International Molinology

Journal of The International Molinological Society

No. 67  / summary - résumé

Editorial
by Michael Harverson
     (For this edition, the Editorial is been uses also as a summary, giving details for most articles. Summaries in german an french are provides as downloads at the end of this page.)

The very day that I sat down to compose this editorial, an email came from  Denmark with the sad news of the death of Anders Jespersen on Saturday 8^th November. If any one person can be said to have founded and nurtured TIMS, it was Anders. Many of us last recall him at the Budapest symposium in 1997. I shall be asking some of those who knew him well to contribute to a tribute in IM68; please contact me if you have special memories or photos you would like to share with the readership then. For the moment we salute his passing and extend our sympathy to Sally. TIMS has lost a great molinologist.
      If the TIMS Dictionary of Molinology is one day truly comprehensive, it will include the unfamiliar words we learnt during the tour of the Baltic States (see the main  feature of this issue) for windmills and watermills in Estonian: tuuleveskid and vesivekid; in Latvian: vejdzirnavas and udensdzirnavas; and in Lithuanian: vejo malunai and vandens malunai. I fear that some of the accents may be beyond the various computers that process my words! We saw dozens of windmills that remain upright by a miracle. Yolt Ijzerman took his life in his hands clambering up in one such dilapidated wooden mill at Randküla on the island of Saaremaa (Estonia) and was lucky to drop no more than a camera! Eric Tijman has written about the unusual mills – post or paltrok, we were not too sure – that we saw in Lithuania. Their state, in some cases little more than a pile awaiting pillaging for firewood this winter, led to a desire to do something positive about mill preservation in these countries, soon to join the European Union. So, letters were sent, detailing  a few specific mills worthy of attention and needing it immediately, to the three state presidents. TIMS cannot fund restoration, but it can advise on procedures and materials and draw on the skills of several experienced millwrights. One of these, Johan de Punt, was on the trip and was keen to launch a scheme using and passing on his skills to a work group of Lithuanians. The idea deserves to be realised, but hard preparatory work on the ground – talking and persuading the authorities as well as local people - is essential first. TIMS cannot go into a situation without the whole-hearted involvement of the local population. Only one president has so far answered the appeal: a courteous acknowledgement, but no likelihood of decisive action. In the long task of raising awareness of the heritage of Baltic mills and preventing their disappearance (in a cloud of dust), the formation of local mill groups would be the soundest guarantee of progress. It was a great pleasure to all of us to have the company of Dora and Eligijus Morkunas from the Lithuanian open-air museum at Rumsiskes; the future of mills there lies in their hands, but TIMS will try to do everything possible to encourage them.
      What local enthusiasts can achieve was demonstrated to me by a recent visit to Heage windmill in Derbyshire. It was heartening to see a tower mill, built in 1797 and that last worked in 1919, restored (last year) with its six sails turning in the wind, watched over by a small team from the  local group, including two TIMS members, who have worked their socks off to achieve their dream. Large amounts of money do have to be raised, but they would be of little use without millwrighting skills  and the solid practical commitment of enthusiastic volunteers. Heage windmill has been preserved as more than a feature in a beautiful landscape; it works and attracts visitors to learn about this elemental and vital structure, crucial to the local scene for over a century.
      Preservation means keeping faith with the original structure and machinery as much as possible, not tearing down and building afresh, which is what restoration can become in the wrong hands. The dramatic achievements over the past thirty years of ARAM Nord-Pas-de-Calais under the devoted and practical leadership of TIMS member Jean Bruggeman, resulting in  the rescue and repair of  thirty-three fine mills, provide another inspiration to mill lovers to make the demanding efforts to save mills for future generations. I saw recently at first hand that challenge at Xàbia in eastern Spain, where a row of eleven windmills that dominates the town may be saved with EU funding, in the nick of time, as several have already been roughly house-converted and one half torn down. What is the purpose of preserving these mill towers that have lost their caps and machinery so long ago that no local people remember what they looked like? Should they be equipped with caps and sails of random design, knocked up by carpenters who know nothing of millwrighting? Illuminated at night, they could create a fairytale backdrop to the town for tourists. But these survivors from earlier times deserve  more  thoughtful treatment, ensuring that they contribute to more than a ‘disneyfication’ of the past. The absence of millwrighting skills in this part of Spain, as in the Baltic States and in South Africa, perhaps suggests a future direction for TIMS efforts. Could we do more in a practical way to encourage and enable the respectful yet positive preservation of the mill and milling  heritage of many countries where a traditional working mill has ceased to exist?
      Two Dutch millwrights spent time in Capetown almost  a decade ago, at government expense, advising and supervising the repair of Mostert’s Mill, the only windmill to survive as more than a shell in southern Africa. A small team of volunteers cares for the mill and works it regularly on Saturdays, open to visitors. Few come and the government that only paid the bills because it owns the property, feels disinclined to support further work on the mill. Seeing the volunteers setting the canvas sails on this small tower mill is an inspiring sight for those of us whose mill is in a static or damaged state. They deserve to prompt imitation elsewhere in their country where mills survive as precariously as in the Baltic States and owners fail to preserve and share them, partly because the effort seems beyond them in the absence of  knowledgeable millwrights. TIMS membership in every country carries with it the responsibility to assist in and actively encourage the care and pride in those mills that have a degree of life left in their skeletons.
      Michael Harverson

Report of the TIMS mid-term tour: 3-10 August 2003

     The report has been written by various members of the group, each putting their own slant on the experiences of the week and contributing their own photos: Days 1 and 2 by Tony and Kate Bonson; Tays 3 and 4 by Ton Meesters; Days 5 and 6 by Marjorie and Bob Lundegard; Days 7 and 8 by Gerald Bost.
     14 pages, 47 black/white picturs.
   
On this internet page we substitutes some of the back and white picutres into colour.

Angela windmills (Saaremaa, Estonia)
	Gerald is still working on this page.

Part 1: Estonian Windmills on old photos
     These old photos habe been lent by Chris Gibbings, who received them 20 years ago from the curator of the Ethnological Museum of Estonia, Mr. Arved Luts.

Part 2: More old photos and postcards of Estonian Windmills, from the collection of Ton Meesters.
     6 pages, 19 photos
     

from Erik Tijman
3 pages, 7 photos

Mills ancient and modern
Some connections
by Glyn Jones
3 pages, 3 photos

The Horizontal Windmills: Between Reality and Fantasy
An Overview
by Berthold Moog
7 pages, pictures and drawings

1. Horse-powered ferries in Russia

2. National Mills Forum at Gennes (France)

3. 2nd Portuguese antional meeting on molinology

4. Monsieur Touaillon speaks out

5. Horizontal windmill in Yorkshire

6. Alpine Windmills, more information

7. Mill Literature (new books)

Please note: Another year has passed and it is now time to pay your membership subscription for 2004.
Before paying please note the following: The TIMS Council has decided that the subscription for
2004 should be 28,00 Euro. Details see page: Membership

• ---

  ISSN 1024-4522
  This summary of the 65th  Jounal of The International Molinological Society
  has been prepared by Gerald Bost, Berlin - March 2004.
  The complete printed version can be ordered from TIMS Publication Officer:
  Leo van der Drift
  Groothertoginnelaan 174 b/c
  NL-2517 EV Den Haag
  The Netherlands                 
  

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Published: dinsdag, november 06, 2007 12:47:50