Hidden feelings 1945-95

Abstract

It was a fact learnt early in life: wherever I travelled in Europe as a teenager, it paid me to explain that I was Dutch, not German. And when I left home at 18, in search of the elusive key to good faith and freedom, and came to Britain, crossing the Channel to reach the sole part of Europe untouched by enemy invasion, I felt I was welcomed like a lost daughter; many people told me of the part they played in the liberation of Holland in 1945. And now, fifty years after the historic events of the Second World War have passed, I still like to invoke the ‘magic’ if I can. While staying in a bed and breakfast in Coventry recently, I pointed out to the landlady that a morning call, as written down by the German guest, was requested at 7.15, instead of, as she had read, at 9.15. ‘Oh’, she said, annoyed, realizing the mistake: ‘Do they cross their number seven? We never do’. I was instantly eager to clear my name: ‘The Dutch never do so either’