Personal Life

Basic facts:

Born in Delft, 10^th February 1947; married to Hilda Wetting, painter, cf. @ hildawetting.exto.nl; two sons and four grandchildren by Giny Lamers, deceased in 2022.

The story of my life

Some people think one gets older as the years go by. I don’t think that’s true. I was born in 1947, but never felt older than 21.

Another misunderstanding is that one gets wiser as one gets older.  Experience is a burden rather than a blessing. History seldom repeats itself in the same manner. Therefore, one must avoid the trap of believing that one can safely form opinions and make decisions in reliance on past incidents, achievements or traumas.

A third misunderstanding is that one only lives once, or, as Sean Connery, twice. Life is a three stage rocket. In my case: the learn phase until 23, then work until 66, finally enjoy until???

Did my life start when I was born on an icily cold day in February 1947, on my first primary school day in Delft  in 1953 or at the beginning of my work phase, in 1970 when I became lecturer in Private International Law at Leiden Law School?

I spent the learn phase in Delft and Eindhoven (from 1954) where I grew up with my parents Leendert & Betty van Rooij-Frank and my sister Alice, thereafter in Leiden where I flunked classical languages after six months and switched to (international) law, obtaining my LLM in 1970 and a doctorate in law in 1976.

I lived my work phase in academia teaching private international law (at Leiden law School), then as a legislator in the civil service (Ministry of Justice, The Hague), and finally as corporate counsel (Shell and KPN Telecom).

During my enjoy phase I evolved from lawyer to author. It happened on a spring day in 2004 when Dr. Perry Pierik of Aspekt Publishers accepted my first novel for publication during an inspiring conversation.

My writings are a reflection of each of the three phases:

I wrote my doctoral thesis, miscellaneous law books and articles in the interregnum between learn and work.

After my retirement I felt free to write outside the constraints of the law. I could finally let my imagination take over again … as I had done earlier during my school years in Eindhoven, then filling the school paper with adolescent and quasi-philosophical stories. Over the past ten years I have published six novels, a biography and the story of my parents’ war years. A seventh novel is work in progress.