When I was born, my parents lived in the city of Arnhem, in the east of the Netherlands, which is located on the north side of river Rhine. We lived in a flat and my first memories are from this time. When I was between one and two, I fell out of the high chair resulting in a little scar on my nose. I don’t remember the incident, but I do remember seeing the high chair in the basement where the garbage was collected. I probably could relate the chair with the pain of falling out of it. Apparently, the chair was faulty and that’s why I fell out and my parents ditched the chair. I also remember that some boys tried to spit on me in in the central hall from above. How relatively small incidents can form one of the first memories. Makes you think, huh.

From what my mother told me, we had a good time in Arnhem. There were many young couples with kids and I had plenty of kids to play with. But really, nothing that I can remember although I have seen some photo’s of that time about me with a lot of kids eating small pancakes. I believe my father was a beginning primary school teacher, my mother stayed at home to look after me. My father was 26, my mother 25 when they had me.