In 1944 I became twelve years old and almost finished elementary school. In Holland you went to High school after grade 6. There were three types of high schools. The ULO was the easiest, The HBS prepared for university education, especially for engineers and business jobs, while the Gymnasium was the hardest, because you had to take Latin and Greek, preparing for jobs as doctors and ministers.

Since I belonged to the top five of the class, Mr. Battjes, the principal of the school, thought I should go to the HBS, but usually you had to take one year ULO first before you were ready for HBS or Gymnasium. I was to go to the HBS directly and that meant extra lessons. This teacher was a very hard man. When I stayed after school to do my extra sums, he would stand behind me, and my head would get a bang with his farmer’s hand, when I arrived at the wrong answer. Every day these extra lessons were an ordeal.

One evening I had to come to his house beside the school. They were still eating, and I said very politely: Good evening, everybody! But that wasn’t good enough. Again, my head shook under the pressure of his sweeping hand, as he screamed: You have to say, Good night Mynheer Battjes, Good night Mevrouw Battjes, Good night children! Which I did from then on! Strangely, I never got angry with stuck-up people who behaved like that. Maybe this was the very beginning of my tendency to bottle things up and act as if nothing had happened. Maybe I also had the feeling that I was always wrong and other people had it always right!

Every Friday afternoon the class was subjected to a monstrous Geography quiz. Maps from all over the world were rolled down, and you had to point at all the cities, rivers, lands, oceans you had studied during grade 4, 5 and 6. I was very good at that, with the result that I sometimes kept pointing for 1/2 an hour. Mr. Battjes grew tenser and tenser. He just couldn’t lick that boy! Then I would make a mistake on purpose, so the pupil who had asked to question could take over. Always there was that victorious smile on his broad face. Or he would say: See, you think you know it all, but actually you’re still an ‘ezel’ (a dumb donkey). Pity the man … I hope he’s in heaven!

I did the HBS entrance exam, and a more grown-up phase of my young life would soon begin. I was to enter one of the worst stages of my life, for that sheltered young boy, often sickly, wasn’t exactly prepared for the world with all its sins and aggravations.

Yes, up till now I had led a sheltered life … nicely within the bosom of a young Christian family. Although parenting was authoritarian, although it was the last period of history when the child should be seen but not heard, and when real ‘bonding’ between parents and children stopped when the child was school age – not that mothers were less anxious and concerned about the welfare of their older children, but there just wasn’t that intimacy anymore – I can’ t remember that I ever felt estranged from my parents or held a grief against than.

We too had our quality times with our parents, although more dispersed and of shorter durations. My father was working from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. He would come home to eat, then bike to the office to meet with other supervisors. When he was home again, I was in bed. On Saturdays he worked in his garden, for during the war we depended on its produce. When I was ten or eleven, I often had to help him digging, weeding, and planting. This could have been ‘quality time’ except that father was completely engrossed in his work and seldom talked except be give directions and reminders to stop daydreaming.

One thing he would never do: hit me over the head! That he only did once, when I pushed the wheelbarrow through a section of the garden that just had been planted. He was so angry and couldn’t contain himself … whang! A man who worked in a neighbouring garden called: hey, hey, de Jong, take it easy! I almost felt sorry for my Dad because it was actually the first time that he had really hit me hard, and it never happened again. He would point out birds and plants and weeds to me … his knowledge of nature was excellent. And when vegetables and potatoes did well, his face would light up.