An impressive mustache, clever eyes in a grooved face and a heart where there was room for everyone. He was called Tinus van Aalre, the Godfather of Tilburg. For more than fifty years he lived on the Visserijplein in the Tilburg district of Broekhoven, a working -class neighborhood where the solidarity is limitless.
This story is about the love of Kevin (38) for his grandfather Tinus. Every day, from the moment he was born, his mother took him in the pram to grandparents. “We were a child at home, just like the rest of the family. And it stayed that way until my grandfather died,” he says.
“That mustache, he always had to be in the right place,” laughs Kevin. “That was the first thing he did when he woke up in the morning, combing his mustache neatly in the fold. And that came very precisely, you know.”
Tinus went along the doors as a venter to pick up old iron. He loved to work in freedom, nice for himself. “People then called him and said,” Hey Tinus, I have some pig rasters here “. With his supporter, he picked up the business, but not without first negotiating the prize. He already heard the pennies ringing in mind and always won the discussion,” said Kevin. “Then he did it to buy a lot of iron for, for example, 100 guilders, and then get double it.”
Grandma Trien was originally a caravan resident. Harmony and being together were in her genes. “The door was always open for a cup of coffee, a candy or chicken soup. At noon all the grandchildren came to eat a sandwich. One wild hen, the other spread liver sausage, the third will. Everything was brought into the house.”
Also on Sunday it was a sweet raid. “Then she cooked for more than thirty men, all of whom sat down in their house. Potatoes with meat or a pile of pancakes that almost reached the ceiling, it couldn’t be done.”
“Every day he made twenty liters of coffee for everyone.”
The family was not wide, there was a lot of poverty. Tinus therefore kept another activity: he smuggled merchandise across the border with Belgium. “Packed and collapsed with carpets, butter and wildly, he secretly demolished through the forests to sell the stuff. He got a few few pennies for it, but he made sure that there was bread for his family with six children. My other grandfather was, incredible but true, customs officer and guarded the border. That always led to hilarious conversations together.”
Trien died more than twenty years ago, in August 2002. They were together for almost 55 years. Tinus remained broken. “She was his first, last and only love,” says Kevin. “He has always stayed alone.”
With a woman who was always behind the stove, cooking was a task for the widower. “My grandfather couldn’t bake an egg yet, it came out blacker than the pan that stood on the fire. From that moment on my mother and aunt invited him to come and eat. And the family kept going loyal to him. Every day twenty liters of coffee went through it, and he knew exactly who wanted milk in it and who a sugar fump.”
Tinus faithfully visited his wife’s grave, and Kevin often went along. “After the Venten he drove past it and then his supporter was pontifically in front of the entrance of the cemetery,” he laughs. “My grandfather kept up with it, but once the tears came there.”
“I never wanted to lose them, these two special people, but it happened anyway,” says Kevin emotionally. Tinus got peritoneum cancer and became more and more sick. “I said to him, not giving up, grandpa, we can’t live without you. But there was nothing left to be done,” he says with tears in the eyes.
Tinus also died ten years after Trien. They are together in the cemetery in Tilburg. It is a nice place, with a marble tombstone that Tinus chose herself when his wife died. “This is the last thing I can do for our Trieneke,” he said at the time. The grave is surrounded by six angels, they symbolize the children of the couple.
For years, Kevin went to the last resting place twice a day. “Out of respect, because they have always been good for me.” And he opted for a tattoo of his grandfather on his calf, who reminds him of the special band they had together. “I had him put when I was on vacation in Turkey. There was a tattoo artist I entrusted to it. A portrait, that must be good and speak. And that worked.”
“I spent four and a half hours on the couch. Everyone was wildly enthusiastic, my mother burst into tears when she saw it. The big nose, the birthmark on his face, that striking mustache, it’s right.”
