I was born in Bandung, the capital of West Java and lived there until we went to Holland after my Father's retirement. My Father, a civil engineer, worked for the state railroads and then was appointed mayor of Bandung by the Queen. This is a full time job as the mayor is head of all city services such as police, fire and sanitation depts as well as roads and the surrounding kampongs or villages where a lot of the Javanese lived and which were a headache because of sanitation and disease control.
The house we lived in was an old colonial, sprawling, built for cross ventilation and surrounded by covered patios. The yard was huge with all sort of places in the vegetation where you could crawl into and play house or cops and robbers or anything that came up in the mind of active children. I wish I could show a picture, but we lost all our old pictures in WWII.
I had a wonderful childhood. My parents had a very active social life. Part of the job of being mayor was entertaining all the visiting VIPs and all the concerts, shows and charities that came to Bandung had to be attended. Still they managed to give my brother and me all the attention and love we needed. I also had a nanny. We went through quite a few of them. My brother who is 10 years older than I am didn't think he needed a nanny. He was often crosswise with them and enrolled my help to get rid of them, which we did more than once. Finally we got one that suited both of us and she stayed with us a long time. I loved her dearly.

When my brother graduated from highschool he was sent to Holland for his further education. We all went to Batavia (Djakarta) to see him off. I remember standing on the dock looking at him ar the railing and suddenly realizing that the distance between ship and dock was getting wider and wider. This scene was portrayed so well in "Titanic" when the ship leaves Southampton. This was the first time I ever had to say goodbye to anybody who would be away for any length of time and I was heartbroken.

Some of my earlier memories were of the KLM pilots who would stay with us over weekends. Bandung was the end of the line between Amsterdam and Java. This was in the time when flying was anything but safe and I often asked my parents why so and so hadn't beem over for a while. I never got a really satisfying answer. Later I understood why.
Another occasion was the first radio connection between Bandung and Utrecht Holland. Both cities had an annual fair and on this occasion my Father talked with his Utecht counterpart. It was in the middle of the night and they thought I should be part of it. I don't think I really remembered it but I heard about it often enough.

When we left Java not too long before WWII, I had to say goodbye to my nanny, my friends, the servants who I had known all my life, our pets and a country which I remember as one of the most beautiful places in the world.