Frans Timmermans, the street boy

The life of Frans Timmermans is a book full of surprises. Every time you think 'well we've made it' there's another plot twist on the next page. At the first congress of the new big left-wing party in Nieuwegein he revealed, it was only in a subordinate clause but still: "I grew up partly on the street."

Another bead on the already beautiful chain of life stories: grandson of a miner, Roda JC supporter, AS Roma supporter, seven languages, abuse, gastric reduction, new gym shoes.

I already knew a lot about the extreme poverty and miserable circumstances that marked his youth in the most miserable part of Limburg, where your mother would only turn your underpants inside out when they were in bulky waste, and where they would only be washed weeks later in the tub, if there was soap available at least. Where more often than not only potatoes were on the menu, and where the entire family was worked to death underground in the State Mines. And now this story was added to it.

It also creates a bond: I was born in a flat on the Cloekplein in Presikhaaf, Arnhem. Look that up! If my mother, who had only a handful of teeth at a young age, had managed to get her hands on a few slavinken, the neighbours would drool. You not only heard everything from each other, you also smelled everything.

My parents came from Brabant, where it was also very poor, but if my mother were still alive she would say: "It wasn't as bad with us as it was with the Timmermans." Fortunately, I've seen enough of it to understand Frans Timmermans down to the last thread. Twisting the facts, coloring reality just a little bit better, I'm also a bit of a stickler for that, but boss of bosses: Frans Timmermans is better at that too. His story about the face masks in the crashing MH17: hats off! He also has something of Diego Maradona and André Hazes: he starts shouting and repeating when he really wants to say, like on Saturday "Hold each other tight!", that's how it used to be at street parties. His origins also explained the way in which 'the old PvdA-hap' - Rob Oudkerk, Job Cohen, Gerdi Verbeet, Lodewijk Asscher and others - was sidelined on Saturday. 'He who is not with me is against me' and 'today's friend is tomorrow's enemy' are deeply ingrained and that sentiment can change at any moment: these are simply the hard laws of the street.

Marcel van Roosmalen writes a column on Mondays and Thursdays.