Back In Holland

In the summer of 1977, I went back to Holland. For three years, from my 9th until my 11th year, I had been living in France. Three years in ‘La Douce France’ ¹, the song by Charles Trenet, that my father used to sing. Three years in another country, with other people, another language and a different kind of nature. In France, everything seemed to be softer and rougher at the same time. Different than in Holland, fuzz was being made in the media about drugs, people getting off the rails, abducted children. With the same ease, huge billboards showing women in lingerie were posted everywhere. Quite arousing for an eleven-year-old Dutch boy. In Holland you didn’t see those kind of things. Just as French culture can be defined with the term sensuality, so is Dutch culture tied up with prudishness. In Holland everything should be socially accepted first; in France it just happens.

In France I went to an international school. About two thirds of the class came from abroad: United States, Great Britain, Germany, The Netherlands, Belgium, Italy, Sweden, Norway, you name it. The other third came from France, because their parents wanted their children to have a bilingual education. The lessons were in French, except for two afternoons on which you were taught in your own language. It had the advantage that you always could return to the school of your own country. For me that worked out very well, because my results were disappointing and I wouldn’t have passed if I had been staying in France. But my marks for Dutch were good, and when my parents decided to go back to Holland, I went to the 6th grade anyway.

At that time, in Holland, a small revolution was going on. The pop music that reached the living rooms in the beginning of 1978 was different from the one in the period before, when I was still in France and heard songs such as ‘Fernando’ ² of ABBA, ‘L’oiseau et l’enfant’ ³ of Marie Myriam and ‘Staying Alive’ ⁴ of the Bee Gees. They already caused a knot in my stomach, because of the human suffering that I thought to hear in the music. But that winter, when I was just a few months back in Holland, somehow things had an even bigger impact on me. Maybe the outside world had been more distant in France. Or maybe it was just because of puberty.

For the Dutch people, pop music was their uttermost outlet. But not for me; I never watched TopPop. One time, when my parents, my brothers, and me were invited to a another family’s house, I couldn’t help seeing it. Together in front of the television, Ian Dury’s ‘Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll’ ⁵ came along. Everybody was very excited. But for me, it was a blow from a hammer; my world collapsed. At once I knew that I was standing alone, all on my own. After all, my fear was so big that nobody ever would understand. It didn't even occur to me that I could talk about it.

Although I now look at it in a totally different way, at that moment, I couldn't discover any happiness at all in the music video. The man looked deathly pale and didn’t seem to care about anything but the things he was singing about. It confused me so much because I saw a world in front of me that was totally uprooted. A world in which pain and misery were present everywhere. In which people were driven by sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll. In which people were slaves of themselves and eachother. In which they would end up in a negative spiral without any chance of getting out. A world without love and hope.

In the meantime I went to my old school. However, my best friend Jan, from the time before I went to France, had been placed in the parallel class, that was much more popular. Although my parents had asked, there was no place for me anymore. The class where I consequently was placed in was a bit fragmented, a collection of children that had been left over after the 'popular' class had been created. I made friends with Guus, also a loner. I especially remember his birthday party, for which I had been invited together with some other friends. It was a dinner on his room that, to everyone's joy, ended with a concert of burps and gasses. Well, to be honest, it was not my cup of tea. But I tried to like it. Nowadays I can enjoy these things much more.

In the classroom, for a while, I sat next to Jelle, a totally different boy than I was. He had long thin hair and was always wearing pale jeans. On a school trip I heard the teacher once talking to him. ‘You know, I have a clean pair of jeans, but you don’t. I think yours hasn’t been washed since a long time.’ Jelle was talking a lot and I remember his humour, how he told about Blondie’s music video ‘Denis’ ⁶. While laughing, he imagined how it would look like if her boyfriend would step onto the stage with the same miniskirt. ‘And then you would see his willie at the lower end, haha.’ And after that he was called to order by the teacher.

One day, Jelle came to school with a cord around his neck, to which a shark’s tooth was attached. He loved it. Everybody in the class was whispering about it. He was under the spell of Punk, and defenitely heading in the wrong direction. The boys organized a fight to teach him a lesson. That happened more often. On such an occasion, a pile of children would emerge on the schoolyard, and next, the teachers would have to pull them apart. I joined the group. But when the moment was there, I regretted it. While the boys were smashing themselves on top of Jelle, I drifted away. I felt like a coward for having been tempted to do all this. To wear a shark’s tooth, could there be anything more innocent? However, it was too late. Jelle happened to be one of those, whose head was cut down for being different.

I hope Jelle hasn’t got too bad memories out of it. He was just a nice boy, going his own way. And he had a good sense of humour. His joke opened the door to imagination. Would be nice, to be Blondie’s boyfriend. But those skirts? I wouldn’t go that far.

Epilogue
From my 18th year on I gradually grew accustomed to pop music. Nowadays I'm a fan of Ian Dury.

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