'This photo from 1967 shows my parents at the De Toekomst camping site, in Ouddorp on Goeree-Overflakkee. As soon as my father, as a teacher at a Christian primary school in our village of Noordwijkerhout, had closed the school doors behind him, the family with nine children – only boys – spent the holidays there. For six weeks. Making it to the end of the month with such a large family required ingenuity. But the six weeks of camping were not compromised. At the campsite, year after year, we met playmates from Rotterdam who spent long holidays there, just like us, with their mothers. The working fathers had to be frugal with their vacation days and only came for two or three weeks and on weekends at most.
My father got his driver's license at the age of 46 and was able to afford the cheapest car in 1966: a Trabant.
As children we did not experience it as such, but by today's standards life was austere and simple. In our village, Sunday was a day of rest, of 'Sunday clothes' and a scrubbed sidewalk. The general practitioner, mayor, minister and pastor were the notables. As a 'sub-notable' my father had more prestige than today's teacher.
On the waves of the 60s and 70s, my somewhat conservative father grew closer in his views to my mother, who came from a socialist family. The Christian faith was and remained their guideline, but when the Den Uyl cabinet took office in 1973, my father also voted PvdA. Their faith remained intact, but the bond with the local church weakened when it distanced itself from the nuclear weapons discussion in the 1980s.
The life courses of the children would vary widely. One followed in his father's footsteps and was still in the classroom at the age of 69, while another found his niche in Australia. And we have all returned to Ouddorp, a childhood idyll, out of nostalgia.”
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#39A #frugal #life #holidays #compromised39