Bob deJongste
My full name is Bastiaan de Jongste, which in Dutch was shortened to Bas. Unfortunately my foreign friends pronounced it sometimes as "Boss", others as "Bess" and some others even called me bastard. So in order to satisfy all parties I asked people to call me Bob for short. I was born on the 23rd of January 1917 when the whole family, except my ten year old brother" was down with the Spanish flu. I had a very pleasant youth. In 1936 I finished high school. At time it was hard to find a job, but I was not in a great hurry since I had earned a nice holiday after my exams.
One evening, I went to the circus with my eldest brother and his wife, who had invited me. Some years ago a friend of mine, who was a boy-scout, had taught me how to spin a rope and I became quite good at it. In the circus there was a cowboy-group and they fascinated me since they performed some spinning-rope tricks I had never seen before. I went to see them and to make a long story short, I stayed with them for about 2 months, riding, roping and shooting. I had a wonderful time, but one day my father told me that it was time to find a white-collar job. I found one with KLM Royal Dutch Airlines. The KLM personnel association had a rather big cabaret club and I was invited to join. We formed a cowboy band and we did some tricks with lassos and spinning ropes. Every year we had a big show followed by a dance. The president of KLM thought that I was dancing too often with his daughter, so a few days later I was transferred to Amsterdam Airport to be trained as a line-inspector for South America, reason why I had to study Spanish. However, the war broke out so the South American plans were stored in the refrigerator for the time being.
On March 12, 1944 I was arrested by the German Gestapo on many charges, a.o. smuggling pilots back to England. The German Air Command sentenced me to death and I was officially executed in September 1944 at Fort Blaukappel near Utrecht, but since I am still alive, something went wrong in the German administration. My brother, who was a police-officer, arrested my German lawyer just after the war and he told my brother that he had seen my urn with my ashes. A mystery that never was solved! I was liberated by the Russian Army on the 27th of April 1945. When I came home I was a little bit wild and I didn't go back to KLM. I started my own import and export business and I also took up flying. First as a private pilot but later on I got my professional license B3 plus an instructors license for small single engine aircraft. In the meantime, I had raised a family, 3 boys who all are good spinning-ropers, so it was time to look for a more steady job with a regular income. I became the export manager for an American company and I was very successful during the ten years that I worked for them. When I was 57 I retired.
During one of my travels to Stockholm, we made a stop at Copenhagen. At one of the tourist-shops in the airport, I saw 2 SIB's and I loved them so much that I bought one. In Stockholm I regretted that I had not bought the other one too, so on my way back home, via Copenhagen, I went to the same shop, but the lady told me that the other bottle had been bought by some other passenger. Then I decided to build my own and since that time I have built more than 400 SIB’s. Nowadays I am making hardly any SIB's, since my eyes are not that sharp anymore. However a young generation can take over! I love you all!
"Bob" de Jongste, the Hague, Netherlands
"A History of Ships in Bottles" - Article by Bastiaan "Bob" de Jongste
Other examples of this Artist's work - Click on a picture to enlarge
