80. The girl with the blue hat

When I arrived in Australia in 1960, I was very fortunate to have some family here already. My uncle, Dirk van Tongeren, and his wife, Ciska, had migrated here some years earlier, and had settled in the township of Warrawong, close to Port Kembla in New South Wales.

Uncle Dick, as our family called him here, was my mother’s brother, and it was he who introduced me to an old Dutch song, “Meisje met je blauwen hoed, which translates as, “Girl with your blue hat”. We used to sing this song as we drove around our new surroundings with him and, even now, I still sing it occasionally. It reminds me so much of my mother, who was 20 years old when this song first became popular in Holland.

It’s a simple Dutch song. In English, its refrain would read:

My blond girl with your blue hat,
why did you come by so unexpectedly?
That blue cap was tilted to one side on your lovely face
and barely left your eyes free.
But because of a look, that I caught under the brim,
something strange happened in my mind:
I can’t live another hour without the girl with the blue hat!

It was the memory of this song which led me to wanting to tell you a little about my mother, and about the world in which she lived when she was young. Her maiden name was Hendrika van Tongeren and she grew up in the 1920s and 1930s in the city of Leiden in Holland. The 1920s was a decade of significant social and cultural change in western Europe, which is often referred to as “The Roaring Twenties”. The 1930s were equally tumultuous.

I imagine that my mother had a happy childhood, surrounded by 6 older sisters and 2 brothers, most of whom would have been working in the family’s bakeries, patisseries and tea salons, which were centrally located establishments.  Leiden is a city which is known for its interesting historical buildings, including an old and famous university, as well as many long surviving traditions (see post 56 – “3 October”).

I have done some research to try to visualize how my mother, the youngest child, grew up in her large and close family and how she was affected by the turmoil all around her. She was born in 1914, which also happened to be the year in which the “Great War” (World War I) started.

This war lasted for 4 years (1914-1918). It was a most terrible war, in which 9 million soldiers and 7 million civilians perished. Tragically, millions more died towards the end of it, from an influenza pandemic brought to Europe by soldiers from America. Australian and New Zealand soldiers also took part in this war and suffered huge losses when they landed in Gallipoli, with more dying when they fought in other parts of Europe. Australians still commemorate this on Anzac Day.

Holland itself did not take part in this war, remaining neutral. The army had been mobilised but had escaped being involved in direct conflict, despite provocations by the Germans and despite restrictions being introduced by the English and Americans. Dutch cargo ships were torpedoed by German submarines, searched by English war ships, and requisitioned in American ports to transport troops and arms to Europe. The whole Dutch fishing fleet was blockaded by the English.

Towards the end of this war, people in Holland began to experience hunger. Food rationing was introduced and black markets flourished. The winter of 1917/1918 was particularly difficult for the Dutch people. Large-scale smuggling and profiteering took place. Hundreds of thousands of Belgian refugees fled to the Netherlands to escape the war, and emergency accommodation had to be arranged throughout the country. By late 1914 more than half a million Belgians were refugees in Nederland.

At the end of the war, the defeated German Kaiser, Wilhelm, abdicated and fled to Holland, where he asked for, and was granted, political asylum. The Dutch government refused to hand him over to the allied forces, who had wanted to try him as a war criminal.

My mother would not have been very aware of the war itself, being far too young, but she probably would have experienced, and been aware of, some of the changes after it. People in Holland had begun to rebel and to attack the food depots. Socialists were calling for a revolution and had even (unsuccessfully) planned a coup. Politicians became scared and the Queen had to announce significant social reforms.

One of the reforms which my mother’s family would have experienced was the reduction of working hours to 45 hours per week, and the newly introduced law that children had to be at least 14 years old before they were allowed to work. A further consequence of the government’s fear of a possible revolution was the formation of “civil guards” throughout the country.

As a young girl, when she was 10 years old, my mother would have heard about the first flight, by KLM to Indonesia, and later, when she was 16, about the two-weekly service between Amsterdam and Batavia. Each flight took 12 days to get there and 10 days to return to Amsterdam.

Other big Dutch industries also started in the twenties and the period between 1925 and 1929 has been referred to by some as the “Second Industrial Revolution”. Philips had started the production of radios and by 1927 had 18,000 employees, of whom 10,000 worked in Nederland. I’d like to think that my mother’s family would have welcomed the increase in commercial activity after the war, with the expectation that their bakeries and tea salons would continue to be busy. 

Sadly, my mother’s world dramatically changed when her father, Hendrik van Tongeren, died in 1928, when she was only 14 years old.

In February 1929, in the middle of a very severe winter, my mother would have witnessed the destruction of the beautiful old Town Hall of Leiden, by a massive fire.  It was so cold at the time that the water from the fire hoses froze almost immediately, and the Town Hall was covered in large icicles.

Also, in the same year, when she was 15 years old, the world economy completely collapsed. The collapse began in the USA, with panic on Wall Street (the “Wall Street Crash”), and it soon enveloped many countries, including the Netherlands.

I don’t know how my mother managed after her father’s death or how the family businesses were affected by the crash and the ensuing crisis in the Dutch economy. I’ve read that many people in Leiden became unemployed, in what became known as the “Great Depression” (1930-1939).

In 1932, when she was 18 years old, a further tragedy occurred when her mother, Elisabeth Hillegonda van Tongeren, passed away. I think it may have been at this point that she moved in with her elder sister, who was known to us children later as “Tante Eta”.

A year later, in 1933, a man who had worked in her father’s bakeries, Marinus van der Lubbe, became world headline news when he set fire to the German Reichstag building in Berlin. I remember my mother telling me about this.

Marinus had worked as an apprentice stone mason until he was injured, and had lost part of his sight. He had then had temporary jobs, including working in her father’s bakeries. He had also joined the youth organisation of the Communist Party in Holland. After the fire, he was caught and executed by guillotine.

The burning down of the Reichstag building by a “communist”, helped the propaganda machine of the German fascists to orchestrate anti-communist hysteria. It was this event that enabled Hitler to organise a referendum, to appoint himself to the newly created position of “Führer und Reichskanzler”, and the rest is history.

On a happier note, in October 1934, there were celebrations throughout the Netherlands, after a KLM plane had won the London to Melbourne air race. The plane, “de Uiver”, carried a crew of four, as well as three passengers, cargo and 25,000 letters. It flew via Rome, Aleppo, Bagdad, Calcutta, Rangoon, Singapore, Sumatra and Batavia to Australia. However, once it was over Australia, the crew encountered an electrical storm and had to make an emergency landing in Albury. Half the population of Albury famously came to the aid of the plane and pulled it out of the mud, to enable it to take off again. It arrived safely in Melbourne, winning the race and taking the handicap prize, after 90 hours flying time.

1934 was also the year when the film, “Het meisje met den blauwen hoed”, was first screened, and the year when the song on which this story was based became popular. I don’t know, but I can well imagine, that it is possible that my mother might have worn a dainty hat. Perhaps even a blue one?

In 1935, when she was 21, she married my father, but that’s a story for another day.

O.P.

P.S. The next post on Sunday, 14 September 2025, written by Sue, is titled: “A Tribute to a much-loved Son”.