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Gelderland Villa is home to Sir Martin de Klerk, senator of the Gelderland province of the Netherlands. Sir Martin, who is a nephew of former South African president FW de Klerk, is a direct descendent of Saint Mdoku of Krootnotjes, the Archbishop of South Basutoland who is best known for inventing pre-sliced bread in 1894. Archbishop Mdoku was assassinated by a consortium of Namibian carving knife makers in 1915 whilst on a dangerous wartime mission to deliver a shipment of much needed pre-sliced bread to the Vatican. Archbishop Mdoku was canonised in 1926 and is patron saint of all pre-sliced bread delivery men. His picture hangs in the Papal Bakery at the Vatican next to that of saint Saint Vlakke van Voeten, patron saint of cockroach exterminators. Sir Martin is Chief Executive of the Dutch Overseas Company (DOC) which was originally formed with the aim of re-establishing the former Dutch Empire through peaceful diplomacy and land and property purchases. The DOC had it’s royal warrant revoked in 1930 when it was found to have been responsible for engineering the Wall Street Crash the previous year. The Dutch government came close to closing the DOC down in 1964 when it emerged that the board of the DOC had been in talks with the South African government about sponsoring a joint coup in both South Africa and the Netherlands to create the Peoples Democratic Republic of the Netherlands and South Africa. The Administrator-General of the DOC was forced to resign and was eventually imprisoned on 1,487 counts of fraud. Sir Martin recently starred as himself in the Simpsons where he rather humorously fell into a giant donut maker and was eaten by Homer. Sir Martin narrowly missed being chosen as the next James Bond but is playing the part of “3rd henchman on the right in the torture chamber” in the forthcoming film, James Bond: Will You Never Die?
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