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| The barge 'Wisand' at an unknown quay |
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| Floating swimming pool 'Mallegat' |
On 18th October,
1951, this barge was moored midstream, close to the Mallegat in
Rotterdam, on the river New Meuse, waiting for a towboat to sail back
to the Ruhr region in Germany to load a new cargo of coal. Hendrik
van den Bos was cleaning the deck of the ship using a metal bucket on
a rope. He had been living for half a year in the fore-cabin of the
ship, together with his wife, who was 6 months pregnant with their
second child, and their three-and-a-half year old son. Dropping the
bucket back into the river to refill it, he lost his balance and
disappeared under water, while, at that very moment, his little son
was playing with his tricycle on the roof of the bargeman's deckhouse
at the back.
After eighteen
days searching and dragging the river downstream, the river police
found him under the ship, at almost exactly the same place as he had
fallen in, with the rope of the bucket still wound around his hand.
Hendrik van den
Bos was born on 15th January, 1922, in Rotterdam, 3 Betje
Wolffstraat, where his father had a joinery. His mother Wilhelmina
Schuurman-Hess, was a housewife and was born in Delft.
In 1958, the
primary school attended by Hendrik's little boy tried to teach him to
swim in the floating swimming pool in the river close to the place
where his father had drowned.
Hans van den Bos
