Gijs de Jong (79) and Chris Bolleboom (79) have been inseparable since primary school. “We went camping with two friends. I could have words with the others, but I could have everything from Gijs. Even when he was pissing drunk in my tent.”
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Gijs and Chris met as ten-year-olds at the Nicolaas School in Zoetermeer. When Chris came to live near Gijs aan de Voorweg, Chris was invited to his children’s party. From that moment on, their friendship blossomed.
Big family
Gijs regularly visited Chris’s home, where he lived with his parents and fifteen (!) brothers and sisters. “I came from a family of three children, so from a much smaller family than Chris. At his house there was always life in the brewery, which made me happy to visit. I got along with his parents and we sometimes used the expression I could shit on the table right therein other words, I could make anything there.”
Cheese farmer and working on the farm
After primary school, Gijs went to secondary school and obtained his middle class diploma. He became a cheese farmer and delivered cheese, butter and eggs to homes in Zoetermeer, The Hague and Wassenaar for many years. “I delivered 40 packs of butter to Chris every week. His mother made fourteen sandwiches per person every day for the sons who went to work. So a lot of butter and cheese went through it!”
Chris went to work on a farm immediately after primary school and later for a contractor. Gijs says: “Chris is the handy one of the two of us. With his two right hands he has helped me several times with renovations at home.”
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Bunch of rascals
Throughout their friendship, mischievousness surfaces once the two friends are together. Chris: “I am number 7 in our family so I always had to stand up for myself. Gijs is the more sensible of the two of us, but together we got into a lot of mischief at a younger age.”
“When we had chores during a holiday week, we threw our peeled potatoes over a wall instead of in the pan. Or we both cheated during a game of clover jackets with Gijs’ mother and his aunt Jo. The ladies were always chatting and yet not paying attention”.
We both cheated. We were quite naughty
Sleep on the roof of the church
That Gijs is the more sensible of the two friends was also apparent during a holiday week in Limburg, where Chris went without Gijs. “I booked a hotel room and another friend came over who hadn’t arranged accommodation. He had drunk quite a bit of beer and decided to climb onto the roof of a church through the drainpipe. I went after him and that night we both slept on the roof. The next day we made the news in the local newspaper. This would never have happened if Gijs had been there,” says Chris.
Bottle of perfume in a new paper
Besides mischief, there is another common thread in all the years of friendship: a bottle of perfume. About fifty years ago, his employer sent Chris to a construction assignment for Drogisterij Rodenburg in shopping center De Vijverhoek. “I worked on an extension there and afterwards received a bottle of Brut eau de toilette as a thank you. I don’t like fragrances, and when Gijs had his birthday I gave him the bottle as a gift.”
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Gijs heard how Chris got the bottle and decided to return the perfume wrapped as a gift on Chris’s birthday. “Since then we keep giving each other the same bottle, but each time in new wrapping paper and with a different ribbon,” says Gijs.
“Perhaps this bottle of Brut is a symbol of our many years of bonding,” says Chris. “Our friendship is just always there, just like the bottle of perfume.”
Tell us about your Zoetermeer friendship
Do you also have a special friendship? Or do you know a Zoetermeer that we really need to interview? Let us know at [email protected] These Zoetermeers preceded you.