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This is the house in Ruurlo that I was born in.  I found the photo on an internet auction site.

It came out of a personal photo album from a German soldier.  It was taken just after the occupation by the Germans in May 1940.  The trucks that are parked next to the house are German military trucks.  You can see a lot of nosy children roaming around the trucks.  One of them could well be my father or one of his brothers or sisters.

The house next to mine belonged to a tinker, called Grandpa Rijkenbarg… at least at the time that I was born.

I still have one picture of the man standing in his workshop (see previous post, “Ruurlo”).  Shortly after the picture was taken the man died and the place was taken over by a plumber called Stegeman.

He and his family were there throughout my entire youth.

 

Here you see my father.  He is busy unpacking the cradle for my elder sister, Sylvia, who was about to be born.  It is 1957.  I too would sleep in the same cradle as did both my younger brothers Rob and Henk Jan.

In 1992 when my eldest daughter Sophie was born, my parents came over to Amsterdam with the very same cradle, completely redecorated.  Both my girls have slept in it.



















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