I was born on the 17^th of September 1940 in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Following the primary and secondary education (HBS-B) in Rotterdam, I entered the University of Leiden to study mathematics and physics in 1958. After my "candidaats-examen" in 1962 I went to the University of Amsterdam to study elementary particle physics at the Zeeman Laboratory. My first visit to CERN, Geneva, the center of particle physics in Europe, took place in 1965 to assist with the running in and maintenance of a particle beam to the 80. cm Saclay bubble chamber. After my final examination in Amsterdam I went back to CERN as a fellow in January 1968. For two years I worked in the DD division with the HPD-group led by B. W. Powell. From 1970 to 1972 I was involved in the analysis of bubble chamber data with the Morrison group, which led to my Ph.D. thesis in 1973 at the University of Amsterdam (thesis adviser Prof. dr. J. C. Kluyver). In 1972 I changed my field to counter physics by joining the CERN-Rome group led by A. M. Wetherell. At that time they were involved in the first experiments at the intersecting proton storage rings, the ISR, measuring total and elastic proton-proton cross-sections.

After a six year stay at CERN I went - in August 1974 - to DESY, Hamburg. There I participated in the first e⁺e^- experiments at DORIS with the DESY-Heidelberg group. In 1976 I became involved in the Mark J experiment for PETRA.

Since 1977 I work at NIKHEF-H, the National Institute for Nuclear and High Energy Physics in Amsterdam. Here I was responsible for the Dutch involvement in the Mark J experiment until 1986.

My collaboration with the MIT-group led by Samuel C. C. Ting in the Mark J experiment I consider to be the most rewarding of my scientific career. The year 1979 is called: "The year of the discovery of the gluon" and to have participated in that discovery is the most important scientific contribution I have made.

With the MIT-group I have made three experimental proposals; for the CERN proton anti-protron collider in 1978, for ISABELLE in 1981 and for LEP in 1982. From 1982 to 1991 I was the group-leader of the Dutch involvement in the L3 experiment, a group that consisted of more then twenty physicists and Ph. D. students. After having lived abroad for a period of 15 years I lived in Amsterdam from 1983 to the beginning of 1989. Then I went to CERN for two years to participate in the first years of data taking and analysis of the L3 experiment. At the end of LEP from 1996 onward I stayed again at CERN. I enjoyed the Higg's hunt and at one point we thought we had seen the shadow of the beast, but it turned out to be a chimarea.

During the 1980's I was a member of the scientific program committee of NIKHEF/H for seven years and of the LEPC for two years. Rubia invited me to the first LHC committee in 1992 and I was involved in the acceptance decisions of CMS and ATLAS in 1995.

I obtained a special professorship at the Catholic University of Nijmegen in 1988, which offered the possibility of having my own Ph.D. students. I gave a course in elementary particle physics for five years in the period 1991-1995.

My swan-song I sang on the second of November 2001.