The Band

In the 50s and 60s common people didn't have the money to afford a holiday and certainly not one abroad. My parents and their brothers and sisters found a way to let their children have a change of scenery anyway. My cousins, my sisters and I would be brought over to the aunts and uncles so the children would spend some time together and their parents would have some peace and quiet for weeks.

We would mostly travel by train, my sisters and I would go to the north of the country or to Amsterdam or Rotterdam. And the cousins who lived over there would come and stay with us in exchange. The fact that our house was quite full – there were eight of us living there - was not a problem: my father would set up a tent on the lawn in the back garden in which two children could sleep.

When we were a bit older we were sent off by ourselves. My father worked for the railroads and we were quite used to travelling, having a pass that was valid in the whole country. Sometimes I would get on the wrong train on purpose, to see something else than the normal route.

One year my eldest sister and I were staying in the north again and we got the pleasant surprise of a cousin who started his own band. We were all in our early teens and there was a feeling everywhere of young people that if you could play an instrument you could start up a band. My cousin was a very serious young man, we always thought he was forced into a sort of father role after loosing his father at a young age. His brother who was only one year younger, was quite rebellious in comparison. I could understand that he didn't see his brother as his senior.

So seeing the serious one of the two starting a band was a double surprise for us. As always his preparations were very thorough. He studied the music made by the Yardbirds and especially their guitar player, Jeff Beck. Their music was quite a revelation to me: I was very much into the Kinks, the Swinging Blue Jeans and the Dave Clark Five much to the regret of my parents who considered all this new music utter rubbish.

The eldest cousin played lead guitar in the band, there was a drummer – who forbade everybody to touch his kit – and a bass player. He was more friendly, let me fool around on his bass guitar and even taught me the chord progression of some blues tunes. Not very hard, I have to admit. The last person in the band was the singer. He was a very skinny boy, even skinnier than me, with a face that reminded me a bit of a rat. My aunt – who was the friendliest person I ever met – was friendly towards him, but she told us: “I don't really like that boy. Somehow I don't trust him.”

So we took great care not to let him near the bit of money we had taken along and kept a close eye. It was very surprising when he one day showed up to tell my cousin: “My mother doesn't allow me any more to come over to your place.” He was asked why, but did not make this clear. My sister and I thought that the reason could be that my aunt's family never went to church or that she was considered to be a bit posh. Her Dutch was perfect and very unlike the local dialect. That was spoken too by the younger cousin, much to the regret of his mother. But I don't think my aunt ever fitted in the very closed community in which they lived but were not part of.

My cousin now had a problem: he was planning to start doing gigs, but without a singer that was impossible. He asked his brother, who only had a good laugh. He asked me, but as a boy I was deadly shy, so no way this was possible for me. My sister tried to sing some of the songs, but didn't sound very bluesy. Normally she would belt out songs while doing the dishes at home, but that would be songs of Francoise Hardy, Dusty Springfield, France Gall and Sylvie Vartan. So the style of the band didn't fit her and my cousin was realistic enough to know that the distance to our home would be a problem. When we went home to our parents again, there still was no new singer.

Eventually a singer was found and according to the family in the north the Band was the best band of the North. I never heard them play and it never came to the making of a record.

This was caused by the collapse of the band: my cousin met a nice girl and joined forces with her to play in concerts for Youth for Christ. The electric guitar was exchanged for an acoustic one. A very unexpected development to us.

The next time the brothers came to stay with us he joined me to sleep in the tent on the lawn. We had one night a deep conversation about the end of the universe while looking at the starry sky and he assured me that he would convert me to Christianity. I in turn assured him this would never happen. And indeed I never joined that band either.

The band was never mentioned afterwards and their former leader became a teacher, later even became the headmaster of the school.

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