Hoops on a pile, beautifull
Original text: Hoepels op een hoop, prachtig, BN / De Stem, 24 juni 2006, Dominique Elshout

Every Monday they spent money to obtain a few portions of liquor, but it did not get to a drinking feast. The drink had nothing to do with a social gathering. The hoop manufacturers drank for courage to come by for the rest of the lengthy workweek. And to forget the poverty.   t

The willow wood (griendhout) was cut and binded together for transportation to the harbour and then delivered to the hoops manufacturers.	The hoops manufacturers processed the willow wood and made hoops. The hoops were used to manufacture wooden barrels.
photo's by Heemkundekring Willem Snicherieme, Hooge en Lage Zwaluwe

It was a beautiful site to see the pile of hoops.

Hoop manufacturers made hoops, in villages and town around the "Biesbosch", like Lage Zwaluwe, Sliedrecht and Hardinxveld. Many people earned their living with the production of hoops, but it was not a rich living, say's Bas Dubbelman (72) from Hooge Zwaluwe. Hit grandfather, Bas, had a hoop factory in Lage Zwaluwe, one out of many. In the early 1900's there were so much as fifteen, twenty of these small factory's, is estimated by Dubbelman. The larger ones occupied ten workers, the smaller ones two or tree. They had an awkward profession, with nice associated words. The wood for the hoops came from the short by the ground pruned willows, which grew at wet grounds, the land that flooded with high tide. De long twines were lengthly split with a 'dissel' into two, or sometimes with a 'klucht' into three twines. The "dissel" and "klucht" are a sort of knifes,

The splitting of the twine with the 'klucht' seems rather easy, but it's really necessary to get many hours of training and is physically hard for the wrist of the hoops manufacturer, is told in old reports.

The twined sticks were cut to remove the bulging, so making a flat piece of wood. With a bending machine the flat stick were bended to form a round hoop. Then the hoop was placed in a special template (schijvenbord) with a measured hoop.

There is a distinct difference between certain sort of hoops. Dubbelman names them the white and the regular. The bark of white hoop has been removed, so revealing the inside of the willow. To preserve the hoop, the hoops were kept for a knight in a shed filled with sulphur fumes. The fumes invaded the wood.

Dubbelman gets excited when het tells about the beautiful scene that the piles of hoop showed, which were piled up at various places in the village. Or the ships, filled with hoops, in the harbour of Lage Zwaluwe. Beautiful!

From the harbour the hoops were transported to Germany, England, Denmark and Norway. They were not used for children's toy's, but for with the manufacturing of barrels.

With the introduction of the metal (oil) drums after the second world war, the profession of hoop manufacturer became obsolete and vanished in thin air. It's a shame, but nothing to do.

Hoops manufactures of then, when they are still living, would not view back at that time with much melancholy.

They started working in the morning at four, five o'clock, with the light of an oil lamp, remembers Bas Dubbelman. Can you imagine?

And then Dubbelman tells an unbelievable story. Lage Zwaluwe was divided in two parts until long after de war.  The Catholic part and the Protestant part. The manufacturing of hoops, that was the work of Protestants, as all the work in the Biesbosch was done by the fellow protestants, according Dubbelman. What the catholic's did? Dubbelman doesn't have a clue. As he doesn't know anything of the other side.

The other side, the catholic's. They fought which each other in the past, the protestants and catholic's. Not much more. When they got swimming in the summer, there was maybe one catholic between hundred protestants.

Sometimes a catholic breached the barrier, also to get a job. Bas mentioned to have worked with one. But he doesn't know much about the other inhabitants. He asks himself what they did for a living. Maybe mainly agricultural work.

Bas Dubbelman mentions that he is going to have dinner in the Candlelight restaurant beside the Catholic church. In the past this was not done at all.