My wife, Sonja Brain, who has died aged 84 of cancer, remained proudly Dutch for the more than 60 years that she lived in the UK, having arrived in the country in her 20s at the end of a travelling expedition.
Sonja was born in Rotterdam to Johannes Strijbos, who worked in a bank, and his wife, Maria (nee Wervers), and spent much of her early childhood there under German occupation during the second world war. Although she did well at school in Rotterdam and was a talented swimmer, from an early age she loved the idea of travelling and, rather than continuing her education, set out at the age of 17, with a supply of her favourite cheese, to see Europe.
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