‘I was looking through what my mother left behind: the children’s books she wrote, her diaries, boxes of photos – and then I came across this one. As ‘youth hostel father and mother’ of the alcohol-free youth hostel Ús Blau Hiem in Appelscha, you see them here walking on the front of The trigger, the monthly magazine of the Dutch Youth Hostel Center. My parents worked for a better world and they set a good example.
My father and mother were extremely active members of the Youth Association for Abstinence (JVO), the youth wing of what was popularly known as ‘De Blauwe Knoop’. He had a lot of supporters in Friesland. This was to the annoyance of Koos Vorrink, who, as leader of the socialist youth movement AJC, actually found the JVO superfluous. After all, the AJC shared the same ideals and was in principle also ‘blue’. But in Friesland, I know from my parents, people shied away from the sometimes militaristic display of flags and battle songs within the AJC.
My parents were idealistic and open-minded. My mother was a teacher, as a working woman she was ahead of her time. But there were more. For example, my mother-in-law ran a dairy shop in Grou together with my father-in-law. Drinking was also an absolute taboo for them as the cause of much social misery.
When it came to alcohol, we, the five children, were considerably less principled. My parents could deal with that very well. ‘Make something of it and pay attention to the less fortunate’, they told us. We had a warm childhood.”
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