Was born in 1949 in Dordrecht, the oldest city of Holland and has been a pipe smoker since he was nineteen years old.
He studied pedagogy and graduated in Arts and Culture with the Media as a special subject at Erasmus University in Rotterdam. He studied Cultural History as a post-doctoral at the University of Leyden.
From 1989 till 2001 he worked as director of the Netherlands Board of Film Classification. His special interest is the influence of the media on children and youngsters and the importance of media education & literacy.
He received a knighthood from the Queen in 2003 and a Grand Cross of Merits from the Austrian Government in 2004.
He has been active in the world of pipe smokers since 2000. First as a member of the “Dordts Pijprokersgilde” and later, since 2004, as President of the NFP (Netherlands Federation of Pipe smokers) and as Secretary General of the CIPC.
In his spare time since he moved to the country near the Belgian border (2006), he worked as chairman of a Foundation for the Restoration of Cultural Heritage (2007-2012) and became presenter of the local television station in East Dutch Flanders (2009-2012). Recently (end 2012) he picked-up his art education at the Royal Academy in Saint Nicklaus (Flanders -Belgium).
