The 68-year-old Harrie van den Boer has been a voluntary firefighter in Riel for fifty years. That is special, because there are not many firefighters who do this for so long. And so this milestone in Riel was celebrated considerably with a parade for the jubilee.
Harrie was watching a lot when Sunday morning suddenly a procession stopped fire trucks in front of his door. “I didn’t expect this. This is really beautiful,” says Harrie Glundering.
With roaring sirens, Harrie, sitting with his grandchildren on the back of an old fire truck, drove an honorary round through the village.
Harrie joined the Riel fire brigade as a seventeen -year -old boy. He succeeded his father there. The fire brigade life was raised with him. “I grew up with it,” says Harrie. “The barracks was opposite my parental home.”
He can still remember the first big fire he had to extinguish. “That was a big factory fire in Goirle,” says Harrie. “I was only just with the fire brigade. I was putting out on the roof there. I wasn’t allowed to. Because I was still in training. I was enormously fanatic.”
But also the many accidents that he was “especially the major accidents look good on me,” says Harrie. “And that we were able to get those people out of the car and that they survived. Yes, I am proud of that.”
“Fifty years is really very special,” says Frank Schuite, post commander Van Riel. “He has always continued. And every year he has to show that he is fit again. Well, there are not many who save that at that age.”
Harrie doesn’t want to think about stopping. “No, certainly not. The fire brigade is all my life.” Next November Harrie has to do another fitness test to show that he can still handle it. “I exercise a lot to stay fit.” And so there is a good chance that Harrie is often still a fire in and around Riel.
