The American cranberry, vaccinium macrocarpum, grew in the dune valleys of Terschelling. It was in those days when I was young that a Mr. Mulder leased these valleys, just for harvesting the berries. When the berries were ripe, anyone could join in to look for them. There was some money to be made from that.

We also worked a lot with seaweed. As far as I’m concerned, they could have closed off the Zuiderzee twenty years earlier, then we wouldn’t have had to work in that seaweed. But my parents must not have thought so, because that stuff brought them a lot of money.

After haying came the grain harvest. Then I had to tie sheaves and later I had to lift them. Then came the potato lifting and the beet. But before the potatoes were removed from the ground, the barley was threshed. That was done with the horses. The sheaves were then spread out on the threshing…

It was in spring, the time when lambs were born. Father said to me, “look for the sheep, and see if everything is all right.” Well, I came into the country. The sheep were then still allowed to walk everywhere and I soon found them. But one was missing and I thought: where would it…