“There is nothing at all in Spijkerboor, zero,” Lous admits. “I go to De Rijp for the doctor. The children go to primary school in Graftdijk and then in Krommenie or Alkmaar.”
He can still accept all that, but the destruction was complete when the last owners of the meeting place ‘t Heerenhuis canceled the lease. “That’s a shame,” says Lous. “And I think it’s also unnecessary.”
The house is located on a ferry on a popular cycling route. Lous: “The terrace was always full here in the summer, which was very pleasant.”
And with the disappearance of the Heerenhuis, the rich club life had no choice but to move to other places. Lous sums up: “The fishing club was there, the table tennis club. The fire brigade met there.” Lous’ theater association is now also ‘further away in a shed on the Kanaaldijk, towards Purmerend’. Lous: “That’s a shame. We played here six times a year to full houses.”
Not just doom and gloom
Yet the silence in Spijkerboor also has beauty, he thinks: “You can walk the streets safely here, we all know each other and when we get together it is very pleasant.”
Moreover, the neighbors are always there for each other, says Wim Nieuwenhuizen (76), who has lived in the village for almost half a century. “If you ever have to go to the doctor, there is always a good neighbor who can take you by car. You can always count on them.”
He greets his theater friend Lous, puts on a hat and rubs his hands. “One disadvantage here is that it is always windy.”
And a local shop would not be an unnecessary luxury, he admits. “Oh, we don’t know any better,” he shrugs. The fact that he has to cycle ‘eight to ten’ kilometers for an errand in Wormerveer is quite doable for the lively seventy-plus year old: “If the weather is nice, I’m more than happy to get on my bike.”
