Our oldest Folia editor looks back. “Students were all dirt poor at the time”
Bob Dickhout (97) from Amsterdam, who studied at the UvA for eleven years, was one of the first Folia employees. A retrospective. “I wasn’t allowed to write pieces – that was only reserved for “educated” people.”
“I first went to university in 1945. I had already completed my final exams during the Second World War, but if you wanted to go to university, the Germans would make you sign a declaration of loyalty – I refused to do that. The headmaster at my grammar school came up with a solution at the time: he had me take my final exam again for the subjects that I hadn”t done as my original exam subjects, like German, French, Latin and Greek. That meant I was able to postpone the start of my studies until after the war.”
“Ultimately, I chose to do chemistry and biochemistry at the UvA. Like a lot of students, I lived with my parents and was a member of the Amsterdamsch Studenten Corps (ASC) student society), where my friends created the literary and satirical magazine Propria Cures – and one day that publication announced it would be setting up Folia Civitatis. It was going to be a new publication with announcements for the academic community. Everyone who was a member of the Asva student union, which was almost everybody at the time, got the magazine through the letterbox every week. It was going to include lists of graduates as well as notifications about professors who were ill and contributions from researchers.”
Meeting at Het Parool
“I was asked to become a student editor two years after the magazine was founded. It was 1949 and at the time I was chairman of my ASC fraternity and secretary of the Amsterdam Chemical Dispute study association. My job was to ask scientists if they wanted to contribute to Folia, for example, by writing a book review – and I was jolly well up for that.Every week, the editorial staff would meet at a little office on the Prinsengracht to correct the proof, which would have been brought there by someone on their bike, strapped under the bungee cords.”
- 1949
Folia’s editorial staff consisted of an editorial secretary, someone from the university association, two members of the student union Asva (of whom Dickhout was one), a number of alumni, a professor and a university employee. All positions were voluntary, with the exception of that of the editorial secretary. - 2023
Folia’s editorial team consists of an editor-in-chief-director, an editorial coordinator, editors, a visual editor, trainee editors and (mostly) an intern. Everyone receives remuneration for their work.
“I wasn’t allowed to write very much – that was reserved for the “educated”. It was an honour if you were. On one occasion I was allowed to write a book review, about The Mechanization of the World Picture, a book about physicists and mathematicians – my field of expertise. I typed that up on the typewriter at home, because the office on the Prinsengracht was much too small. At all events, we would never have meetings there but rather at Mrs Warendorf’s house, who was a former member of the editorial staff and the wife of the then editor-in-chief of Het Parool. I used to love having coffee and cake there.”
Beefsteak for 1 guilder
“Students were all dirt poor at the time. There weren’t really any part-time jobs at all. Christmas time was the only time when you might be able to sort the mail at the post office at Central Station. Fortunately, Folia would also include all sorts of little discounts. For example, you’d be able to go and see a film at Kriterion for 15 cents a pop or get cheap seats at the Stadsschouwburg. At the restaurant they’d also always announce 1-guilder meals, such as beefsteak, split-pea soup and vanilla custard.”
The first issue of the “smear sheet” Propria Cures (loosely translated as “mind your own business”) was published in 1890. In 1948, Folia Civitatis was conceived as an independent publication for the academic community. In order to save costs, Folia and Propria Cures were combined into a single edition for many years, with the editors required to correct their proofs almost simultaneously. There was a healthy rivalry between the editors of both publication: the Folia editorial staff believed that P.C. should be printed on the back of Folia, whereas P.C. claimed it should be the other way round.
“It was lovely time, because we weren’t in a rush. That also meant that I could take all sorts of additional courses, like Italian, Spanish, etc., which I did. During the day, I would often have practicals where I’d be working with bacteria that had to be cultured; we’d have ping pong tournaments while we waited. Whenever I wasn’t studying in the evening time, I’d be at the club playing bridge or poker, sometimes until four in the morning. In such cases, my mother would wake me up at half past eleven the next day. It was a time when I also had a lot of beautiful girlfriends, despite that fact that I thought I wasn’t much of looker.”
“Naturally, you’d occasionally have to pass some exams. But that was also very different to the way things are now. Often they’d be oral examinations and would take place at the professor’s home. So many things have changed, haven’t they? I also think that students at the student associations used to interact with one another more pleasantly than they do now. During the initiation period, we’d put the clever boys in their place – the idea was for them to feel inferior – but after three weeks, the serving staff would already call them “sir” and you’d be part of the club through and through.”
“I worked for the Folia editorial staff for three years. I still have all the pieces I did, because I kept all the editions with my name in the publication details. An instance of vanity, I suppose. At the end of the year, the editors would receive a bound volume as a present. When I was 31, I’d had enough and that’s when I accelerated my studies. After that, I started working as a clinical chemist at various hospitals. From the sidelines, I was able to observe how Folia started having to deal with a lack of funding and how the magazine changed and was published less frequently. These days Folia looks completely different, with a modern website and lots of colour and images. It’s become a lot more interesting. In the past, it was really just a dull magazine.”
“I have now been retired for more than thirty years. Physically, I’m a little less capable of course, but other than that I still feel completely compos mentis. I read a lot, go to the Stadsschouwburg and the Concertgebouw and I play gold a few days a week. I also still subscribe to Propria Cures. It’s true, I spent many years at the university. But as I always say: it was good reason to grow very old.”
Bob Dickhout (97) is a retired clinical chemist and was a student editor at Folia Civitatis from 1949 to 1952.
