Information About D. van den Beemt

Memories

Memories are based on documents, family lore or personal experiences. They give more information about a person, but are not necessarilly complete or correct.

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Dear Birgit and Peter

Almost 2 years before my birth your tall father was born in Bergen op Zoom.

The war was almost over and your grandparents folled the advancing allies to Leiden where they settled close to the Doelen Barracks.

It was apparently quiet there and your Grandpa and Grandma had time to give birth again, this time to me.

Apparently I had experienced a bit of the war because I was “born with the caul,” which may have brought me happiness later on because I am well on my way to becoming the oldest in our family.

After a year, I probably began to experience that your uncle had a brother, but I can only remember that from photos.

After his job as a teacher, Grandpa was given the task of commanding the prison in Scheveningen and we moved to Makkum.

After a while it apparently itched again to become a teacher and Grandpa went on to Indonesia to resume his profession as a teacher.

Half a year later your Grandma followed with your father and me on the Willem Ruijs and we went to live in North Celebes near Tomahon.

I can only tell you about that from memories of stories and photos, very few details have remained in my memory.

We were going to live in a reasonably large house that was on stilts at the time, there was enough staff to give Grandma a good life and she could play bridge with a number of other Dutch people and party.

Grandpa was a good father but very strict about a number of things, crying was not an option for boys, so whatever happened if you wanted to cry for something, no matter how bad it was, was forbidden.

Your father was the first to experience that very sadly, he had climbed a clove tree that was known to have brittle branches.

However, this was not known to your father and yes, a branch broke and your father fell down, the inside of his arm went along the broken end of the branch and he stuck to it with his arm. Grandpa heard him and approached him and told him to stop crying before he would get him out of the tree.

Your father listened and together they went to the doctor, he also had to grit his teeth as he got a whole splash of iodine on the open wound from the doctor before stiching his arm.

Your father did all this without shedding a tear and that will, just like your uncle, have ensured that we have rarely left a tear throughout our lives, even though this was often the best way to reduce your emotions or to show sadness.

Slowly the memories I experienced came and at last in Celebes there are still some things on the memory inside, the packing of all the large stuffed insects and snake skins collected by Grandpa who went back to the Netherlands with other things on the boat.

When embarking, the Indonesians were not very neat and many of the goods flopped out of the nets and fell on the quay where they were gathered together and thrown back into the net. Much of his collection had been damaged, but nevertheless arrived in the Netherlands.

Because we were expelled from the country due to the war with Indonesia and the Rupiah devalued, we arrived destitute in the Netherlands and were welcomed by your Great-grandfather and Grandma in Oosterhout. From there, my father went looking for a job in education again, which he found quite a distance away in Schagen.

We went to live here first in the Landbouwstraat and later in the Burgemeester Slotlaan. We both went to school and there Grandpa also taught in fifth grade.

Together with my brother, who was already big at the time, we went to school every day, there he was already a head taller than me and I was actually always allowed to walk a bit behind him because he already drew the attention to his female classmates. He looked like a tough guy and the girls were quite sensitive to that.

Recently I learned that this was in the genes of our Opa de Lie, he turned out to have had an extra-marital relationship in Bergen op Zoom and we may have 2 unknown aunts.

Your Grandma also appears to have paid attention to Jaap de Groot in Indonesia as well. I don’t know the details about it, but this also came to light recently, but in our youth we saw that our mother got quite a bit of attention from other men. She always looked beautiful and made sure she was always fashionably dressed, she made a lot herself because the wallet often did not allow that.

Schagen was a good time and together we did beautiful and challenging things with, for example, a large kite he had made and then together we tried to sledge as hard as possible through the street on a sled, luckily there were almost no cars.

Because of his age difference and build, I always stayed little brother and our paths often went in a different direction.

What has always been very nice was the fact that we never had a fight and if it was necessary he would help me if I had done something wrong once or if I got into a fight with a friend.

This has always remained the case and I was often jealous how he could handle his pocket money early on and always thought ahead.

The attention of all the girls was also a kind of learning experience for me, but where I always had to go out on my own to meet a girlfriend, he had to act like a selector and make a choice let’s try it.

In De Bilt where we lived in a flat on the first floor, a group of girls often called on the sidewalk after dinner and when your father opened the bedroom window, they all threw up sweets. Unfortunately there was an aquarium by the window sill and most of it fell into it, but sometimes I could catch a few and that was a real treat at the time.

Your father used to get cold fairly quickly and because Grandpa loved to fish and even when it was cold he never went along and I did, besides that it was also true that your father always had a different view on things than Grandpa and this one together they were often opposite each other and a strong argument was not uncommon.

Your father was more fond of your Grandma and the two of them had more together, I was a easy person and didn’t care much for what I was wearing, but your father always wanted to look nice and everything had to be in style as far as the wallet allowed, because your Grandpa did not make a lot of money as a teacher.

Then it also emerged that just like Grandpa he could draw nicely and later even better.

We moved for the umpteenth time, to Gorinchem this time, and after having lived for a short period in a new apartment that was popularly called the “first Kremlin” there, we moved to the Schelluinsevliet.

Your father went to the ULO where Grandpa also taught again, in this city his traces for the future began to take shape and he came into contact with boys who also loved art, but also drink and smoke girls.

He had a large group of friends around him and Grandma thought that was great and all of these boys liked to visit us and were pampered more than their own parents, because Grandma liked having men around him.

We usually went our own way there and I had very different friends and we actually did very little together, but in a small town you were always both in the same kind of locations. In the summer on the beach on the river and in the winter on the ice rink.

During the school vacation in the last year of the ULO, he and a friend hitchhiked to Switzerland to work in the hotel and catering industry. What he earned, he brought home to a large extent and was a boy with some money at the time . After this trip I heard it wasn’t all that great: that they had left the company in Switzerland because that boss exploited them and spent the days in an old train wagon before they decided to take a gamble to go to Italy and earl a living there as street illustrators. After a suggestion from someone that you never should draw an elephant with his trunk down in Italy, they made out reasonably well, which was quite an achievement back then.

He did this for a large number of years during the summer vacation, twice I asked him if I could also come along once, but the answer always was Maybe.

In Gorinchem he also got to know your mother and despite the many fgirlriends who preceded her, she was the one because there were few moments when he didn’t talk about her.

During that period your grandfather and grandmother also broke up, we were at school and also Grandfather, but when we got home Grandma had disappeared.

We were told that she no longer wanted to live with Grandpa under one roof, as it turned out later because her possible old love from India came to live behind us.

In the beginning, his family and ours were good friends were from a distant past, but after a joint vacation to Paris where for the first time we were alone and had to look after ourselves [that changed].

Your father was able to devote himself entirely to your mother and in the last year of the Academy he was told that conscription was on its way. He did not like that at all, he wanted to go into the advertising world, where he already had an internship with a pretty good position. This agency wanted to keep him, he was very disappointed.

A classmate who also worked there was at a certain point driving a pickup through Rotterdam with a haggled and paint-covered head and clothing driving through the city with the craziest antics, trying to evade military service.

He was arrested and assigned to a strange part of the military for the weakly gifted, that was a sign for your father to look for a different way.

He went into service but did not want to eat anything, he only drank chocolate. After the first few weeks he came on weekend leave, we did not know what we saw, nor did your mother.

He came home very skinny and a little frightened, he held on to this protest for quite a few weeks and at the weekend he ate himself full of chaps, but his body couldn’t handle it well.

Fortunately, he was sent home with F-5, but as a result a job with the government was never possible again, but he didn’t like government work anyway.

He could rent a house on the Wolpherenwal, which was near the pub where we often visited as young men and there we played the game 21x1 with dice.

Whoever threw the seventh one was allowed to decide what to drink, who threw the fourteenth one had to pay and the one who threw the twenty-first one had to drink it. This led to the dirtiest drinks and a great chance to go home drunk from the Kanselpoort pub

Shortly afterwards he married Dinie, and that did not go without a hitch, because your grandmother was divorced, the sisters of Grandpa were not the easiest.

During the reception in restaurant De Beurs where your uncle and aunt Andries and Miep also lived, the sisters came to your grandmother asking what you are doing here, you are not supposed to be here because you are no longer family.

Fortunately that was eventually resolved and it was a beautiful and pleasant day in which your mother looked like a princess.

When I got married 2 years later it happened from your father’s and mother’s house, I stayed there the night before my wedding. but first a bachelor beer had to be drunk at the suggestion of your father. Well known for you will be the pace at which he drank his beer and you hardly noticed it, there was still a round to be driven and that was with his Renaultje right through the Dalemse Veld at 3 o’clock at night. Freezing rain started and as a result we almost flew out of the corner and could just avoid a lamppost.

The next morning I woke up with a big hangover and didn’t know how to get back to class a bit, early in the afternoon I got married to Sonja and she thought I was very quiet.

For a long time she thought it was nervous, but about 20 years later I told her it was a big hangover.

Not much later came the first message that you were approaching, your father and mother moved to the Arkelstraat above the store. There was room for a children’s room there.

When Frank was approaching, it became Zaandam and it was quite a drive for us at that time.

Milou was meanwhile also born Jeroen and after hearing the holiday in Ramatuel we decided to go there, from that time you will know most but this were nice times. We all went on our way to all kinds of sights, including the Wildpark, where it all started with taking photos and printing by me.

Sonja later took over that task and it became a lot of photos.

The beaches of Plage de Pampalone were special at the time and were pretty normal topless or nude, here you and Frank were always busy by the water with Milou and Jeroen.

Jeroen was scared of water and always looked with amazed looks at you struggling in the sea.

After France came the boats, where your father was the first with a boat, not much later a boat came to us and we went on holiday with the 2 families.

I think Vlieland is the best time to book a holiday as a joint holiday.

In Blokker you have moved twice as in Hoorn, in that respect that was a bit in the family, our band was not excessive but on festive days we were together and had nice contacts.

Unfortunately, due to the loss of your parents, some distance has come, but we still often think of your parents.

We are happy to be there today and to eat and talk to each other again.

Not keeping in touch is in the genes, Grandpa had a big family but they seldom met and then usually at a funeral.

Lots of love from Sonja and me and I hope that together with Peter you can enjoy it for a long time and can grow old together in a beautiful way.