Michiel de Ruyter, Prince Maurits and Piet Hein have been found. The more than man-sized busts of the naval heroes from Farmsum surfaced on New Year’s Eve in Vledder in Drenthe. A New Year’s Eve stunt by New Year’s Association De Oliebol.
“It was quite a job to get them out,” says chairman Sjors Heijman. “They are big guys who weigh in quite a bit.”
The images are normally on a roundabout in Farmsum. They were taken away the day before Christmas. “In seven minutes. In the middle of the day and in a professional manner. With a crane, a large trailer and we all wore orange vests. Passers-by must have thought: those are men from the municipality.”
Tribute
One of these days the naval heroes will return to Farmsum. On New Year’s Day they were driven by Vledder on the large trailer. ,,A lap of honour, a tribute to all the volunteers in the village”, says Heijman.
“We come up with a theme every year. This time we wanted to put the volunteers here in the village in the spotlight. These are our own local heroes. People who keep the sports associations running, the clubs and so on. Our own clever minds. The heads of the naval heroes from Farmsum fit perfectly into the story there.”
There is also a more serious undertone. “We here in Vledder also notice that there are fewer and fewer volunteers that associations can call on. Maybe a fun action like this will help to get more people.”
The New Year’s Eve Association was founded in 1994 and has a lot of stunts to its name. Last year they ‘borrowed’ the 4 meter high Statue of Liberty Fransien from Exloo. The All You Need is Love- caravan has already been stolen once. Heijman: “If we do something, we do it well.”
Dark brown suspicion
Artist Lambert Kamps from Groningen, who made the busts, appreciates the action. “I’ve already had an outing,” he says on New Year’s Day. De Oliebol had called him and informed him. “I got in the car and drove to Vledder. The images look great.”
He already had a dark brown guess where to look for them. “People had last seen them on the N33 between Assen and Gieten. When looking around the internet a bit and searching for New Year’s Eve stunts, the name De Oliebol also came up.”
The images will go back to Farmsum the next day. Kamps: ,,I did ask them to clean them and to remove the green deposits. They want to do that. The images go into the new year nice and fresh in Farmsum.”