Mind you, it was first known as Queen’s Day. That’s because it was a celebration of the birthday of the queen of the Netherlands. As mentioned earlier in this space, the Netherlands has had queens for quite some time. Willem Alexander is the first king since the beginning of the last century.
When I first became aware of the Netherlands, when Shirley and I first came on a campaign as students at York College, Beatrix was Queen of the Netherlands. Queen’s day was April 30th every year. But that was actually the birthday of Beatrix’s mother, Juliana. Beatrix was born in January. But holding a Queen’s day in January would be abominable.
You see, Queen’s day - or King’s Day as it is now called - is a day when everyone, young and old, puts on orange, figures out some sort of things to sell at a street market, and welcomes the royal family in the city the royals have deigned to visit that year. It is like a huge, national garage sale. Children are outside along the streets selling toys, or pancakes, or lemonade (if they drink lemonade).
Willem Alexander was born on April 27. So that’s perfect. The day was moved up three days and everyone keeps doing as they are used to. This year the king and queen are celebrating in Maastricht. They were supposed to have come here in 2020 but a crown got in the way (or was it a corona?). Most in Maastricht thought that 2021 would be their day, but the royals chose elsewhere. So this year they decided they truly did have to come back to Maastricht.
Shirley will miss going to the markets. She loves garage sales and has a lot of fun at them. But we are spending that day with friends elsewhere. We will have to see the king and queen some other day.
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