His father, Edward Gerard Hughes, was born in Whitehaven, Cumberland (now
Cumbria) in 1878 and his mother, Margaretha Stijns-Hughes, was born in
Maastricht, Holland in 1888. They were connected
to the bulb growing industry in Spalding, Lincolnshire and travelled frequently
to Holland. In fact two of their four
children were born there.
Edward Gerard Hughes
Margaretha Stijns-Hughes
Egbert himself was born on 27th
October 1926 at No 12 Het Amerikaant Je (meaning the little American Indian) in
Gouda, Holland and was delivered by his Dutch Grandmother; he was the youngest
of the four. They moved to No 1 which
was known as “The Point” as the house was on a sharp corner about fifty metres
from the River Ijsel, where it was an active port with landing stages for the
barges. They lived right opposite the
Schuttelaar coffee roasting plant and loved the deliciously overpowering aroma.
They lived right over a Kroeg (pub) but a
very busy one that was frequented by sailors and was very rowdy on a Saturday
night. Of course Egbert had no memory of
that. When he was three years old, his
father went out to buy some tobacco and was never seen again, leaving his
mother with four children and very little money. There were no benefits in those days but
there was a charity which handed out food to the needy and they relied quite
heavily on it.
They moved to a single storey rented property
which had a garden and a ditch which led into a lake; he and his brother Ted
had a raft which they floated down to the lake and spent their time swimming
and fishing.
Later they moved to another house close to
where Egbert was born and he seems to have had a happy childhood enjoying all
the usual pastimes and sports with a normal group of friends.
In the dark days immediately before the
outbreak of World War II, the British Consul advised his mother to return to
England where the family would be relatively safe from the uncertainty caused by
the looming clouds of war. However, she
believed that Holland would remain neutral – as they had done during the Great
War.
In Egbert’s words: the Germans put paid to
that idea as they invaded Holland in May 1940 and rounded up all the
undesirable aliens (in this case British subjects). This meant that his brother John was arrested
and taken away to a transit camp at Schoorl in Northern Holland and on to a
prison camp near Breslau in Poland where he spent the rest of the war.
Egbert and his other brother Ted were told
that they would receive the same treatment when they were old enough under the
terms of the Geneva Convention. However,
they spent the rest of the war dodging the Gestapo and becoming part of a young
Resistance group known as “For Netherlands’ Freedom” and later as part of the
Interior Battle Forces which became very active after the failure of Operation
Market Garden and the Arnhem debacle.
Egbert received a
Certificate, a Resistance Badge and a personal letter of thanks from Prince
Bernhard for his activities during his time in the Resistance.
Personal letter of thanks from Prince Bernhard
Certificate of Service in the Dutch
Binnenlandsche Strijdkrachten
(Interior Forces, which were the
formalisation of the Dutch Resistance)
formalisation of the Dutch Resistance)
Badge awarded to all members of
The Dutch Resistance
Copyright on all pictures Egbert Hughes
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