Life went on, as much it was possible. Mum’s youngest brother Frans came over from Enschede to support his sister; he had just finished his teacher’s course at Oudenbosch training-college and was still single with no attachments. He took charge of the postal agency and assisted in the shop as well, so Marie could concentrate on her young family. The eldest, me, turned 8 a week after his father’s death and got his promised new ball, reeking of black rubber, bitterly disappointed it was so much smaller than the lost one.
In his small post office section our uncle was busy, sorting parcels. He didn’t have much room, as the place was at the most 2x2 metres, separated from the main shop by a high security grill. You could say he was caged like a bird, but our uncle was far from parrot-like, he had his own strong opinions and was not afraid to espouse them. It took a while to get used to our surrogate father. Before the shop opened at nine, he let me very kindly change the date on the date-stamp so he could postmark all the letters and parcels. Outside in the street one could here the cry of the rag-dealer,‘vodden’‘vodden’, collecting redundant rags.