'You can't disturb me!'

I grew up on a farm in northeast Holland, the Netherlands, close to the German border. I wanted to be a farmer like my father, to follow in his footsteps, but he gave me wise advice to first study and then consider my options. In high school, I had an excellent chemistry teacher. I met him again recently when we had a reunion, he is well in his seventies now. He was great, he did experiments with us and I started to have a great love for chemistry that you can see and smell – you see beautiful crystals and colours.