Coal Mine

  • As many of you will know by now, I was born and raised in a small mining town in the southeast of the Netherlands. The town is named Geleen, but like so many other towns, Geleen is divided into several neighbourhoods. The neighbourhood where I grew up is called Lindenheuvel. In 1926, the Dutch government

    Read more →

  • I can never understand people who are ashamed or embarrassed of where they are from or where they were born. You should always be proud of your roots. Even if you live somewhere else you should never lose your pride of your birth place. It is perfectly possible to be proud of the place you

    Read more →

  • I had written two blogs about these children previously, but since their story is such an uplifting one, I decided to revisit it once again. I also stumbled upon a few new photos. Hoensbroek Castle, one of the largest castles in the Netherlands, served as a children’s home for 120 children under government guardianship starting

    Read more →

  • Who is an immigrant?

    The buzzword nowadays is “immigrants” and in hardly any context it is used in a positive way.Here is the thing though, who is an immigrant? This is just a micro snapshot in history. It is basically a background of my family well at least from my Mother’s side. The picture at the start of the

    Read more →

  • The Fall of Lange Jan

    Lange Jan(Long John) was the name of the 135 meter(442ft) tall chimney of the former coal mine “Oranje Nassau 1” in Heerlen in  the province of Limburg in the south east of the Netherlands. It had been erected in 1937/1938 and had been dominating Heerlen’s skyline. To put it in perspective the Big Ben tower

    Read more →