Vlaardingen, August6, 2008
I was born and raised in Vlaardingen - a small town in the shadow of Rotterdam. I left 36 years ago and never went back, except for a short visit to see a friend. That was 30 years ago on a cold day in Febuary.
I didn't like there - there wasn't going on very much, might even call it boring, everybody knew everybody, lots of gossip and so on - so I pushed Vlaardingen to the edges of my memory. From time to time however it popped to the foreground. It could be a smell, something seen on television or read in the papers, a photo that triggered the memories of my youth in Vlaardingen.
An old schoolphoto seen on the internet brought back many memories and I decided to go back to the places where I walked and played in my youth. I will show you those places in a series as slow as life was then and as dim and hazy as memories tend to be.
On my blog Stoop's Streetbook I am posting a series on my childhood memories. It starts with this photo. I won't repeat the series here, but will select some photos to show you here.