‘In Paris they both typed with blue fingers’

‘Den Bosch was liberated in the autumn of 1944 and my parents did not know how quickly they had to get married and get away from that war, that stuffy city and families. They had known each other for a few years from the drama club that flourished during the war because that was the only entertainment. My mother wanted to become a fashion journalist, my father, nine years younger, envisioned a future as a poet. There was no training for either profession. As soon as they had some money to get them through a few months, they left for Paris and their fingers were blue because they were paid per word or line. But it worked: newspapers and magazines were happy with news from fashionable Paris. They lived with a lady they had heard of on the train to Paris and there they took turns typing on a towel to muffle the noise for the residents and they had three children there. We moved to Amsterdam in 1954 because my father got a job at Voss fashion stores as an advertising manager. Their fourth child was born there.

He gave up poetry and chose to offer his children a wonderful future. My mother became a fashion editor at de Volkskrant and later at various magazines of the Illustrated Press. My father remained a creative person for twenty years, successful as an advertising executive. His speeches at the company parties were always the highlight because he also made great puns. As a true autodidact, my mother became a professional in journalism and rose to become editor-in-chief.

After 1973, my father stopped working at C&A/Voss and started sending good and affordable wines by mail order, together with my mother. So they returned to France. He died when he was 63 and my mother passed away in 2011. They sought and found an exciting and adventurous life, and gave their children a happy childhood. When we are together, we still quote my father’s puns and riddles and my mother’s Brabant expressions.”

Give a gift





Part





Email the editor