Shoemaker Rooien Bart is very much alive again in the Waalwijk region. The novel Rooien Bart has been republished. He has his own Facebook page, beer, cake and now also an exhibition. Songs are even sung about him. Remarkable, because it never existed.
Rooien Bart is also one of the central figures of the double exhibition ‘Rooien Bart/Waalwijk 100 years together’ in the House of Waalwijk. The shoemaker’s room, which never belonged to Rooien Bart, can also be seen there. In fact: the room already existed before Rooien Bart was conceived.
Charles van Heesbeen explains how this is possible. His grandfather JW Heesbeen chaired the exhibition ‘Waalwijk 1948’ in 1948. The money that was left over was used to recreate an original shoemaker’s living room in a small old house. “That also included a good story, my grandfather thought. That is why he wrote the novel Rooien Bart.”
The shoemaker story is set between 1900 and 1920. The book was first published in 1963 and has now been reissued.
“When writing, my grandfather based himself on his own notes, true stories and anecdotes. Because he did not want the main character to be traceable to real people, he invented the now mythical figure Rooien Bart.”
“His experiences as a shoemaker took place in the village of Baardwijk,” says René Klerkx, chairman of the Waalwijk 100 years together working group.
Municipal restructuring is often a heavy and emotional process for the residents involved. “It was no different a hundred years ago,” says Jac Leijtens of the working group. “The exhibition is about the hassle surrounding that reclassification, but also about the daily lives of the people of that time.”
How shabby that life was is, among other things, visible in the reconstructed shoemaker’s room by Rooien Bart in the Huis van Waalwijk. Although Rooien Bart did not really exist, his reconstructed shoemaker’s room is the inspiration for the new shoe quarters museum, which will be officially opened on 28 June.
Rooien Bart’s shoemaker’s room was one of the showpieces of the Waalwijk shoe museum for decades. The new Shoe Quarter has loaned the workshop to for the exhibition.
“To prevent the history of the forced merger of Baardwijk with Besoyen and Waalwijk from being forgotten, we are going to place attention stones in the former villages,” says René Klerx. “On those 50 by 50 centimeter tiles, there will be an image of a building that was important at the time and a short text.”
The adventures of the shoemaker from Baardwijk are also sung in fifteen songs by Leo de Vlieger & the Rooien Bart Band. Songs about poverty, exploitation, the union, housing shortage, illness, alcohol abuse and the role of the church. About shoemakers who want to improve their lot and that of their children. In the theater and on CD.