Van Gerven relives history in Abu Dhabi

While he was busy making falcons’ hoods at the Dutch pavilion at the Second International Festival of Falconry in Al Ain City in Abu Dhabi, Jacques Van Gerven, founder and curator of the Falconry Cigar Makers Museum in the Dutch city of Valkenswaard, remembers very well his first trip to the UAE capital in 1976. The 81 year-old Dutch took part in the first International Falconry Conference (IFC) which was inaugurated in Abu Dhabi by the late Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan order topreserve falconry as an important element of the UAE national heritage. Van Gerven made a special traditional hood encrusted in silver for Sheikh Zayed during his visit to the Conference along with Dutch Prince Bernard. The octogenarian started making falcons’ hoods since he was 37 years old when he met a German friend called Horst Niesters in Germany. When Niesters showed him a hood made by the Dutch King William III’s falconer in the 19th century and told him that nobody could make such hoods anymore, Van Gerven decided to embark on an exciting adventure despite his lack of knowledge anything related to falconry. Van Gerven is still making special hoods, some of which with embroidered Arab flags, for Arab celebrities such as Qatar’s emir Sheikh al Hamad al Thani. Now an expert in falconry, the humble Van Gerven relives history in the UAE 35 years after his first visit to Abu Dhabi.