From her electric cargo bike, BBC correspondent Anna Holligan reported on the news in the Netherlands – The bicycle has now been stolen and that made the British media

With her electric cargo bike, BBC correspondent Anna Holligan was able to do everything in the Netherlands. Bring her daughter to school, go shopping and go live for the BBC Breaking News. But her appreciated means of transport was stolen last week. And now the Holligan living in The Hague realizes how a big part of her life was the cargo bike.

4.5 years ago she bought the bike and in the meantime she had driven about 16,000 kilometers with it. Followers of her social media knew the cargo bike well: from the bike she reported on the news on the way to the school of her now 8-year-old daughter. She summarized the news of the day in an airy tone.

A day before the bike was stolen, Holligans’s daughter and a friend of her were still eating strawberries with whipped cream in the cargo bike. « It was a mess in the box. There was clothing in it, it was chaos. My daughter also said: why didn’t they stolen a bike that was neat and tidy? »

Invested a lot in the bike

Her entire life was in the bike, Holligan is now realizing herself. Now that the means of transport is no longer there, it suddenly has to think about everything. « I used him to throw waste away, bring the dog to the beach to walk around. Now my world is suddenly very small and it has to be within walking distance, because I don’t have a car. »

In recent years, Holligan has invested a lot in the bike. It was a mobile studio that worked on solar panels. « It remained one Work in Progress« , » She says. « Together with my colleague Kate Vandy, we were always looking at how it could be even smaller, how we could make it look even better. »

Everything she needed for her work was in it: a desktop, lamps to interview people in the dark and a battery with which she could charge her phone. « If we suddenly had to go to the Criminal Court or to a farmer’s protest, I knew I could always charge my phone. » She also had a sign with the words ‘on air’ on it. « So that people knew we were journalists and not just a bit crazy with a cargo bike, » she laughs. And finally, not unimportant: it contained a coffee maker. « That way we could provide ourselves and the bicycle with fuel. »

I also didn’t realize how many people knew and liked Dutch news from the cycle path

A lot of support

The British journalist receives a lot of support from people from her immediate environment and beyond. “I didn’t realize how many people it Dutch News from the cycle path knew and liked. It’s nice to see how people react.  » Holligan has for the BBC a piece written about It paid attention to it about its stolen means of transport and other British media. She notices that people abroad do not understand how important the bicycle is in the Netherlands.

The correspondent does not expect her bike to be found. The tracker who was in it was quickly made disabled. « But the memories remain of course. All the trips, picnics, adventures to the beach. I now mainly miss the lifestyle that we had. You are free, you have freedom on a bike. In the Netherlands you can do everything you want, as long as you only have two wheels. »

She still has the first bike that Holligan bought in the Netherlands. It is a oma bike that is now under the spider webs and on which a child’s seat is still mounted. « I’m going to see if I still have the keys to that. » She is positive about the future. In the long term, she wants to buy a new cargo bike and build a mobile studio again. « Perhaps bigger and better. But in the meantime: my granny bike. »

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