Dan van der vat biography of barack

I was born sixteen feet below sea-level in a town called Alkmaar, in the Dutch province of North Holland. Just over six months later the German Army crossed the border in breach of Hitler’s promises and the Nazi occupation began.

There was no connection between the two events, but the war in occupied Holland looms large in my earliest memories and may well account for my interest in Germany, military history and related matters.

For example, the house next door was taken over by SS men who stacked the bikes they stole from the locals against the chicken-wire fence between “their” front garden and ours.

As any other small boy would, I was idly pushing and pulling the fence when the bikes fell over. I fled what I remember as a great distance (it turned to be as far as a neigbour’s house round the corner).

Resident in London from late 1945, I attended state schools and studied classics at Durham University.

I joined the staff of The Journal, Newcast