under surveillance from a parent who rewards obedience with approval (and plums) – if he sees it for himself. That’s why Johnny does his moral cogitating aloud, in stage soliloquy. There’s no trust here.
Here are other Dutch nursery
rhymes and Eleanor’s versions in English.
Our guest blogger Julie was born on the Manor estate in Sheffield in 1950. She attended St Theresa’s Primary School. After graduating from Notre Dame High School, she left Sheffield for Newcastle-on-Tyne, to train as a teacher. She taught for two years in Liverpool before heading off on an adventurous journey to Sydney, Australia, where she still lives. She has spent her career in education – teaching, writing and lecturing. She was Head of Education at the Australian Museum and General Manager of the charity The Peer Support Foundation. She now writes fiction. Her novel Nowt But Drippin’ is set in Sheffield and will be released by Pegasus later this year.
Manor Library and its garden today
By Julie Howard
My earliest memory of Manor Library is the Peter Pan and Wendy mural, which was painted on one of the glass partitions. Dressed in pale greens and blue they flew through the air, their eyes wide with astonishment. I thought it was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. It was 1955 and the library was only a couple of years old. It was glorious.
Manor Library in the 1950s, when Julie joined
The Manor entrance today, showing it has not changed so very much since the 1950s
In the children’s library, boys and girls whispered
together as they searched the shelves. Occasionally a giggle would erupt only
to be quelled by a glower from the librarian. Once we had chosen our book, we
approached the counter. The librarian vigorously flicked through small brown
envelopes until she found our card. There was a nerve-wracking moment as she scrutinised
the chosen book before peering down into your face. Heaven help you, if you
chose something unsuitable. I remember a Just
William book being confiscated. With a burning face I went back to
choose ‘something more suitable’ from the shelves, which was difficult because
I didn’t know what I’d done wrong. I now think it was because I had chosen a ‘boy’s
book’!
The imposing entrance through which the young Julie walked
I loved Manor Library from the first moment I stepped
in there. At first, I was heartbroken to find I couldn’t borrow a book until I
was six. It took me weeks of pleading before they let me join. It was years
later I found out that the kind-hearted librarian had changed my birthdate. Nat the Cat was my first book. I read
it in the morning and went back for more in the afternoon, only to be told that
I could only have one book a day!
The library in the 1950s
Manor Library was a daily lifesaver for me. After tea,
mum would walk me up to ‘Reading Circle’. Children sat cross-legged on the
floor and the librarians’ stories took us away from our everyday lives to Narnia and other exotic places. From
that time on, mum often found me standing and staring hopefully at the back of
my wardrobe. The librarians always left us, jaws hanging, at the most crucial
part of the story. If we wanted to know the ending, we had to rise up to the
challenge of finishing the book.
At Christmas time the drama group would put on plays
and the whole family would attend. Of course, with my long blonde hair I was
always an angel, but one year, I was lucky enough to get a singing part… Oh joy!
It was a magical place to write. Storybook and pencil
in hand I would walk up Prince of Wales Road, to the library, which always seem
to be open. I’d sit at one of the tables and write my stories of fairies and
goblins.
Julie and her classmates
I now divide my time between Sydney and Sheffield (Manly to the Manor) Of course an annual pilgrimage to Manor Library to say thank you, is essential. I am still reading and writing voraciously. My novel Nowt But Drippin’ is set in Sheffield and draws on some of my childhood memories. I also work with refugees and others trying to get their stories into print. After all we all have a story to tell, don’t we?
Julie today
Manor Library serves the Manor ward in souh-east Sheffield. The area was rural until the 1930s, when Sheffield Council started building a large estate to relieve inner city crowding. The branch library was almost ready in 1939, when war broke out, and it could not be completed and opened until 1953. The design of the building was innovative in its day, and we plan to tell the story of Manor Library in a future post.
Ruth, who was born in Sheffield on 13 February 1954, is one of our original team of interviewers. She has been a teacher almost her whole career and is now a personal tutor for English and French GCSE and A Level. She is the daughter of Mary and niece of Pat, whose memories you can read here.
Just like so many of
my generation, as children, I read and read and read. Frankly, there was little
else to do. If the sun was shining and there were friends around, then we would
all be outside, either playing on the street or in woodland. Games included
hopscotch, French skipping, ordinary skipping, playing ‘two ball’ (throwing
balls up against the wall) or riding our bikes.
But, when the rain
came, or friends were away, or for some reason we had to stay at home, reading
was always my first choice. I remember vividly hanging out of bed, reading by
the landing light. My brother was rather more sophisticated in that he had a
torch.
My parents were very different in their reading matter, but they both read. Dad was a newspaper man – cover to cover if he had the time between working at the railway for five and a half days a week and tackling all the DIY our house desperately needed.
Ruth’s mum and dad on their wedding day
Mum, on the other
hand, was a voracious reader of fiction. Attempting to gain her attention when
she was reading was quite a challenge. It would go something like this:
‘Mum. Mum. Mu-um.’
Louder now: ‘MU-UM!’
‘Yes love,’ she
replied, paying little attention.
‘Can I go to
Gillian’s?
‘Mmmm.’
‘Mum! Did you hear me?
Can I?’
‘What’s that love?’
What she did hear was my dad coming home. She’d slam the book shut, stand up straight and pick up a duster. Dad had more than a bit of a temper. I’d give up and pick up a book.
So which books was I
actually reading? I remember from a very young age reading Bible stories,
especially the Christmas story. I was about four years old, was with my dad and
was reading to him. I managed the word ‘suddenly’ which was the first word of
the sentence telling of the Angel Gabriel’s announcement to Mary. My dad was
delighted. What influence his praise had on me to read further I cannot say,
though it must have had some. His praise was very rare.
Other books I remember reading from childhood were Puppy Stories for Children – a book I loved and still have. Every Christmas I was given by my aunt an annual called Princess – it’s worth noting that a princess was the last thing I aspired to be, but I did enjoy the annual. Somebody bought me The Observer’s Book of Horses and Ponies. I read that book from cover to cover about a hundred times. I could recognise and categorise every horse and the script that went with it.
I have always loved animals and have read an awful lot about them. I am still horrified by the way humans treat them: factory farms, caged hens, the cruel dairy industry. This love of animals has also informed much of my reading, and still does. The question I asked as a child, ‘What have animals ever done to us that we treat them so abhorrently?’ No answer as yet.
And then, in she came, the most popular children’s author of my generation and maybe all time: Enid Blyton. I read them all. Secret Seven, Famous Five, The Naughtiest Girl in the school and my all -time favourite, Malory Towers: every single one. All I wanted was to be in a boarding school with Darrell and her mates. Actually that’s not entirely true, as I was also reading Ruby Ferguson’s books about Jill and her love of horses. Jill’s Gymkhana was a firm favourite and there was its predecessor, A Pony for Jill. The nearest I got to my own pony was a stuffed sock with button eyes and a broom handle body. Despite its inanimate properties, I was still up at 6 am ‘to muck it out’ and feed it. Creeping down the stairs of our very small house, I’d hear my dad. ‘What the bloody hell is she doing going out to feed that stick horse? Can’t you stop her, Mary? She’s obsessed.’ In this instance, he was right.
I’m trying to recall where I got these books from. Several were bought for me by my parents. Astonishing really, as money was very tight. We were living in Darnall, but I have no memory of going to a local library. My dad believed absolutely in the power of education to transform lives. The books were regarded as an investment. A poor boy from Tinsley, a prisoner of war for three and a half years, he was determined that his children would have that which he had been denied.
To this end, we moved.
We arrived in Beauchief and my brother and I became pupils at Abbey Lane County
Primary school. The A stream had an excellent reputation for all its pupils
passing the 11+.
Now 11 years old and
the summer holidays stretching in front of me, I would go to the library almost
every other day. Woodseats Library was about half a mile away and I was a
devotee. We had to go over to my aunt’s in Tinsley during the holidays, as my
mum was working – she had to – but on arrival home there was just enough time
before the library closed, to succeed in a mad dash to the shelves.
Jane Eyre, for breakfast
Grammar school time arrived in the late sixties and reading was expected and enforced. Fine by me. Jane Eyre for breakfast, Persuasion for lunch and Tess of the d’Urbervilles for tea. Despite being made to walk across the desks as King Hamlet’s ghost, by my rather eccentric English teacher, I loved Shakespeare too. I would read anything and everything, and at A level developed a love for French Literature too. Balzac’s Eugenie Grandet, Zola’s L’Assomoir and Germinal, Flaubert’s Madame Bovary – superb.
Original advert for Germinal, one of Ruth’s favourites of French literature.
University was where I
was able to study both French and English literature and was also where I
developed a lifelong interest in literature from further afield too,
particularly America, Russia and India.
Some friends of mine, six of us, about twenty-five years ago now, decided that we would form a book group and we are still going to this day. We take it in turns to choose the book which we discuss the following month. Several years back, it being my turn, I chose The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro, in my opinion, a sublime writer. Sadly, this was not the opinion of the group, who really disliked what has come to be one of my very favourite books. It is so interesting to me how reading preferences vary. The fact that people with whom you have so much in common, educationally, socially and politically, can have such a wide variety of tastes in books, utterly astonishes me. But that’s how it is.
Right now, wherever I go, I have a book with me. Thrillers, serious tomes, studies of the English language itself; in short I have to have something to read. To have to wait in a queue, or wait for someone, or have my car break down or being unable to sleep – all of these irritations in life are soothed by the simple knowledge of having a book with me.
Janice Maskort was Sheffield’s City Librarian between 2000 and 2010, and still lives in the city. She was born in Orkney and grew up in Kent. Janice worked for Kent County Libraries for several years, including in Maidstone, Rochester and Canterbury, until her move to Sheffield. Reading has been a pleasure, a mainstay, a need all her life.
Here Janice describes the beginning of her reading journey.
I was reading long before school. I will never forget the moment when I realised that I could read. I was in church with my father and the hymn was All Things Bright and Beautiful, which I knew. Turning my hymn book round (I was holding it upside down), I realised that the black marks were the words! I was so excited I climbed on the pew and shouted, ‘Daddy, I can read!’ The Presbyterian congregation did not appreciate my joyful interruption, and I was smacked and went without pudding at lunch. I was so thrilled that I didn’t care and went round the house looking for print to practise on. As a librarian I was always moved when a child learned to read whilst in the library. It was like finding the key to a magic kingdom.
My parents were both serious readers and regular public library users. My mother was also a member of Boots Booklovers’ Library, which was in walking distance. Going to the ‘proper’ library entailed a long bus journey. Once my father bought a car, however, trips to the public library were easier.
There was a reasonable collection of books at home but very little children’s literature. I was always begging my many aunts and uncles for books as birthday or Christmas presents. As my mother was one of ten children and my father one of four, I did pretty well. In those days children often received postal orders as presents and if I could prevent my mother from appropriating the money for new shoes, I was able to buy a book. One Christmas my aunt in Canada sent me Johanna Spyri’s Heidi, but this was an edition all in pictures with truncated text. I adored it and was very disappointed when my father bought me the original version. I missed the illustrations.
The copy of Heidi bought by Janice’s father
I could not have survived without the library. I could always read at great speed; it is genetic and my daughter inherited the skill. Even then though the library was frustrating. We were only allowed three books at a time and I had read them all in the first 24 hours. Then a whole week before the next visit! Being able to read so fast was a blessing and a curse as my daughter also discovered. No teacher would believe me when I said I had finished the set book on the first day and I was always being surreptitiously tested. Eventually a new headmistress recognised my genuine distress at being accused of lying and told the staff that I could have access to all the books in the classroom. In later years I found myself trying to explain the ability to my daughter’s teachers.
My parents who were strict in some ways were remarkably liberal about reading and I was allowed to read anything. The only book my mother ever censored was a James Bond novel by Ian Fleming. I still have no idea why. I have never subscribed to the theory that children should only read ‘age-appropriate’ material. I had browsed The Decameron, Canterbury Tales and the Kama Sutra before I was eleven. I only understood what I knew and ignored the rest. My mother asked me one day what the Kama Sutra was about. She had no idea what it was. I remember saying that it was very strange but had a chapter on flower arranging (as it has). Neither she nor I had any idea why my father laughed so much!
My father did get exasperated at my constant questions about unfamiliar words and introduced me to the dictionary. I found it helpful but also frustrating as each definition seemed to require another one and I often felt I was going round in circles. He gave me an atlas as well but when I couldn’t find Narnia, I decided it wasn’t very helpful. One day he arrived home with an old set of Arthur Mee’s Children’s Encyclopedia. This kept me going for a whole summer. I read all the stories first, then history and mythology. I ignored most of the ‘informative’ sections but do remember lace-making in Nottingham, dress-making pins from Sheffield and shoes in Leicester.
As a child I suffered badly from bronchial asthma and in the winter, not helped by the awful fogs and coal fires of the period, I was often off school for weeks. This did little for my maths; I seemed to miss the introduction of long division or whatever. However I could read in bed. I preferred my mother’s choice of books from the library. She often took Andrew Lang’s fairy tales. My father brought The Last of the Mohicans and Wind in the Willows (which I never liked). But Dad also gave me David Copperfield, which began a lifelong love of Charles Dickens. There were lots of books for boys too, but I found all the stories of saving the empire and killing natives both boring and upsetting. I didn’t mind stories about animals as long as there were no killing sprees. My father, who often went abroad for work, did give me travel books and I adored Farley Mowat’s book about the Inuit people.
Rumpelstiltskin, from Andrew Lang’s The Blue Fairy Book (ca. 1889)
Original illustration from David Copperfield
I was called an imaginative child, but in fact all children are. I lived my characters. If I was told off, I was Marie Antoinette in a tumbril or Mary Queen of Scots on the block. Like many children, I found comfort and solace in my literary companions.
When I was ten, I won a national painting competition. We had to paint ‘the most exciting place in the world.’ I was the only child to paint a library. I won an enormous box of Reeves paints but was also allowed to choose a book. I opted for Ballet Shoes by Noel Streatfeild and my father was disappointed, as he wanted me to pick something sensible like Woodworking Tips for Boys. I still have my prize book.
My sister Rebecca and I began classifying our own books early on. Well, I did, and she enjoyed stamping them out to our dolls. To this day I wonder why we classified Ballet Shoes as ‘E7’. It’s as incomprehensible as the Library of Congress classification scheme.
Not all of my large, extended family approved of my addiction to books. When I was diagnosed with severe myopia, at the age of ten, my poor mother often faced a chorus of ‘Well, we told you she would go blind’. I remember, in her defence, saying to one great aunt that sewing also made one go blind and told her about French nuns ruining their eyes making lace. She looked at me and said ‘Well, we don’t need to worry about your reaching that level of expertise.’ This was unfair because I can sew, but her embroidery was exquisite.
Orkney was an important influence. My mother was Orcadian, as am I, and in my childhood we went there every year. We visited lots of relatives and I was allowed access to all their books. There were a lot of Victorian ‘prize books’ and I read many moralistic tales in which daughters saved their fathers from intemperance and nursed dying siblings. Later on I did my dissertation on the impact of prize books as a major source of reading material in isolated and poor communities. This is probably where my love of Victorian and Edwardian literature began, although my mother’s admiration for Mrs Henry Wood might also have been a factor. She and I often intoned ‘Gone! And never called me mother!’[i]
Some of Janice’s collection of prize books
Orkney has a strong oral tradition so I experienced stories long before I could read. Language is powerful and its cadences and rhythms communicate so much. As a librarian I was passionate about telling or reading stories to children. For example, I have worked with children with severe learning difficulties and have never failed to engage with them through stories. And on another occasion, when I visited Africa for work, I followed a story-telling session. The children all knew and loved the story. I couldn’t understand a word but heard the build-up and the repetition of phrases. I was gripped. When we reached the denouement, I fell off my chair, which made the little ones laugh. While I didn’t understand the words, I felt the power of the story.
Young Janice
[i] This famous line is in fact not from Mrs Henry Wood’s novel, East Lynne, but from the stage adaptations.
Here is another post, by poet Eleanor Brown, about the Dutch nursery rhymes which our reader Julia Banks (b. 1939) learned with her children in The Netherlands in the 1960s. The illustration below is from the wall hanging which Julia made at the time.
Here is the Dutch original:
Onder moeders paraplu
Liepen eens twee kindjes,
Hanneke en Janneke,
Dat waren dikke vrindjes.
En hun klompjes gingen klik, klak, klik,
En de regen deed van tik, tak, tik,
Op moeders paraplu.
Toen kwam Jan de Wind erbij,
Die joeg eerst heel zoetjes,
Toen al hard en harder maar
De regen in hun snoetjes.
En Jan de Wind, die rukte en trok,
En op en neder ging de stok
Van moeders paraplu.
Maar Hanneke en Janneke
Dat waren flinke klantjes!
Die hielden stijf de paraplu
In allebei hun handjes.
En ze lachten blij van hi, ha, hi,
En ze riepen: Jan, jij krijgt hem nie!
‘t Is moeders paraplu!
Textile by Julia Banks
And here is Eleanor’s English version:
Under Mother’s umbrella two friends were walking,
Jack and Johnny, they were stout friends.
And their little clogs went click, clack, click,
And the rain went tick, tack, tick,
On Mother’s umbrella.
Then along came Jan-the-Wind, who – first of all quite sweetly,
But then harder and harder – drove the rain in their faces.
And Jan-the-Wind, he pulled and pushed,
And up and down went the stick
Of Mother’s umbrella.
Jack and Johnny, they were hefty customers.
They held tight to the umbrella in both their hands
And laughed merrily with ‘Hee, ha, hee!’
And shouted, ‘Jan, you won’t get it!
It’s Mother’s umbrella!’
Here are other Dutch nursery rhymes and Eleanor’s versions in English.
A post for Christmas from poet Eleanor Brown, about the Dutch nursery rhymes which our reader Julia Banks (b. 1939) learned with her children in The Netherlands in the 1960s. The illustration below is from the wall hanging which Julia made at the time.
Sinterklaas Kapoentje,
gooi wat in m’n schoentje,
gooi wat in m’n laarsje.
Dank u, Sinterklaasje.
Saint Nicholas, little capon,
Throw something in my little shoe
Throw something in my little boot.
Thank you, little Saint Nicholas!
Textile by Julia Banks
A brief but interesting rhyme appropriate for the time of year. It’s tempting to render Sinterklaas as Santa Claus, but that probably takes him a step further away from the 4th century Greek bishop whose feast day on December 6th. That was when Dutch and other European children would traditionally leave their shoes out, in the hope that the kindly saint or his proxies would leave sweets, gingerbread and other goodies in them.
Mama Lisa’s World gives ‘kapoentje’ as ‘you rascal’, and is coy about it: ‘This is a very short song and the word ‘kapoentje’ is a very old word with its origin not necessarily being positive. Over time however, its meaning is believed to be more in the context of a nickname of sorts.’ In fact, if you take off the diminutive ending ‘-tje’ (the thing that in English turns John into [little] Johnny and pig into [little] piggy), you are left with ‘kapoen’, which simply means capon: a castrated cock fowl destined for the cooking pot. Maybe a disrespectful reference to the bishop’s clerical celibacy, but after all, ‘rascal’ was once freighted with much more disapproval than it is now.
Even before listening to the Dutch spoken by a translating tool, my eye was caught by ‘gooi wat’ – literally, ‘throw something’ – for which we have a perfect north-east English dialect equivalent in the verb ‘hoy’. And indeed, the initial sound of ‘gooi’ is soft and aspirated, like a throaty ‘h’. So ‘gooi wat in m’n schoentje’ might better be represented by ‘hoy summat in wor shoesies’.
But I’m a poet, I’m attracted to a lot of stuff that linguists and oral historians would strenuously disagree with or disapprove of – so do feel free to tell me I’m making up false cognates.
Here is a second post, by poet Eleanor Brown, about the Dutch nursery rhymes which our reader Julia Banks (b. 1939) learned with her children in The Netherlands in the 1960s. The illustration below is from the wall hanging which Julia made at the time.
Textile by Julia Banks
In Den Haag daar woont een Graaf
En zijn zoon heet Jantje
Als je vraagt ‘Waar woont je Pa?’
Dan wijst hij met zijn Handje
Met vingertje en duim
Op zijn hoed draagt hij een Pluim
Aan zijn arm een Mandje……
Dag mijn lieve Jantje.
Statue in The Hague, by Ivo Coljé, 1976 (source: Steven Lek, Wikimedia Commons)
In The Hague there lives a Count
He has a son named Johnny
If you ask, ‘Where does your Daddy live?’
He points there with his little hand,
His little finger and his thumb.
On his hat he wears a plume,
On his arm a basket.
Good day to you, dear Johnny.
In Den Haag daar woont een graaf is a very well known Dutch nursery rhyme. Jantje – we would say Johnny in English – may be Jan I (John I) who became the Graafschap Holland (Count of the County of Holland) in 1296, when his father, Floris V, was assassinated. Jantje was only 13 years old, and after two years gave up his position to his cousin John II. Jantje died within the month. The Hague was traditionally the Graafschap’s residence, and in 1976, to celebrate its 750th anniversary, the City Council commissioned the statue shown here from sculptor Ivo Coljé.
It is possible that the rhyme is not about Jan I. Jan was a very common Dutch name, and it neatly rhymes with ‘Mandje’ (‘basket’) and ‘Handje’ (‘hand’).
Here is the first of an occasional series of posts, by poet Eleanor Brown, about the Dutch nursery rhymes which our reader Julia Banks (b. 1939) learned with her children when they lived in The Netherlands in the 1960s.
Later on, when I was married, I did have a lot of spare time. Because we moved to Holland in ’65 and we didn’t have a television. I spent a lot of time learning Dutch, because I’d got by then two young children who would go into nursery school, and I would need to be able to sing to them, nursery rhymes and so on. So my Dutch is based on nursery rhymes; I can’t discuss anything political, but I can sing you a nursery rhyme! And so a lot of my time there I went to the British Women’s Club Library…
With no YouTube to visit for colourful animations including a friendly ball bouncing along subtitled lyrics in time with the music; with no Babel Fish (RIP) or Google Translate to show texts side by side with their translations; with no smartphone language app encouragingly keeping score of learning tasks completed, Julia had to find her own way into Dutch. She must have had to learn tunes, pronunciation and intonations at toddler groups; perhaps at mother and baby sessions at the library. She must have had to do some guesswork and dictionary work at first, piecing together the meanings of (sometimes more or less nonsensical) texts with clues from the illustrations in books.
As in English, many Dutch early learning songs tell no very rational or sequential tale: bears buttering their sandwiches and snakes hanging out the washing are wonders to be met with in a world where beren rhymes with smeren and slangen rhymes with hangen.
In the absence of a television, Julia made her own visual aid: she coded her own and her children’s learning into a cross-stitch needlework textile wall hanging that illustrates 12 traditional Dutch nursery rhymes. The texts (together with audio and translations) of some of these can be found at Mama Lisa’s World: Children’s Songs and Nursery Rhymes From Around The World but if you make your own translations, you can enjoy finding equivalents for the flavour, rhythm or silliness of the original.
They range from the briefest summary of domestic animal whereabouts:
Textile by Julia Banks
A, B, C, A, B, C,
De Kat gaat me, The cat comes with me,
De Hond blijft thuis. The dog stops at home.
‘Piep!’ zei de muis ‘Eek!’ says the mouse
In ‘t voorhuis. In the front of the house.
to a long, earnest account of (Everyboy) Jantje’s moral struggle as he gazes at the ripe plums his father has forbidden him to scrump. They include such recognisable childhood experiences as pulling your friend along in a little wagon, holding tight to mother’s umbrella in the wind and rain, and calling your sister stupid when you drop your cap in the mud.
