I learned to smoke in a bunker
A 20th Century rite of passage
In July 1970, my schoolmates had started the new school year, but because I was going back to New Zealand in a few months, it was not worth starting a new college and then leaving a few months later.
Being at a bit of a loose end, I would go exploring. Sometimes I would wander into the sand dunes behind our home. Today there are half a dozen new streets and the property is half the size it used to be. Back then, it was just sand dunes and scrub between us and the beach.
I was pretty unhappy at the time. Almost 2 years earlier, I had gone to live in Holland for 6 months, while my parents, who had separated, got their lives in order. I suffered from homesickness after about 3 months. I don’t know why. Home had been crap.
But I did have a brother and two sisters there. There was a massive age difference between us. My brother was 6 years younger than me, and my sisters were 2 and 3 years younger than him. All were adopted siblings and I loved them. I had looked after them a lot. Babysitting while my mother tried to get a life, and there is more of a bond between those left behind, when your father leaves home.
In Holland, two of my uncles, and an aunt were still home and they became my new brothers and sisters. One of my uncles was only 10 years older than me, so similar to the gap between me and my youngest sister. My homesickness disappeared and this was my new home.
I had made good friends, loved school and was doing well. Life was good.
After about a year away from NZ, I got a letter. Not even a phone call. It said that my youngest sister had been adopted out.
I was devastated. I was disgusted at my parents. They break up our home, and then what little security she had left, they dumped her.
I sent a letter back asking what the hell they were thinking and saying they couldn’t do that. I asked why. My favourite question in life.
I didn’t like the answer. It was because she was white. They felt she would have a better chance of finding a good family, than my brown siblings. That’s her above on the right. It was unbelievable and caused ongoing stress to us through into our adult lives. Who was going to be next?
So back to Holland. Despite still having a brother and sister left in New Zealand, there was no way I wanted to ever go back.
No you won't believe in If anymore
It's an illusion
It's an illusion
No you won't believe in If anymore
If is for children
If is for children
Building daydreams
I’m not a Roger Whitacker fan, but I can still hear this song in my mind. It was #2 on the Radio Veronica Hit Parade that June. It had been decided that my grandparents would go to New Zealand for a 6-month holiday and they would take me with them. We would travel on a cruise ship.
I begged them not to make me go. Go without me and leave me with my uncles and aunts. Holland was my home. This was my family. The pleas went for months. There was a time when I thought they might give in, but my father, their son wanted me back ‘home’, and they had no right to go against his wishes. They said that coming with me would make it easier for me to transition. I didn’t want to transition. Once again I was leaving my family.
One day, in the summer of 1970, while wandering through the sand dunes, I discovered a WWII bunker at the top of a hill I used to slide down on our toboggan in the winter snow. It overlooked the dunes, but the roof wasn’t visible even from the top of the hill. You had to walk around the hill to see it.
In one direction you could look towards the Bakkumerstraat, our village’s main road, and in the other direction, you looked out towards the North Sea, a little over 3km to the west as the crow flies.
This bunker became my safe place. I could sit by myself and imagine none of this was happening to me, or sometimes just feel sad, or angry. Sometimes I would imagine it was WWII and I was keeping an eye out for moffen (think Jerrys). We read lots of war stories at school and like most kids, I had a vivid imagination.
Now if you load your rifle right
And if you fix your bayonet so
And if you kill that man my friend
The one we call the foe
And if you do it often lad
And if you do it right
You'll be a hero overnight
You'll save your country from her plight
One hot summer’s day, I was sitting in the mouth of the bunker when suddenly a guy’s head appeared over the crest of the hill. I had never seen anyone here before. I got a big fright.
He said hello and asked my name. I told him and he introduced himself as Rob. He was a local boy of about 16 and we got to talking.
He pulled a pack of Drum shag out of his jacket and started rolling himself a cigarette. I asked if I could have one. “Sure”, he said and passed the packet of aromatic tobacco over with a pack of Rizla cigarette papers.
I had previously sneaked the odd puff of a cigarette from one of my uncles or aunts when we all sat outside by the pond on a summer’s day, but never a whole cigarette and always tailor-made.
Those were the days when everyone smoked. My grandmother was the only one in the family who didn’t smoke, and ironically the one who lost almost every organ you can potentially live without, to bowel cancer.
I didn’t know how to roll a smoke, so he taught me. I was a bit of a light-headed space cadet after the first smoke, and had to relight it a few times.
We enjoyed each other’s company, I did wonder why a 16-year-old would want to share time with a 13-year-old, but we arranged to meet there again in a few days, and quickly became friends. As the friendship grew, so did my smoking habit. I wasn’t hooked and it was only a couple of smokes a week, but it became normal.
My family didn’t catch on that I was smoking. Being smokers themselves, it wasn’t as if they could smell it on my clothes. My grandmother might have known, but my clothes would have gone to the washing machine together with those of the rest of my family, and my Pake’s (Friesian for grandfather) stale pipe and cigar smoke odour would have been much stronger than my clothes.
Anyway, I was now a smoker, albeit a casual one. It was a habit that would grow on me, and I continued to smoke until soon after the birth of my first daughter. My wife gave up when we found out she was pregnant, and I eventually gave in.
Rob gave me his contact details just before I left for Rotterdam to meet the ship that would take us to Wellington. I must have lost it.
He was a good mate, who randomly turned up when I needed a new friend. He taught me how to smoke roll-your-owns.
What’s your story? How did you start smoking?