Regrets? I’ve had a few

by Rick Johansen

When I was very young, my mother and I stayed every summer in the top flat behind the white van next to the lane in the photo above. (What a terrible opening sentence.) When I was still young, my grandmother, Oma, moved into the ground floor flat when her mobility started to desert her. Every time I return to Rotterdam, I return to Leopoldstraat to retrace the happier steps of my generally unhappy childhood.

The pull is almost gravitational. Something deep inside takes me there. And when I arrive, I am instantly at home with the sheer ‘feel’ of the place, as well as the familiar smells. Home for me will always be Bristol. Rotterdam will always hold a piece of my heart.

We stayed for the entire school holidays and most days I would sit and watch the trams go by, in between filling myself up with ice creams, topped with slagroom, which is actually whipped cream and not part of a house of ill repute. Just along from the ice cream store was a tobacconist and confectioner from where I regularly purchased traditional Dutch salty liquorice, known as drop, which eventually set forward a chain of lengthy dentist visits for the rest of my life.

If it was Tuesday or Saturday, my mum took me to the street market, which remains the biggest street market in Europe. I can still smell the smells, I can still taste the papat (chips), served in gigantic cones with a gallon or so of mayonnaise on top. She loaded up on fresh vegetables and fruit, as well as a chunk or two of Dutch cheese, perhaps a Gouda. And my mum would always stop at one of the stalls selling raw herring, which is considered a real treat in the Netherlands. And she’d eat it. There, I concluded, I could live a life without eating fish. The smell was disgusting.

Above the market roared the trains on the way to Station Blaak and beyond. The tracks were on large metal stilts and made a wonderful racket. I made sure that I was always somewhere in the clear to I could watch them pass by. I would have happily stayed there all day. When I was old enough, I did.

My eyes were filled with wonder the sheer beauty of Rotterdam, yet everyone said Amsterdam was more beautiful. Amsterdam was certainly older because it did far better in World War Two then Rotterdam, yet there is an intrinsic beauty about the heady mixture of old and staggeringly cutting edge Rotterdam.

After tea, which was always preceded by a small plate of lettuce, cucumber, onion and slices of boiled egg, covered in vinegar, the whistling started. All the boys who lived in the flats in and around Leopoldstraat were preparing for the nightly football matches on the green area between Leopoldstraat and Johan de Meesterstraat. Brothers Jackie and Gerhard chose the teams and always let me play. I spoke Dutch all the time when we were in the Netherlands. There were several occasions when we returned to Bristol and I carried on speaking Dutch, much to everyone’s amusement and bemusement.

There were times I wanted to stay in Rotterdam, too. I could have spent all my time watching the trams on the Goudesingel and by Central Station or the trains above the market. I know now how much happier I was there as a child. Although mum tried to shelter me from the realities of how poor we were in Bristol, life in Rotterdam brought it home to me. We occasionally ate out, or had a takeaway. My mum was never scratching around outside the butcher’s shop just before he closed, trying to buy something on the cheap that would otherwise be thrown away. And joy upon joy: I discovered Seven Up.

The weird thing was, I could converse freely in Dutch, I could never write in it. I guess my mother never got round to teaching me. When the newspaper arrived, I could understand barely a word, unless I read it out loud very slowly and translated what I could in my mind. It meant nothing. For all that, Rotterdam and the Netherlands was, and is still, home.

I know that the life I have, with a wonderful partner and children, would not have happened had I stayed there and I am glad that the accidents of life took me where I am today. But regrets, I’ve had a few, and then again, too many to mention.

In my daydream today, I’m in that little flat in Rotterdam, looking out on my playing field, with the massive cattle market away to the left. I’m off to watch the trams soon and maybe the trains, too. And on Sunday, my Uncle Koos is taking us to Madurodam, not so much a model village but a model country.

“If you’re not Dutch, you’re not much”, said Uncle Koos. Much of me is Dutch and I can’t wait to go back very soon.

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2 comments

Anonymous May 31, 2019 - 10:23

5

Anonymous May 31, 2019 - 13:33

4.5

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