Adrie Trimpe was already a well-known Vlissinger, but because of the documentary You can’t pay from loss he also became a well-known Dutchman. There were regular ‘fans’ in front of his apartment on Boulevard De Ruyter, hoping to catch a glimpse of the retired greengrocer.
He told the people who were waving in front of his window that they could drink a cup of coffee inside, says his sister Ada, who also appeared in the documentary. ‘I used to say: Adrie, you can’t just let everyone in. But he enjoyed that interest.’
Trimpe, born in 1934, ran the shop for 67 years. He was known as the oldest greengrocer in the Netherlands. Physically, the last years of his working life became increasingly difficult. During that period, journalist Helge Prinsen started following him with a cameraman.
stubborn old man
The documentary showed how Trimpe struggled with crates of kale and had a near-collision with his van on his way to a customer. “The classic fight of a stubborn elderly person, who still thinks he is functioning well, but who doesn’t realize how many people are on the sidelines ready to jump in or help out,” he wrote. Fidelity. Prinsen had been a customer of the store in the center of Vlissingen all her life. ‘When I went to buy snieôntjes, as Adrie said, he would put them through the cutting machine one by one. I thought: that is no longer of this time? That’s a movie.’
You can’t pay from loss was broadcast in eight countries and won multiple awards. ‘The documentary is universal. The disappearing middle class, informal care, humor. Everything is there,’ says Prinsen. ‘The great thing is that nothing is actually said, just expressions like ‘do something different, it’s the same’ and ‘good morning, that’s better than a bad one’.
The film also had an American premiere at a festival near Boston, although Trimpe was not there himself. A plane trip to the other side of the world was not necessary for him. He had last been on vacation in 1957. ‘He always said: what should you look for outside Zeeland? You have everything here, don’t you?’, says sister Ada. He last left the province seven years ago to visit his cousin in The Hague.
The store is open six days a week
The trade in potatoes, vegetables and fruit, that was his life. The store was open six days a week. ‘And if someone called in the evening that she had forgotten to buy an onion, he would bring it after,’ says Ada. On Sundays (‘a normal working day, hey’) he did the administration. His outing was a cup of coffee on Sunday afternoon in their holiday bungalow in Oostkapelle, 15 kilometers away.
It wasn’t the two robberies, retirement age or price-stealing supermarkets that brought him to a halt, but his health. At the age of 82 he was forced to retire, and that was hard for him. Prinsen: ‘In the beginning he still called the wholesaler every day to ask how much the strawberries or mushrooms ‘did’ that day.
After the death of his wife Francien in 2021, Trimpe continued to deteriorate physically. He spent the last months of his life in the Ter Reede residential care center, where his sister still brought him mandarins every day. If he was lonely or sad, the staff would set up the documentary for him. Prinsen: ‘Then he saw the shop again and everything was fine.’
Trimpe died on February 9, aged 87. On his deathbed, he confided to his sister: ‘I should have worked less and enjoyed more.’ Ada: ‘But yes, that’s afterwards.’