My love letter to Britain: family ties can never really be severed | Frans Timmermans
Since I went to a British school, you have always been part of me. Now you are leaving, and it breaks my heart
- Frans Timmermans is executive vice-president of the European commission
I recently read a delightful book of love letters to Europe. And it made me contemplate my love for Britain. It has just occurred to me that when you joined the European Economic Community I was in one of your schools. Not on your soil, mind you, but in Italy. Saint George’s British International School in Rome, to be precise. I was 12 years old and still learning English. That year I also dressed up in a kimono, as one of the “gentlemen from Japan” in the Mikado, the school play. Mrs Alcock encouraged me not to sing too loudly, so that my false notes would be less audible. But she kept me on stage. I loved it. Like I loved being part of the chorus in My Fair Lady the next year and the Mock Turtle in Alice in Wonderland the year after.
More than 40 years have passed since then. So much has happened. My family went back to the Netherlands, I studied there and in France. I got married and became a father, did my military service, worked as a diplomat, divorced and married again, got elected to parliament, served in government and am now in the European commission. Britain was always there. As part of me. Being in one of your schools made me more Dutch than before. Because there is no better way to be made aware of your own culture than by being immersed in another. And at the same time, that immersion leaves traces. What you inhale and absorb remains: as an extra layer, a sediment that partly merged with what was already there and partly remains distinguishable and unique.