Restaurant owner Tijn Kruijssen (83) van Bosch and Duin in Udenhout was a bird of paradise. A mix of Tijl Uilenspiegel, Pietje Bell and John Cleese. His history has been moved. In 1993 his case burned down to the ground. After he stopped in 2000, he continued to live on his birthplace, but after a dragging fight with the new owner, he had to leave: “The tears ran down my cheeks”.
“I am the notorious man,” Tijn laughs at the start of the conversation. To immediately tell his history: “Our dad started the business here in 1930. In the war, in 1941, I was born here. In 1965 I took over the business, together with my wife El. Every guilder that came in was invested in Bosch and Duin. “
His restaurant ran Tijn in his own unique way. A book will soon be published about that glorious history. And the writers have an inexhaustible source of anecdotes about how their protagonist got the business full. Joost van der Loo: “Kangaroos had escaped in Kaatsheuvel. There was snow. Tijn then copied the prints of Kangaroepots on a shelf. He made a trail in the dunes, called the newspaper and the whole tent was full. Because everyone wanted to see the kangaroos. ” Jan de Kort laughs: “That’s how we have at least three hundred stories.”
“Nothing was left of my life’s work.”
But it wasn’t just cheerfulness. Tijns father died in 1991, in 1992 his wife El and his mother in 1993. And then in 1993 also burned down the matter to the ground. “Nothing was left of my life’s work. There was just a new thatched roof on it. It would be delivered on Tuesday, when it burned down from Saturday to Sunday. According to the police it was lit. But it has never become clear who did it. “
Yet Tijn did not let his head hang. He re -built his business. And bigger: “I am not a panic boy. You can look back, but you can also look ahead. And I have done that all my life. “
But in 2000 the pipe was empty: “I couldn’t afford it anymore. You cannot feed a catering company alone, then you have to be two. My wife did the administration and I was the porter, the worker and the tube. But my wife had died and then it is otherwise. “
“That has stamped me in the well.”
Tijn continued to live on the site. And that resulted in a grim, legal conflict with the new owner for years. In 2011 he had to leave his birthplace. “The tears ran down my cheeks,” Tijn recalls. “I’m not from concrete, isn’t it? That has stamped me into the well. “
For years he no longer came to Bosch and Duin. But when his sister married last year, he had to: “I came in here and was just stiff. The first fifteen minutes I couldn’t say a word. ” But the new owner came to him and had a chat: “That was a nice conversation. She was very happy that I was inside. And I afterwards. “So many people are still asking you,” she said. That did something to me. So let’s forget everything. “
The book that Joost van der Loo and Jan de Kort wrote about Bosch and Duin, ‘If you are tired of walking’, will be presented on Friday 21 February, of course at Bosch and Duin in Udenhout. It costs 27.50.
