1/2 Rini Weijers in front of the house where he always lived (photo: Jos Verkuijlen).
Rini Weijers (71) lived all his life on the N279 near Boerdonk. And for years he lived with the prospect that a road would be widened. His house would have to be demolished for that. To put an end to the nagging uncertainty, he sold his house to the province a few years ago. However, the plans are still not finalized yet. From his new address, Rini now sees not only the old house deteriorating. The emotional bond and memories also crumble and that hurts.
The house where Rini has lived all his life is less than 50 meters from the busy N279. As the trucks rumble past, he points to the gutter and the moss on the roof. “Yes, you can see that the house is deteriorating. That it gets older.”
In 1931, Rini’s grandfather built a house along the Zuid-Willemsvaart, near the ferry house. That is the place where people used to be able to cross the canal with a small ferry. It is the house where Rini was born, grew up and has always lived. He points to a field next to the house. “We made a football field here as children and played a lot with the boys from the village.”
“A very uncertain time began.”
The road along the Zuid-Willemsvaart, the N279, became busier and busier over the years. “Yes, we really noticed that,” says Rini. “The noise in particular increased. The bedroom window was always open. And stayed open, because you get used to it.”
As more and more traffic rushed past, plans were drawn up to tackle the road. “There was already talk about this around 2008. A very uncertain time began for us. Because we didn’t know what it would mean for us. There would come a day when we had to leave here,” Rini looks back.
“Now we really had to leave.”
That day came in 2017. “Someone from the province came by to tell us that we had to leave within a year. But six months later, plans changed and we were able to stay after all. We were in uncertainty again. Yes, it’s unbelievable. That you don’t know whether you should leave or not. That does something to someone.”
Rini thinks the most annoying thing about that period was that he didn’t know whether he should invest in his house. He wanted to isolate it. “We insulated the cavity walls. And we wanted to start on the roof when the province came by again in 2020. Now we really had to leave.”
“I’m going to look at the demolition.”
The province bought the house and for three years Rini has lived with his wife in a beautiful house in Aarle-Rixtel, a 10-minute drive from Boerdonk. He now lives very close to his grandchildren. “We are very happy with the new place. But I still have an emotional bond with my old house. I will visit it again regularly.”
In the meantime, the province is busy making a new plan for the widening of the N279. It will just take years before work can start. The house is now occupied by anti-squatters. “The boys who live there take good care of it,” says Rini.
“The house will definitely be demolished at some point. On that day I will take a look and film the demolition. Then, together with all the other photos, it becomes a memory of everything I had here.”
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